Examination of Witnesses (Questions 260-274)
MICHAEL CARR,
DIANA GILHESPY,
GLENN HARRIS,
JEFF MOORE
AND ANTHONY
PAYNE
7 JULY 2009
Q260 Judy Mallaber: Obviously,
a number of those bodies might be region-wide, but in that event
and in others do you find that some parts—some counties—are
very much under-represented and there's an over-emphasis from
other areas?
Jeff Moore: We try to encourage
representation from all geographic areas, which was why the board,
years ago, went from 13 to 15—because of under-representation
on the board from Northamptonshire and Lincolnshire. When we hold
events, we try to take them round the region and we try to encourage
as many people to attend as possible. We use electronic methods
to overcome travel difficulties, if they are there. We will try
and overcome any of those difficulties, Judy, and if we feel that
we've had low attendance from, let's say, stakeholders in Northamptonshire
or Lincolnshire, we will then take special measures to ensure
that they have been included and their views have been addressed.
Anthony talked about 80 stakeholders there. As far as I see it,
I have 4.3 million stakeholders—each and every single person
who lives in the East Midlands. We have 350,000 business stakeholders;
we have 40-plus local authority stakeholders; we have an enormous
amount of social enterprises—all sorts of stakeholders.
It is a massive number and a massive task. Balancing their disparate
views is difficult, but it is what we try to do within our resource
capability, and we have started it off for the integrated regional
strategy. There is no template. It is not predetermined.
Q261 Judy Mallaber: Moving on
slightly, the original recommendations in the Sub-National Review
proposed that you delegate an increasing amount of your funding
to partners, including local authorities. I know you've emphasised
to us very explicitly that you don't seek to spread your funding
equally across all points of the region, but in terms of delegating
an increasing amount of function, will you try and make sure that's
shared around? Will you just prioritise, and it will all go to
certain areas? What criteria will you use to deal with competing
claims for funding?
Jeff Moore: We feel we're leaders
in the devolution of funding to our sub-regions. We created our
seven sub-regional partnerships, and we've given over a third
of our money consistently—some £200 million has been
delegated to the sub-regions for them to decide what to spend
and where. We will continue to have a policy of devolution of
funds to sub-regions. It's now going through the principal upper-tier
authorities—the counties and the unitaries—to reflect
the mood music of SNR. We're doing it directly through those local
authorities. That money will still go. Clearly, we face significant
decline in our own resources over 2010-11. It is not possible
for me to say at this stage that there will be an increasing rate
of devolution of those resources to the sub-regions.
Q262 Judy Mallaber: How do you
decide which sub-regions get what, because you said before you
don't divide things up equally, or presumably according to population?
Jeff Moore: We're talking at two
levels. First, we take the overall pot, which is about £150
million to £170 million and that has been divided roughly
into two thirds regional funding and one third sub-regional funding.
Lots of the two thirds regional funding is also delivered sub-regionally,
because Business Link, which runs to many millions, and business
support are delivered on streets to businesses in localities.
Some is then used for what we would call regionally important
schemes: BioCity would have been a regionally important scheme.
In terms of where we spend all our regional money, we will work
out what is required from new industry, new jobs and the regeneration
framework, which is effectively decided by Government policy.
In terms of giving to the sub-regions and how that money is shared
between them, it is decided by a mini-formula of the formula that
the Department uses to allocate our funds. We have a complex formula
that shares the £2 billion pot around the RDA group. That
has complex elements, some based on need and some on opportunity,
including employment, innovation, skills, business base, population,
core costs, deprivation and so on. We apply that at sub-regional
level to take the third that we give to our sub-regions between
them. Lincolnshire gets its formula-based element, and Derbyshire
gets its formula-based element, and they then deliver those in
the localities that they feel are appropriate and on the schemes
that they feel are appropriate within the overall parameters of
what the regional economic strategy says. That is the key contractual
requirement that we have on those unitary and upper-tier authorities.
I think we have covered how we allocate our regional funds in
our previous stuff, but we can go over that again. Diana, do you
want to touch on any of that?
Diana Gilhespy: No.
Q263 Chairman: Jeff, you were
talking a moment ago about your relationship with your stakeholders.
We are perhaps back to accountability, and you are almost over-accountable
in some respects. East Midlands Regional Assembly made the comment
that they felt that there was "potential for East Midlands
Councils... to play a leading role in" regional scrutiny.
How would that work? I am conscious that you are probably over-scrutinised
as a body.
Jeff Moore: At the moment, I feel
scrutinised into the ground—we do an immense amount of reporting
accountability. Until now, we have worked with the regional scrutiny
board of the regional assembly. We would make a plea that whatever
new scrutiny arrangements come forward, can they not be duplicated
and can they be efficient and effective, so that we can concentrate
on getting on with the day job rather than spending a disproportionate
amount of time accounting for what we are doing at a variety of
levels? We do not deny the need to be accountable. We welcome
that, and we welcome scrutiny, but we want to avoid duplicate
scrutiny. Whatever proposal comes forward, we want it to be lean
and fit for purpose. You may not need anything other than the
scrutiny that you currently have and that the Grand Committee
and Parliament will have. Another specific plea is that whatever
scrutiny is developed and embodied at regional level, we want
it to have very strict conflict-of-interest protocols. That is
absolutely necessary, because in the past we have been looked
at by those who have a number of hats, and we want conflict-of-interest
rules to be clear.
Q264 Chairman: If emda,
the local authority leader's board, cannot agree, for example,
on a single integrated strategy, how confident would you be that
Ministers could resolve the matter, if they were given the task
of holding the ring?
Jeff Moore: I do not want to comment
on the political environment, but we are fairly confident that
we have worked well with the local authority leader's board. A
major success is the move to three and three on the local authority
leader's board—three RDA reps and three local authority
leaders. That has been a major achievement, and it could have
been quite difficult. The new leadership board is being formed
because of the change in the county elections, so there is a bit
of a movable feast going on there. It is about to meet fairly
soon, and we will have the nominees on to that joint board. We
are confident that we could resolve such matters at regional level
and not need to go to the regional Minister for the solution.
That has been our past history and our past experience. We have
worked extremely well with the assembly. David Parsons is a big
supporter of the RDA. He clearly leads the local authority leaders.
I feel that we can reach agreement. It is a much more complex
and difficult task, given the spatial elements added to the economic
elements and the point that the planning dynamic is a vibrant
focus of public interest, but we believe that we can get there.
Anthony's work with Stuart Young and others at the assembly has
been exemplary so far. We imagine that we will get to agreement.
Chairman: Thank you, Jeff. We have already
covered quite a good chunk of sustainable development in the comments
that we have picked up about what was perceived to be an element
of lack of director representation.
Q265 Sir Peter Soulsby: What I
have to say is something that we have explored a little with others.
We have heard from a number of sources, particularly the Environment
Agency. I note the point about there being two or three different
elements to the Environment Agency with responsibility for the
East Midlands, but there is lack of a champion body for sustainability
in the region similar to Sustainability North East and Sustainability
West Midlands. It is something that has come back on a number
of occasions as a theme. Is it not the case that there is a lack
of leadership in the region? Whether it falls to emda or
elsewhere, that leadership ought to be provided from somewhere.
Jeff Moore: Anthony will pick
this one up.
Anthony Payne: Sustainable development
champion bodies came out of DEFRA in about 2006, as you know.
At that time, we had a sustainable development promotion group
within the region co-ordinated through the East Midlands regional
assembly. With SNR, we took the view with our regional partners,
the Government Office for the East Midlands, EMRA and that body
that we would do a review to look at what we thought was best
for the region. Following that review, which we completed just
over a year ago, all regional partners that had been interviewed
concluded that we needed to embed sustainable development within
Sub-National Review frameworks going forward and strategies rather
than a specific SD body. That was the conclusion that came out
of an independent piece of research. I was looking at that bit
of research yesterday, because I thought that the matter might
be raised today. I found that 72 of the key protagonists around
the sustainability agenda were interviewed. It was a very extensive
piece of research and the whole conclusion that came out of it
was the need to embed rather than to have a separate body.
Jeff Moore: Specifically we are
saying that the sustainable development organisations within the
region have actively said that they do not want one body putting
forward as the sustainable development champion, and we respect
that consultation.
Chairman: Okay.
Q266 Sir Peter Soulsby: I once
put to the Minister that embedding it, mainstreaming it or integrating
it can actually just mean ignoring it. Is that not a danger?
Anthony Payne: There is a risk
of that, but I think that the history within our region and the
history of the regional economic strategy and the regional spatial
strategy is that we have not ignored it. It is embedded throughout
the RES. There are key elements of sustainability sprinkled throughout,
and key to the strategic priorities within the RES. The same is
true of the regional spatial strategy. I actually think that the
converse is true. If we have a specific body that almost sits
in its corner saying that SD is really important, it could actually
become even more marginalised. So the risk is that it becomes
just a talking shop for a particular group.
Q267 Sir Peter Soulsby: Which
leads on to the question whether it is better to look at an index
of sustainable economic welfare as a way in which to measure what
is being delivered in the region as against GVA or GDP. I think
that you have particular views on that.
Jeff Moore: We do. We have an
index of sustainable economic well-being, and we were the leaders
in developing that as a measure of progress for the region. As
we have said, we had GVA and GDP measures before, but it was little
consolation to the East Midlands if the economy was growing massively.
People were getting better off, but they did not feel better off
because they were frightened about crime and their environment
was polluted or whatever. We were leaders with the New Economics
Foundation and Surrey university in developing the index of sustainable
economic well-being. That is an index about which we have put
evidence in, and we are leading on. It is key. Another point on
sustainability—I know you want to come back, Peter—is
you raise questions such as, "Are we bureaucratic on ERDF
and does it take a long time to do appraisals?" One of the
key elements of our appraisal process is a sustainability check.
That all adds to what we are doing in order to make sure that
we have addressed the issues. As we do an appraisal, it is also
an appraisal on a sustainability basis.
Q268 Sir Peter Soulsby: I am sure
I know the answer to this from the evidence you have already given,
but can I just check? You talked about the sustainable index of
the sustainable economic welfare. You would, I think, welcome
its adoption across regions, rather than just the East Midlands.
Jeff Moore: It is not for me to
tell other regions what they wish to do, but that work was indeed
ground-breaking and it has been taken on by a number of politicians
as a key element of how to develop. Other regions have started
to address it, look at it and show an interest in it. Even though
it is a year or so old, it is relatively new and is the developing
measurement index, because you learn more about how you can develop
the measurements of crime, the impact of crime, the benefits of
volunteering, the impact of accidents and things like that. It
can be a very big measure, and we are very positive about it.
Making sure that we can measure it and that it has got all the
right elements to it is a key challenge going forward.
Chairman: Judy, you covered some of the
semi-rural stuff.
Q269 Judy Mallaber: There is another
issue before that on sustainability. We have a statutory duty
to promote equality, and we will have to monitor equalities and
diversity impacts, but I have not really seen that addressed in
the evidence or by our witnesses. Can you tell us something about
that and whether you have any formal structures in place to ensure
that you deal with issues around equality and impacts on people?
Anthony Payne: Two points on that.
First, as Jeff has just alluded to, in terms of the sustainability
appraisal, all projects also go through an equalities impact assessment.
Secondly, we are going out to consultation over the summer—we
will be taking that through to our board—for our integrated
equalities scheme by the end of September to early October. That
will be going out to consultation following our July board.
Q270 Judy Mallaber: When you go
out to consultation, how does that get out to people and who does
it get to? Part of the whole point of this is that there will
be many places that your consultation does not reach, which might
be precisely the places that are affected by what you do or don't
do.
Anthony Payne: We try to reach
all the parts that all consultations try to reach. We will work
with all our stakeholders in organisations such as EMRA, GOEM
and so on, as well as the other stakeholders who came to the recent
stakeholder event, those who are on our database and so on. We
will try to make it go as wide and far as possible.
Jeff Moore: Including the local
representative of the commission for human rights.
Anthony Payne: The new EHCR, as
it is now known. We will make sure that the consultation is as
wide and as appropriate as it possibly can be. We will then rely
on other partners to send it further on, so that it has a cascade
effect. We are sure that it will reach all the parts it needs
to reach.
Jeff Moore: This is an example
of some of the projects. Anthony has talked about the statutory
requirements and how we do an equalities impact assessment of
projects. A number of our projects are specifically targeted at
areas where we think that advantage exists. In some of our communities,
it is quite difficult to access finance from the traditional financial
sector, so we have a product called East Midlands enterprise loans
that is specifically targeted at disadvantaged groups.
Michael Carr: One thing to add
to that, Judy: on every business support product that we have,
we require the partner to monitor the customer base that they
are dealing with from a diversity point of view where we can get
it—not everybody chooses to share those details. We have
a comprehensive review of our diversity of outreach in terms of
our business support programmes. That has been a major step forward
that we have taken under the guidance of the agency's broader
diversity policy that allows us to monitor exactly where our business
support products are hitting.
Q271 Judy Mallaber: How does your
analysis of economic impact and possible programmes take account
of gender issues, as well as different communities—racial
diversity and so on?
Michael Carr: There will be a
requirement within every contract that we place to monitor the
diversity of impact. Based on the performance, we will ask for
changes, if necessary, to ensure that further work is done on
that. But actually what we have seen is a growing trend in terms
of penetration into areas like black and ethnic minority businesses
and gender-based businesses, in terms of women's businesses. So
we are actually already seeing a quite significant swing in the
impact of our programmes in these areas.
Q272 Judy Mallaber: Going on to
the issue that Bob was trying to get me on to about rural and
semi-rural areas, very often people talk rural or the urban divide
and leave out semi-rural. What measures do you take to make sure
the appropriate support is provided to areas that are semi-rural,
because very often the divide is just, "It's a village,"
or "It's a city," and there is nothing in between?
Diana Gilhespy: If I can just
pick up on the business support side of things, we now have over
40 offices, which are staffed by business advisers. So there is
a sort of physical presence. That has been also assisted by our
investment programmes through to our regional partners and regional
innovation centres, particularly across the coalfields, but there
is now a programme across Lincolnshire, whereby we have a hub
in Lincoln but then outreach centres across the county. Obviously,
as well, we have specially trained advisers in land-based businesses,
but also all business advisers have some awareness of the difficulties
and the issues faced by rurally located businesses. We have also,
largely through our sub-regional partners, a very active engagement
with market towns, enabling them to refresh their offer to businesses,
retailers and tourist visitors. So we have that physical development,
but also support for other development such as business improvement
districts within our smaller market towns. So there is a cocktail
of ways in which we can support rural areas.
Q273 Judy Mallaber: Many market
towns are declining in using shops. They get sucked out by Tescos,
I should imagine, and other supermarkets. Does emda have
any strategy for dealing with that, or ability to counter that
development?
Jeff Moore: That will be part
of our ordinary recession response strategy, in a way. What we
specifically had with market towns, right at the very beginning
of the agency, was a sort of analysis of what keeps a market town
sustainable. What size of market town needs a cinema, bank, library
and so on? So we did an analysis of that, and then our projects
and programmes were about delivering those as far as we possibly
could into market towns that were deficient in them, or getting
partners to do that. Similarly, the issue you're raising, though,
really Judy, is about the fact that you've got recession and you're
having shop closures urban, suburban, rural, hamlet-wide.
Judy Mallaber: It is not just recession;
it is also longer-term development of big supermarkets.
Jeff Moore: It is. We have other
programmes and projects. First, I would say that the business
support and business support advice available throughout the region
is available to anyone and everyone. Secondly, there are schemes
like the Pub is the Hub, which is very heavily sponsored by His
Royal Highness Prince Charles. We have done more than any other
region in respect of declining villages, losing shops, losing
various other aspects—not necessarily to out of town retail,
but maybe out of town retail 10 miles down the road to a Tesco.
There are lots of pubs throughout Lincolnshire, Derbyshire and
Northamptonshire. The pub is struggling, but it can be turned
into the post office, shop, or advice or maybe cre"che mechanism,
working with the Princes' Trust charities. That is the sort of
programme that we intervene in.
Michael Carr: Last year, we supported
over 20,000 businesses and individuals in rural areas through
the Business Link service. So it is a substantial amount of the
work that they do.
Q274 Judy Mallaber: The other
specific issue that has been commented on is how one of the biggest
challenges facing businesses in rural areas is about access to
broadband. What is your involvement in that? Have you helped to
meet that challenge?
Michael Carr: Clearly, one of
the issues that we were first faced with 10 years ago was that
there was a very patchy internet access. A number of projects,
including some sub-regional work that we did in places like Lincolnshire,
significantly increased the opportunities for people to have access
to broadband. Actually, a relatively small proportion of people
now do not have access to broadband. Some would say that it's
not quick enough, but they do have access to it. Our policy has
changed more now to e-adoption and e-development—basically
trying to get people to use those facilities more. A remarkable
number of businesses still don't use computers, IT infrastructure
or the web. Particularly, those that do are often very basic users,
and I am sure you are aware, Judy, that there's a lot more you
can now do through the web. We have moved from infrastructural
support, which was in the first part of what we did, often through
sub-regional partners. Now, we are much more into e-adoption and
e-development work.
Jeff Moore: That's where we would
work with things like the Regional Minister—that's that
strategic/delivery divide. The strategic bit is: have we got the
right level of broadband infrastructure and coverage? Strategically,
if we haven't, we will lobby Government, work with BT and other
providers, and get Phil Hope to work on our behalf to make sure
the East Midlands is wired up. We will not pay or deliver in that
wiring up. But when it is wired up, we will deliver e-adoption
policies and products, because you can take the horse to water,
but you've got to find a way of making it drink to make our businesses
competitive with broadband.
Chairman: Thanks indeed, Jeff and your
team. It's been a long session, but we have picked up, as you'll
all have gathered, a lot of queries, comments and praise. Don't
think of us too harshly, if you think that we have just plucked
out the areas of criticism. We wanted to drill down to some of
those and get your responses. That has been immensely useful.
We have pretty well concluded our programme of evidence taking
so far as emda is concerned. We've got some work to do
now to produce the report. We will get the report out before the
parliamentary recess. I think it will require a lot of work and
activity to do that, but bravo. We are going to work fairly hard
at that. Thank you very much for the time that you have given
us. You've had two long sessions—one at Notts County Council
and one here today, and that's been immensely useful. We are very
appreciative of your time and imposing on you yet another layer
of scrutiny, but that's the way of the world. Thank you.
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