UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 1034-ii

HOUSE OF COMMONS

MINUTES OF EVIDENCE

TAKEN BEFORE THE

YORKSHIRE AND THE HUMBER REGIONAL COMMITTEE

 

THE WORK OF YORKSHIRE FORWARD

TUESDAY 10 NOVEMBER 2009

(WESTMINSTER)

CLARE COATES and CHRIS MARTIN

MARGARET COLEMAN and AMELIA MORGAN

 

Evidence heard in Public

Questions 47 - 134

 

USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT

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Oral Evidence

Taken before the Yorkshire and the Humber Regional Committee

on Tuesday 10 November 2009

Members present:

Mr. Eric Illsley (Chairman)

Mr. Clive Betts

Mr. Ian Cawsey

Shona McIsaac

Mr. Austin Mitchell

 

Examination of Witnesses

Witnesses: Clare Coates, Deputy Chief Executive (People and Places), Local Government Yorkshire and Humber, and Chris Martin, Deputy Chief Executive (Integrated Regional Strategy), Local Government Yorkshire and Humber, gave evidence.

 

Q47 Chairman: Mr. Martin, Clare Coates, welcome to this meeting of the Yorkshire and the Humber Regional Committee. This is our second evidence session on the work of Yorkshire Forward. Will you introduce yourselves and give us a quick word about your role within your organisation?

Clare Coates: I am Clare Coates, Deputy Chief Executive for People and Places. I wish first to explain the organisation of Local Government Yorkshire and Humber. It is the membership association of the 22 councils across Yorkshire and Humber, the four police authorities, the four fire authorities and the two national parks. We have been working in collaboration with Yorkshire Forward for some time. We have introduced new regional arrangements, post-SNR.

Chris Martin: My name is Chris Martin. I am another Deputy Chief Executive at Local Government Yorkshire and Humber. My responsibilities relate to working towards the new regional strategies foreshadowed in the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill, so they have to do with planning, housing and spatial strategy elements.

 

Q48 Chairman: Thank you. I shall start the questioning. What do you see as Yorkshire Forward's role within our region?

Clare Coates: It has a key role in strategic decision making on economic issues, with a firm focus on issues to do with investment for the future and representing the region to the Government. The key role for Yorkshire Forward is to ensure that we have appropriate investment in the region, and that it is used wisely and in support of all our communities across the region.

Chris Martin: Yorkshire Forward has had a strategic economic lead for a number of years, as my colleague, Clare, mentioned. Perhaps unusually for a number of English regions, we have already moved some of our regional governance arrangements into a slightly different pattern in anticipation of the new legislation. We have established in our region a joint regional board, on which representatives of Yorkshire Forward's board members and local authority leaders sit. That is already starting a new form of collaboration between local authority leaders and the regional development agency board, with a view to working on a single regional strategy and linking that to the work of local authorities and city regions. That is perhaps a different perspective, and something that is yet to happen in some other regions.

 

Q49 Chairman: Do you believe that the role of Yorkshire Forward is sufficiently well understood within the region by the business community, the local government community and the general public? Are people well aware of the role of the RDA?

Chris Martin: The strategic role in relation to economic development is reasonably well understood. In particular, the preparation of what up to now has been the regional economic strategy is a fairly well-known role that Yorkshire Forward plays. Inevitably, in more recent years, a number of new responsibilities have come to the RDA. Whether that has slightly blurred the message or added to the portfolio of work of Yorkshire Forward, I do not know. Nor do I know whether that is so well understood.

The important point, as both Clare and I said at the beginning, is, from our perspective, working with the RDA. Since April this year, we have established a new kind of working with it through the vehicle of the joint regional board. We are perhaps developing a new relationship between the RDA and local authorities, particularly with regard to their community leadership roles. That has been a slightly shifting development over the last year.

Clare Coates: To add to that, the RDA is often seen as only a source of funding, and only a source of funding for businesses, but not for all businesses. We see it as having a strategic and intelligence role-a role to look at new opportunities for the region to take advantage of economically. We clearly understand that as its function.

 

Q50 Chairman: Looking back over the last 10 years, has anything happened because of Yorkshire Forward that would not happen without its presence? What do you regard as the successes of Yorkshire Forward over the last 10 years? By the same token, what have been its major failures-if any?

Chris Martin: Some of its successful working has been quite innovative. I am thinking of the Renaissance towns programme. Its urban and rural renaissance work with a number of towns in Yorkshire and Humber has been a successful exercise in the regeneration of towns. Its work in response to particular crises and incidents, such as the flooding in 2007, foot and mouth and the situation of companies such as HBOS in respect of the economic downturn, has been particularly good.

Although a smaller part of its role, the RDA has done work to support transport. I am thinking of its contributions towards improving rail services in the Leeds city region and its lobbying and working for improved rail infrastructure to the Humber ports. That is an unusual thing; I do not think that other RDAs have done that. It has worked reasonably well.

Rather than concentrating on things that the RDA has not done so well, we have been trying to focus with it on how to develop a new way of working that reflects the increasing emphasis of the role of the local authorities. I am thinking, in particular, of the pilot city region status of Leeds city region. It will develop a new balance, whereby the city region pilots ways in which to have more delegated and devolved funding arrangements and so forth. Clearly, that will potentially mean a rebalancing of the work that Yorkshire Forward leads on. Those examples that I have highlighted come immediately to mind when thinking of Yorkshire Forward.

As for Yorkshire Forward's work on the regional economic strategy, there was a clear and well-evidenced link between the economic strategy and the broader spatial and transport strategies. It was the first RDA to agree with the local authorities and others a set of regional transport priorities. Again, that goes back a number of years. It was something unusual that Yorkshire Forward did, but which other RDAs might not have done.

Clare Coates: The RDA has worked well with local authorities in responding to the recent recession, and its collective working with local authorities has been a success. Some of the challenges in moving forward are the fact that, as a region, we still have deprived areas. We have high worklessness areas, and we need to concentrate on taking them forward. We believe that our partnership work with local authorities can be brought to the table to address those fairly localised issues. Such an approach will bring a positive movement forward when we can address the challenges together.

 

Q51 Chairman: I think that you have probably answered my next question, but in your memorandum, you refer to Yorkshire Forward needing to understand the diversity across the region. Does what you have said lead to that conclusion?

Clare Coates: Absolutely. It is a huge region. Its rural neighbourhoods are very diverse. We have high productivity areas; look at Leeds. Some cities have been struggling more in the recession than others. We need local authorities to play their leadership role, in understanding their areas. The role of local government in shaping those policies is well understood, and it is sometimes best placed to understand its area. That is better than a regional approach. For a more localised approach to certain issues around worklessness, we say that you must build from the local, on the key priorities of the local areas, and build through to the city regions. We refer to them as the functional sub-regions. They take into account the three city regions plus North Yorkshire, and are the key economic drivers in the region. We need to make sure that all our activities are based on them and are built from the local through to the functional sub-regional level. We will then have a strategy and a delivery that are appropriate to the needs of those particular areas.

 

Q52 Mr. Mitchell: What do you mean by saying in your memorandum that Yorkshire Forward needs "to develop a clear understanding of the region's diversity"? If it has not got that by now, it will never get it. Did you mean that it should consult local authorities more?

Clare Coates: No. It is consulting local authorities more. Our approach in the region is a collaborative one with Yorkshire Forward and the local authorities. That is what we have agreed and that was how we responded to the SNR. We are working well with them. I think it is about having approaches that are more localised and working with local authorities.

 

Q53 Mr. Mitchell: Right. Handing power down?

Clare Coates: Not necessarily. At the moment we have collaborative working. That may mean handing powers to the city regions-we are looking at the Leeds city region pathfinder, which was appointed by Government, to see where powers and funding may go to that area-but looking at how we respond to the individual needs of areas, the bodies are working collaboratively.

 

Q54 Mr. Mitchell: If you're going to start chucking power around, how are the needs of an area such as North East Lincolnshire, which Shona and I represent, best served? Is it by having some power ourselves, when we haven't got the expertise to know what's needed, or by us lobbying a central organisation such as Yorkshire Forward? I would have thought that we would be best served by working to you, and by you paying attention to our needs, rather than by you handing power down to us.

Clare Coates: I think the Leeds city region pathfinder is a way of finding out whether devolution to those areas will work. We have a collaborative approach, which is what you're referring to, in terms of working together regionally so that the local authorities come together. We have established a leaders' board, with two leaders per functional sub-region.

Mr. Mitchell: But some local authorities have more expertise than others. Some are better at putting their case than others, and some have got more staff to enable them to do that.

Clare Coates: We're working together across all local authorities, with the membership of our organisation-all 22 councils. The 22 councils have come together and established a leaders' board; the leaders' board is based on political balance and functional sub-regional balance, and we have two leaders per functional sub-region. They meet the Yorkshire Forward board four times a year to agree the priorities, moving forward. It is that collaborative and partnership approach that we are talking about.

 

Q55 Mr. Mitchell: It sounds messier and more political than what has gone before, but let me move on. You have had an increase in responsibilities in the 10 years since 1999. You have now taken on regional development grants, research development grants, Business Link, economic and social funding, elements of the rural development programme-that is exciting stuff-the European regional development fund and the manufacturing advisory service. Are you extending your remit too wide?

Clare Coates: We are from Local Government Yorkshire and Humber, not Yorkshire Forward.

Mr. Mitchell: I know, but are the responsibilities of Yorkshire Forward being extended too widely, given all the functions that are being taken on? I've just read you the list.

Chairman: What the question is aiming at is this: basically, the regional development agencies have taken on extra roles since 1999. Has taking on these extra responsibilities diluted the core function of Yorkshire Forward?

Clare Coates: I think that there has been a blurring of its responsibility. We think that it ought to be a strategic organisation that works collaboratively with local government. I think there has been blurring, definitely.

 

Q56 Mr. Mitchell: I just wonder if in your view all these extra functions detract from Yorkshire Forward's ability to do its core job.

Clare Coates: I think that's a possibility. I think that's why we believe, working together with local government, that it's local government that has the responsibility and it brings that and democratic accountability to the table to work collectively with Yorkshire Forward. We see its role as quite strategic in terms of moving the region forward.

 

Q57 Mr. Mitchell: It makes it an agent for delivering national policy, rather than generating local policy.

Clare Coates: We are trying to ensure that our activities respond-

Mr. Mitchell: You are trying to tie its feet to the ground locally.

Clare Coates: We are trying to ensure that it responds to the needs across the whole of the region.

 

Q58 Mr. Mitchell: The Engineering Employers Federation says that the regional development agencies should become commissioning bodies rather than delivery regions. Do you agree with that?

Clare Coates: I think partly they are being commissioning agents-already they are contracting out a significant amount of their work. We, again, see it as a strategic regional resource role, which relies on intelligence across the region.

Chris Martin: I think that we need to put this in something a little bit wider, just coming down to some practicalities. From the perspective of the local authorities that are members of our association, they inevitably see that in order to achieve real outcomes for the people in those communities, such as the communities you represent, a lot of the issues cross into the solutions and the money is lying in lots of different public pots. So it isn't just a matter of Yorkshire Forward, there is an issue about a range of public and regionalised agencies that deliver and part of the philosophy, going forward, is to try to look at the appropriate level of dealing with some of that. A specific example would be the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill, which, if I remember it correctly, has a provision where individual local authorities would be given a duty of local economic assessment. Now, you need to begin to think through what actually happens at what particular level. If you are dealing with that, it may actually mean that the RDA has to be something more strategic. Where the join can most easily be done, potentially, is at that local authority level, where there is that understanding of those local communities, but that may involve a range of funding from a range of different public bodies. So there is a bigger issue about devolution to public local authority generally, perhaps, rather than just the question of the relationship with the RDA alone.

Mr. Mitchell: Thanks.

 

Q59 Mr. Betts: Can Yorkshire Forward really be the RDA for Yorkshire when, while its members come from Yorkshire, they are all chosen in Whitehall?

Chris Martin: If the question is, can it be a regional agency when its orders come from Whitehall, then clearly the board members are drawn from a representation of Yorkshire and Humber business and there is also representation from local authority leadership. Perhaps behind your question lies this issue again about how much freedom there is in terms of allocation and use of funding. I guess my answer to that would be that that is not just a message for the pot of funding of £300 million to £400 million which Yorkshire Forward has at its disposal, which I suspect is something less than half a per cent of total regional GVA, or however you measure it. It is also a question you could put in relation to a range of funding streams to individual local authorities and to other agencies. It is getting the balance right between what flexibility there is for a range of public agencies to spend money in a way that meets the needs they identify in their own area.

 

Q60 Mr. Betts: Would you like to see, in any way, a change in the composition of the Yorkshire Forward board? Do you think there should be more board members from a local government background? Do you think it might be a good idea for local government to actually nominate some of the members of the board?

Clare Coates: The approach that we have taken in the region is the collaborative approach. We have established a joint regional board with eight members of the Yorkshire Forward board and eight local authority leaders. I think that that has improved the situation and ensures that we have that very localised input, and that is the decision-making body in the region that we have agreed post-SNR.

 

Q61 Mr. Betts: A new chair of Yorkshire Forward is going to be appointed; I think the selection process is under way. Have you been involved in that process and in the criteria? Will you get involved in the process at all as it goes along?

Chris Martin: Not that I know of, no.

Clare Coates: No.

 

Q62 Mr. Betts: Would you like to be?

Clare Coates: I think it would be a positive step forward if we were.

 

Q63 Chairman: Just before I ask Shona McIsaac to ask some questions on the regional economic strategy, on the point you have raised already-the partnership meetings between your board and Yorkshire Forward-do you regard that as bringing some democratic legitimacy towards Yorkshire Forward? Do you see that as bridging some form of democratic deficit that has been there over the last few years?

Clare Coates: Yes. I think it goes some way to bridge the existing or previous gap in democratic accountability, yes.

Chris Martin: I think perhaps it has another benefit. That might refer back to a previous question, which is that it helps to make sure that the strategy we are developing in the region is better placed and better fits the strategy needs of localities and communities in the region. It brings that local reality into the formulation of that regional strategy, so I think it has that second benefit as well.

Chairman: Just before I call Shona McIsaac, there is possibility that there could be a vote in the Chamber of the House, in which case I will suspend the Committee for 15 minutes to allow Members to vote and come back. So, if the alarm bells start ringing, it is the Division bell and there is no need to leave. Shona McIsaac on the economic strategy.

 

Q64 Shona McIsaac: We have had three regional economic strategies for the area, and I would guess that since the last one was actually put together we have had the economic downturn and the recession. Given that, what do you see as the priorities for the region now as regards economic strategy?

Chris Martin: That is quite a big question. In some respects, there are two different things. There is immediately responding to the downturn and clearly Yorkshire Forward has taken-as indeed have local authorities, and through the regional economic development agency-specific measures to deal with it. A number of the key strategic issues have a bit of timelessness about them to some extent. There are still some challenges that remain, irrespective. Some of them might have got worse, but if I highlight some of the big ones-some of the big issues that perhaps have come a little bit more to the fore, shall we say, over the last 12 months- there always has been a long-term issue about delivering the right number of homes and delivering affordable housing.

It is clear that those challenges have got worse or perhaps been made worse by the economic downturn, including particularly where the capacity to deliver housing comes from and how you are going to fund that housing in future. There are a number of issues around continuing to hopefully narrow the economic gap between the region and the national EU averages, which was a poor element of the regional economic strategy. There are a number of areas in terms of achieving some of the worklessness and social outcomes that Clare, my colleague, referred to earlier. There are a number of long-term problems and challenges and issues in the region. Transport would be another one, of course, although it is perhaps only slightly referred to-peripherally referred to-in the regional economic strategy. They might be made to look slightly worse or more challenging by the downturn, but some of those long-term strategy issues remain true-as true now as they were a year or two years ago.

 

Q65 Shona McIsaac: From what you have said there-and yes, it is a very big issue-do you think that Yorkshire Forward's leadership has been effective in developing a regional economic strategy?

Chris Martin: There are two answers to that. First, what I think was very positive about the last economic strategies was that they worked very closely with my previous organisation, the Yorkshire and Humber assembly, in terms of preparing, as we did then, the regional spatial strategies, so there was a join between the planning, economic, housing and transport strategies for the region, a shared set of objectives, and I think that was something that Yorkshire Forward deserved considerable credit for.

My other answer to that question would be, however-where Clare and I have been talking previously-how do we improve things further? I think this has the dimension of much closer involvement of local authorities and local authority leaders in that process to get the feeling that the strategy is reflecting what local authorities actually need. Perhaps there was a feeling before with some of the regional strategies that they were kind of top-down. Perhaps there was a feeling like that before and what we have been trying to do is work with Yorkshire Forward to turn that around, to make it feel more like they are reflecting the needs of individual local authorities and communities.

 

Q66 Shona McIsaac: Certainly representing an area like I do that is difficult to reach, you can sometimes feel that these strategies are remote from and do not relate to those particular needs. They seem to relate to the bigger city areas.

Clare Coates: I think that is true, and I think also that regional strategies have not been connected effectively with delivery, either, so I think that our approach of moving forward has ensured that the local will actually connect to delivery and ensure we get better outcomes, especially for our more deprived areas that need the most assistance.

 

Q67 Shona McIsaac: I certainly note that in the last strategy the vision was that it is a "great place to live, work and do business that fully benefits from a prosperous and sustainable economy". You could say that for any part of the UK-any village, town, city in the region, in the country-but it is how we achieve those ambitions and whether Yorkshire Forward is an effective organisation in achieving those ambitions.

Clare Coates: I think that to achieve those ambitions in different places requires different activities because all places are different, so you cannot have a one-size-fits-all approach to solving those issues, and I think working with the local authorities is the way forward in terms of that delivery.

 

Q68 Mr. Cawsey: At the previous sitting of this Committee, we met employers and the business community and discussed Yorkshire Forward and its engagement in the development of the current regional employment strategy. They were very supportive and said that it had been a good process. They were satisfied with what had happened and said that Yorkshire Forward had done a good job, given the many different priorities and perspectives offered during the consultation periods. Do you feel that local government was effectively engaged by Yorkshire Forward during the development of the current regional economic strategy?

Clare Coates: In terms of LGYH, when the current economic strategy was being developed we were not in existence, but there was extensive consultation undertaken by Yorkshire Forward.

 

Q69 Mr. Cawsey: With local government directly?

Clare Coates: Directly with each local authority, and through the Yorkshire and Humber Assembly at that time.

Chris Martin: I think that is right. Inevitably the processes that the regional economic strategy went through were much shorter and there were fewer chances for consultation than with the equivalent spatial strategy, which had to go through a much longer process of challenge and development. This comes back to the question of whether we could do these things better. Part of the focus now is moving towards some of the work we have started to do in terms of thinking about a regional strategy. We have developed Local Government Yorkshire Humber with Yorkshire Forward, and the local authorities have developed a project plan for some of that work, which is about making sure that there is that much more specific direct involvement of the local authorities in local areas in future strategy-making, and that specific work streams-

 

Q70 Mr. Cawsey: Would that be via you or via the authorities directly?

Chris Martin: Some of it is through the authorities directly. For example, we are providing, as a secretariat, some technical support to local authorities to enable them to contribute by doing some of their own work to feed into future regional strategies. That is a very direct example of something that we are doing.

 

Q71 Mr. Cawsey: Isn't the danger here that such is the diverse nature of local government in Yorkshire and the Humber that you have some extremely big authorities and some really quite small ones? It is not going to work if you just go to them all individually, because the big guys will win and the small ones will miss out.

Chris Martin: Clare has referred to the way we have structured our leaders board. There is perhaps a particular emphasis in our region on those sub-regional partnerships: Hull and Humber, Sheffield city region, Leeds city region, and York and North Yorkshire. That is increasingly looking at the local authorities in those sub-regions collaborating at that kind of level, sharing some of the expertise, and reaching views in terms of what they believe that strategy should be in those groups to build up into a regional view. That helps a number of authorities to work together-big and small.

 

Q72 Mr. Cawsey: You put in your written submission to us the view that more needs to be done at city-region level with a less top-down approach. Are you therefore saying that the latest strategy from Yorkshire Forward is flawed and should be done at a city-region level?

Chris Martin: I don't know about that. I suppose you need to bear in mind that our memorandum was written nine months ago. We have been developing a lot of the new ways of working during that time. I think it is about looking forward to what you want to do in the future. Can you learn from what you did in the past and how would you want to do it slightly differently?

 

Q73 Mr. Cawsey: How flexible do you find Yorkshire Forward? I agree with what you just said about the way things have moved on. Do you find that, as an organisation, it accepts that and that things are not just written in stone in the way of perhaps a few months or even a year or so ago? Do you find that it is open to that kind of working?

Clare Coates: In our response, we put that we had seen indications of a cultural change and that we were waiting to see that cultural change being delivered. We can say that we are seeing that. Yorkshire Forward is looking at putting its own resources into the city regions-we see that as a positive step forward. As LGYH, we are doing that around planning issues and putting people into those areas to support the city regions. We are also using regional improvement and efficiency partnership funds to give support. We have a clear indication from Yorkshire Forward that it is going to do the same with their staff to put the resources into those areas where they are much needed at the moment.

 

Q74 Mr. Cawsey: Yorkshire and the Humber is a big area by anybody's standards. It is diverse-that point has been made several times. I was very interested when we spoke to the employers and the business community, who clearly thought it would be a major backward step if something like a regional development agency-Yorkshire Forward-just ceased to exist and everything was given to local authorities to deal with themselves. Some authorities are very big and some are very small, so you can see where that could well lead, particularly for the smaller authorities. However, if you go the other way and try to make it that Yorkshire Forward is a more sub-regional organisation, or that it works on that basis, how does that get achieved with the local authorities without the situation simply turning into a scrap between all the different sub-regions?

Clare Coates: We haven't yet taken a position on what the region should look like in the future. I think it is a developing programme at the moment, as we have emerging city regions and Total Place. What we would say is that there would still be a need for some strategic decision making, but how that is made up has yet to be decided. The strategic decision making would be across things that cross boundaries, so if you are looking at things such as major transport infrastructure, there is going to have to be a coming together of the city regions at some kind of regional or pan-regional level as we look at Leeds needing to work with Manchester. So there will have to be something above that, and I think that there are clearly some areas that we need to work on and look at the development of the city regions and Total Place. I think the key thing is what will deliver the best outcomes.

 

Q75 Mr. Cawsey: I was a local authority member for some years before I was a Member of Parliament, and it strikes me that I have heard that sort of talk several times before. What then happens is that the councils all go to the meeting and vote for their own areas, because that is just life. How do you make it happen, as opposed to just talking about it?

Clare Coates: I think that we are in a unique position in Yorkshire and Humber in that we have cross-party agreement, as we have for quite some time. We have been working on this for about 18 months, and the local authority leaders are all engaged and working together in the process. We are quite positive about that and for the future.

Chris Martin: Just as a very specific example, there are some very big challenges on transport, but regional local authorities have been able to work together to come to a view on regional funding allocations. Some quite hard discussions had to take place on the regional funding advice that had to be submitted to Transport Ministers about the regional priorities. Local authority members had to think collectively about a region-wide perspective as well as, inevitably, the perspective of their own local authority.

 

Q76 Mr. Cawsey: It is very good that your organisation and Yorkshire Forward have both committed to the need to deal with our sub-region, the Humber bridge, its tolls and the economic impact that it is having on the area. Making it a regional view, rather than just a sub-regional or even a local one, gives strength to that. I suppose that my real issue is that everybody can agree to that if they think that the Government might do something about it, but if they said that you might want to pay for it from your own coffers, I wonder how well that regional alliance would hold together.

Clare Coates: We had an interesting debate recently on the flood levy where, obviously, some parts of the region are affected more than others. That was exactly the view of leaders: this is about the region as a whole and not individual local authorities.

Mr. Cawsey: That's very good. Thank you.

 

Q77 Mr. Mitchell: There has been a worry on the part of small local authorities, such as ours and Mr. Cawsey's-[Interruption.] Well, ours-I said that earlier. There has been a worry about the tension between local government having more say, which you want, and a top-down plan that criticises the idea that the future activities of a region should be built from the local city, sub-region level. There is a real tension there. Isn't it possible to argue that, from the point of view of the development and priorities of the area as a whole-where you put your money to get the best return and stimulus for development-it is better for those decisions to be taken at a regional level rather than by a jostling scrum of small local authorities each pushing tin-pot projects?

Chris Martin: It raises the interesting issue that clearly some of those infrastructure matters, such as some of the key roads and transport access to the Humber ports, are nationally dealt with by national agencies with national money. Perhaps part of the bigger picture is that, whether it is regional, sub-regional or local, somewhere within Yorkshire and Humber, you are able to influence and take a view on the decisions of what are, at the moment, national pockets of money. That has been perhaps the more challenging issue, and perhaps getting improvements made to the Humber ports is about getting some ability for some voice and some power.

 

Q78 Mr. Mitchell: In transport that is clear. It is economic development, isn't it?

Chris Martin: It is the most obvious one.

 

Q79 Mr. Mitchell: We have had a particularly raw deal with roads in our area. Local push and local power would be effective there. The priorities for development and jobs are best decided at a regional level.

Chris Martin: It comes back to Clare's point. I do not have the answer, I'm afraid, but I think there needs to be dialogue about what is the best level to get the outcome you want.

 

Q80 Mr. Mitchell: I don't think that that will produce the political process. Anyway, let me move on, because we now face the problem of the current economic downturn. The chief executive of Yorkshire Forward has said that it is now "focused on keeping as many people in jobs as possible". That surely is the right priority at a time of economic difficulty and recession. Are you happy with Yorkshire Forward's response to the economic downturn?

Clare Coates: Local authorities have seen its response as positive and as working in partnership. It has been flexible with its funding, which has been seen as positive; it has been able to respond quicker than before. That quick response in changing programmes and changing money to the needs of different parts of the region is positive for the future.

 

Q81 Mr. Mitchell: Do you see this as a temporary shift or something more permanent and fundamental?

Clare Coates: In terms of the flexibility, more fundamental for the future would be a positive way forward. That flexibility and priority-setting need to come from the collaboration that we have created rather than from a regional agency deciding priorities. We are going some way towards that in the region.

 

Q82Mr. Mitchell: The trouble is the tension between the temporary short-term needs of industry-to have more money to keep going and to support skills centres-and long-term projects for development. What do you see as the consequence of that tension, and which should prevail?

Clare Coates: The region is trying to balance both by looking at new and green technologies and carbon capture for the future. While preserving jobs now, there is quite a bit of activity going into looking at the future, at where the areas of prosperity are going to be and to invest now.

 

Q83 Mr. Mitchell: So you are happy with the balance?

Clare Coates: Yes.

Chairman: Shona, on targets measuring effectiveness.

 

Q84 Shona McIsaac: I wanted to touch on the PricewaterhouseCoopers report which was done a wee while back. There were some positives in that report but in the memorandum there were also some things that give cause for worry. For example, it says that a lot of the communities in the area are becoming more divided and that economic growth has been below the national average. The region does not score well on things such as quality of life and well-being. When it comes to education and skills, I am sorry to say that the region comes bottom-the worst in the whole country. Do you think that the report paints an accurate picture of Yorkshire Forward's performance and effectiveness?

Clare Coates: It highlights the areas where further work is needed. The report makes the point that areas of prosperity mask some areas that are not doing so well. I think it gives a positive side of what it approached but also identifies some key areas of work that need to be addressed.

 

Q85 Shona McIsaac: The chambers of commerce raised another point with regard to measuring how effective the area is, particularly in relation to transport issues. Do you feel Yorkshire Forward lobbies effectively for the region? How can one judge performance in this particular area?

Chris Martin: I think you need to be careful about not laying too much of the blame on Yorkshire Forward. Some of the problems-and it leads back to your previous question-are national as well as affecting Yorkshire and Humber, such as the potential gap between rich and poor and the disparities between communities. Picking up on the transport point, from my perspective Yorkshire Forward did more than a number of RDAs in terms of specifically addressing some transport issues and providing some funding for particular projects. That, I think, is pretty unique among the RDAs. The other thing to mention is Yorkshire Forward's collaboration with the two neighbouring RDAs-the North East and the North West-and the Northern Way. There is some joining up, if you like, from a north of England perspective on what are genuinely in the interests of the whole of the north of England transport priorities, such as the improvements to the Manchester rail hub, which impact right into Yorkshire and the north-east in terms of access to Manchester airport and trans-Pennine traffic. That was a collaborative piece of work that Yorkshire Forward did with the other RDAs, which I think we need some credit for.

But there is a general issue-you are absolutely right, and I think it may have been alluded to before-that the region does not appear to be getting its fair share of some of the transport investment. How far is that laid at the door of the RDA, in terms of lobbying? Clearly, local authorities have also had a role in lobbying, and it is something that they may be doing in future in terms of high-speed rail.

 

Q86 Shona McIsaac: Some of the chambers of commerce certainly feel that Yorkshire Forward could have done more. Are you disagreeing with their views?

Chris Martin: That is a debateable point. I think the region needs to do more on its transport infrastructure. There is no doubt that transport issues are a significant block to economic regeneration. I am absolutely at one with the business community on that. The question is finding a solution to it.

 

Q87 Shona McIsaac: As you have, in this room, three Members of the Committee who have been lobbying on one particular bridge and its tunnels for the best part of I don't know how many years-at least since we have all been elected-that is something that we probably feel more could be done on.

I want to move away from the issues related to transport. This, again, came out of the PricewaterhouseCoopers report about quality of life and social justice. Do you think that Yorkshire Forward is doing enough to address those issues? If not, what do you think should be done?

Chris Martin: That is a difficult one. There is no doubt that in the regional monitoring report that we do each year, led by Yorkshire Forward and called "Progress in the Region", there has certainly, in recent years, been an introduction of indicators that look at quality of life, as distinct from just economic outcome. Certainly, there is discussion about moving our strategy forward. As we move regional strategies forward, there is the need to reflect on quality of life as an outcome, and not just regional GVA. One of the things one gets out of local government's thinking about getting local authorities much more directly involved in the work on the regional strategy is that a lot of those particular problems come right down to neighbourhood and community level. It is a mix of social, educational, and opportunity issues-a whole range of mixtures-which is often perhaps best joined up together at local authority level. Going forward, that is part of the idea about getting local authorities directly involved in the work on the regional strategy; that it is not just something that the RDA can do on its own.

 

Q88 Shona McIsaac: This assumes that all local authorities have the same abilities to tackle these issues. We know that there is a wide variety of skills and talents in the area. Some local authorities perform extremely well, while others, I have to say, are woeful. How do we address the issues when you have poorly performing local authorities that are not addressing social justice issues?

Clare Coates: We have the regional improvement efficiency partnership, which has been set up and is funded by Government. Its key role is to support improvement in local authorities and with partners. We are working across local authorities to achieve that-identifying where the priorities are and getting councils to work together. So if you have a council that is very effective in neighbourhood management, it works with other councils to support them in their challenges. We've had councils supporting each other on children's services, and we have put extra money into those services. We do an assessment of performance, and then look at the best-placed approach to support them, and at who is best to support them. We are doing peer challenge across local authorities, and are developing a new protocol where local authorities will be responsible for assisting others that are struggling to increase their performances and support their communities.

Q89 Mr. Cawsey: We all know that Yorkshire Forward is having its budgets reduced, which will clearly have an effect. What concerns or fears do you have-perhaps you have none-about how those reductions will affect the work that it does in the region?

Clare Coates: It will depend on which budgets are cut and how they are cut. Some of the issues that we are concerned about are wider than Yorkshire Forward's budgets, such as the public service cuts that we are facing, certainly across some of our towns and cities that are more reliant on the public sector for jobs. Research has shown that some of our cities are over-reliant on public services for jobs-across the health service and in local authorities. Our greatest concern at the moment is not just the Yorkshire Forward funding but the whole of the funding cuts that we are facing. We are looking at how we can support that, and at how we can use work force strategies if budgets and staff are going to be cut across cities and towns. There is certainly concern, but it is not just about Yorkshire Forward.

 

Q90 Mr. Cawsey: In your submission you said, "Further devolution of funding, influence and power, from the regional level to local authorities, still needs to take place in order to build the strong local government sector that is needed to deliver genuine improvements." Or is it just that you want to ensure that areas that are reliant on public sector workers can continue to remain so?

Clare Coates: No. What was put in the response was about things like geographic programmes and whether that money should be devolved to local authorities to meet their immediate needs. There is an issue about devolution and future funding cuts.

 

Q91 Mr. Cawsey: Do you think that Yorkshire Forward should be given more flexibility, particularly at a time when budgets are tighter, as to how it can spend for the greater good, which might mean devolving some of the money? At the weekend, I went to the opening of a new community and arts centre in Goole which has been funded, in part, by Yorkshire Forward. That was some time ago, and it only got round to the opening this weekend. I thought it was interesting that the person from Yorkshire Forward who spoke at the event said, "Look what a fantastic difference this is going to make to the town as part of the overall regeneration, but I don't think we'll be able to do it any more." Do you think there is a danger that Yorkshire Forward is being too tightly restricted in what it can do with its resources?

Clare Coates: Potentially, the recession has shown that you need flexibility in approach to be able to achieve that.

Mr. Cawsey: Okay, so you would support the idea of its having greater control of what it does.

Clare Coates: Greater control, if agreed in partnership through the joint regional board and the structures that we have created to look at priorities for funding.

 

Q92 Mr. Cawsey: I have a final question on this section. I am still quite interested in how you devolve the regional pot to a local level and watch it make a difference. I still have a great concern. With your background, you will, I am sure, know that what we now call the Humber sub-region used to be Humberside county council, with a second tier of authorities below it. That gave us a big body to lobby, and it had reasonably sized departments to do work on economic development, transport infrastructure and all the rest. Certainly, on the south bank-the two north bank authorities are slightly different-we now have two unitary authorities covering about 150,000 people. Some of the better things that have happened there clearly would not have happened without Yorkshire Forward, and I can't see how they would have happened through devolution down to such small councils, because the amounts of money would have been so small. How do you square that with the push to devolve things down?

Clare Coates: I think some of the devolution would be to the city regions, of which the two councils are a part.

Mr. Cawsey: But minor partners. You are talking about 1 million people, of which two thirds or more are on the north bank, and the representation reflects that.

Clare Coates: The city regions need to develop and evolve, and we are certainly supporting that at the moment. There are certainly some challenges that need to be addressed, but if devolution happened at that level, you could have greater concentration on some of the priorities that have come in from that sub-region and greater collaboration.

 

Q93 Mr. Cawsey: Do you know Capitol Park? There are going to be 5,000 jobs on the edge of Goole. It has the Guardian Glass factory already, a big Tesco and all the rest. East Riding, I have to say, was very good on that; I could not criticise it at all, but there was a limit to where it could go in terms of its resources and support. If Yorkshire Forward had not locked in with such a significant amount for a town the size of Goole, which is only 20,000 people-you can see where I'm coming from. I have real concerns about what is going to happen if you do not have that. Actually, I think that I know what is going to happen: if you are in Sheffield, Leeds or Bradford, it is probably okay, but it is not if you are in Goole.

Clare Coates: The functional sub-regions are having discussions about their priorities and how, across the region, we look at the priorities of all the functional sub-regions, and the leaders are doing that. The functional sub-regions or the city region need to look at their priorities, and they are working on those priorities, but if the money went into the functional sub-region and not Yorkshire Forward, would that be a better way? You have a collective of four discussing those issues.

 

Q94 Mr. Betts: Do you think that it is better now that we have just one regional strategy rather then two? Do you think that local government is properly engaged in its development?

Chris Martin: The answer to that has to be yes, at least in principle. Clearly, the legislation is still going through its parliamentary process, but there is that move to single regional strategies. Clearly, bringing together your housing, planning, transport and economic strategies, on the face of it, makes absolute sense. I guess that what we have been trying to do within the region is to begin to start to make some sense of how that might actually work in practice. Local Government Yorkshire and Humber has been working with the RDA board-since April really-through the mechanism of the joint regional board, which we have now set up and which foreshadows the implementation of the legislation, where there can be a real dialogue on what is going into that single regional strategy.

The fundamental part is to try to get the input to it, in terms of the thinking, the evidence and some ideas on the strategy, from the local authorities through the sub-regions, because-it comes back to some earlier questions-some of the real issues, about joining up the economy, planning, housing and transport, are best seen and understood in the local authority areas, where local authorities can genuinely see where the problems of joining up, or lack of it, are.

 

Q95 Mr. Betts: That is my next question. Planning and housing are a responsibility for Yorkshire Forward, but local government generally see those as being its responsibility. Is there going to be tension around that?

Chris Martin: The approach that we have taken so far has not been to see those responsibilities, if you like, going to the RDA. I think that it is very much using the vehicle of the joint regional board, which is the joint relationship between local authorities and the RDA, as the place where responsibility for that strategy sits. It is not passing it to the RDA, as such, it is within that collaborative framework-the joint relationship is responsible.

 

Q96 Mr. Betts: These joint relationships are great while people agree with each other, aren't they? What happens if local government feels that the RDA-Yorkshire Forward-is getting it wrong on housing or key planning issues? What is your recourse other than to say, "Sorry, we don't like it" and have Yorkshire Forward carry on with it?

Clare Coates: I think that there is a presumption that there will be joint decision making; that they are equal players-equal people at the table-rather than Yorkshire Forward taking a lead. It is a collaborative approach. It is not about it leading this, it is about a real partnership.

 

Q97 Mr. Betts: Right, and is it working so far?

Clare Coates: It is, and within those partnerships, the city regions are playing a key role in all the structures that we have set up for the thematic boards: one on planning, one on housing, one on work and skills and one on transport.

Q98 Mr. Betts: What about the city regions? They are obviously a key part of the sub-national review. Ultimately, as well as getting local authorities to work better together, aren't city regions about devolving power, not merely down from the centre but from the regional organisations as well? Do you think that Yorkshire Forward is going to give up powers to city regions happily? If it does not, will city regions not work?

Clare Coates: I would say that part of that is a question of what Government want city regions to make-

Mr. Betts: I am asking you as the representative of local authorities in the area.

Clare Coates: Whether?

 

Q99 Mr. Betts: Whether the city regions can actually work effectively if powers are not devolved down and if part of the devolution does not involve Yorkshire Forward giving up some of its remit and saying "We think that this can best be done at city, rather than regional, level."

Chris Martin: Local authorities are saying that there does need to be that debate and they are having that debate about where, if you want to achieve a certain outcome, or solution, is the best level at which to find that solution and plan that investment.

 

Q100 Mr. Betts: Who decides that?

Chris Martin: Part of that dialogue, for example, is going on at the moment through the pathfinder status for Leeds city region-one of the two national pilots. Part of that is a discussion that is going on with Government Departments about what is devolved to city regional level. Now, that will have potential consequences for regional agencies such as Yorkshire Forward, but also for other regional agencies in terms of where decisions get made and where advice is given on funding. That is a live bit of negotiation that is going on right now.

 

Q101 Mr. Betts: And where is the eventual decision on that made?

Chris Martin: Ultimately, the pathfinder and the powers that that has is very much down to central Government to set.

 

Q102 Mr. Betts: Just coming back to the issue of the board that resolves everything we see and do in our daily lives now in Yorkshire, what happens if there is a dispute, a conflict, over an issue and local government representatives and Yorkshire Forward representatives just do not find a solution that they can agree on? How is that resolved? The regional Minister has no executive powers to come in and say, "Knock heads together. Get on with it."

Chris Martin: There is intended to be a statutory process, through examination in public, of the regional strategy. Ultimately, the Secretary of State determines, or issues, the final version as I understand it under the legislation of the regional strategy. So, you could argue that that is where the ultimate arbitration would sit, but the intention would be not to get to that. The intention of entering that collaborative framework is to have that collaborative agreement, if you like-consensus agreement.

 

Q103 Mr. Betts: So, you could almost have a minority report for a regional strategy?

Chris Martin: I am not sure about that.

 

Q104 Chairman: A final couple of questions then. This one could have been written for you, Mr. Martin. Given the dissolution of the regional assemblies, do you believe that the business community and other stakeholders will be sufficiently able to scrutinise the work of Yorkshire Forward?

Chris Martin: I might pass to Clare on that. Clearly, that was a role that the regional assembly had. The regional assembly, as you rightly point out, was dissolved on 1 April 2009. We are now into the new regional arrangements. Clare?

Clare Coates: One of the things we have been looking at is, if the strategy is built in the local and delivered in the local, you would be able to scrutinise that delivery on a local level. So, we are working with the local authorities in building their scrutiny capacity to do it at that very local level to assess how effective it has been. Rather than a regional agency scrutinising another regional agency, this will be scrutiny based on outcomes and delivery at a very local level, and we are working on that at the moment.

Chairman: Mr. Martin and Ms Coates, thank you for your attendance. You have been of great assistance to the Committee, thank you.

 

Examination of Witnesses

Witnesses: Margaret Coleman, Regional Director, Learning and Skills Council Yorkshire and Humber, and Amelia Morgan, Chief Executive, Yorkshire Universities, gave evidence.

 

Q105 Chairman: Ms Coleman and Ms Morgan, welcome to the Committee's deliberations. I think you have been sitting patiently, waiting your turn to give evidence to us. You are most welcome. Would you like to just say a few words on who you are and what your role is in your organisation?

Margaret Coleman: My name is Margaret Coleman; I am the regional director of the Learning and Skills Council.

Amelia Morgan: My name is Amelia Morgan; I am CEO with Yorkshire Universities. We are the regional Higher Education Association and we work with all of the universities in Yorkshire.

 

Q106 Chairman: I will kick off the questions with a similar question to the first one that I put to our earlier witnesses. What do you see as the role of Yorkshire Forward? Do you think that it is sufficiently well understood in the region?

Margaret Coleman: Yorkshire Forward is the strategic body for the region, and it is meant to pull together regional economic strategy; to work with partners to align their efforts; to improve the region's competitiveness; and to promote the region. That role and responsibility are well understood by public sector partners, and they are relatively well understood by businesses, particularly larger and medium-sized businesses, the employer organisations and the TUC. If you asked the person in the street, I am not sure that they would have a full comprehension of Yorkshire Forward's role.

Amelia Morgan: I would echo Margaret's points. From a university perspective, it has been very good to have Yorkshire Forward driving a knowledge economy and promoting innovation. We have also worked on activities around higher-level skills-graduate employment and potential-in the region. Similarly, Yorkshire Forward's role is well understood by public sector bodies and stakeholders, with a strong emphasis on partnership working. I would echo that for the business community. Touch points are varied, so there are different levels of understanding. Among the wider public, the level of understanding is incredibly mixed, and it will depend on whether there is a renaissance agenda, or on events sponsored by Yorkshire Forward.

 

Q107Chairman: What do you see as Yorkshire Forward's role, specifically in relation to skills and higher education?

Amelia Morgan: Yorkshire Forward and the universities have a long-standing, mature relationship that is founded on partnership. Yorkshire Forward certainly regards the universities as a significant asset to the region, in terms of driving a knowledge economy and what coalesces around universities.

In terms of skills-Margaret may want to come in here-certainly we have had very productive dialogue with Yorkshire Forward over a period of time around productivity, economic competitiveness and the kinds of skills that the region will require, and how we shape that demand and the provision response from higher education and other providers-our colleagues in further education, for example.

 

Q108 Chairman: I will ask the same question that I asked the earlier witnesses. What do you think has happened in our region that would not have happened had it not been for Yorkshire Forward? You can specifically relate this to skills and higher education, if you wish. What do you see as the successes and failures of Yorkshire Forward over the past 10 years? In particular, as a colleague pointed out earlier, the region is still at the bottom of the league tables academically; do you think that we have done enough in that regard to improve our academic performance through Yorkshire Forward?

Margaret Coleman: I was quite surprised when that was mentioned in the earlier session. It is true that at the end of statutory education, Yorkshire and the Humber is still the worst-achieving region in the country, but we are showing improvement in terms of the adult population at levels 2 and 3. We have huge numbers of young people and young adults going into apprenticeships now, so I think that there are some good trends within the region. For instance, success rates for apprenticeships are higher than the national averages, and that is also true of the increased success rates of our further education colleges. There is a lot to celebrate, although one of the most troubling statistics in the region is the fact that the number of young people not in education, employment or training is the second worst of the nine regions. The number of young people whose intentions and engagement are not known is the worst statistic in the region.

We have had a very good relationship with Yorkshire Forward. We are a slightly younger quango than Yorkshire Forward. We were open for business in April 2001. In the beginning, there was no clarity about the role of the Learning and Skills Council and the role of Yorkshire Forward on the issue of skills. Over the lifetime of two chief executives in Yorkshire Forward, we have reached a well-understood relationship. We work with it on the contribution of skills to the regional economic strategy. Its funding has much greater flexibility, so it can pump-prime certain projects and initiatives, but it understands that we are the primary strategic and delivery organisation-or commissioning body, I suppose-for skills within the region.

We do quite a lot of Yorkshire Forward's spend on skills, particularly intermediate skills, rather than the higher-level skills that Amelia was talking about. Over the past 10 years or so of Yorkshire Forward, because of its flexible funding and its capacity to use very good marketing and PR, it has managed to bring some very important events to the region. When you were questioning the previous witnesses, Bollywood came to mind, in terms of promoting the region. The notion of "Yorkshire-Alive with Opportunity!" and the white rose symbol have been used by lots of partners; that was a Yorkshire Forward-developed logo for "Team Yorkshire". We have worked with Yorkshire Forward on skills in relation to the recession, and our successor organisations look forward to working with it on the low-carbon economy.

As for things that have not gone so well from my point of view, I would have liked a much stronger engagement with further education. The further education colleges in our region have not enjoyed the same positive relationships that Yorkshire universities have. Sorry, that was a bit rambling.

Amelia Morgan: From my perspective, one of the key successes of Yorkshire Forward is how it has transformed partnership working within the region. Yorkshire Universities predates the RDA. We obviously come from a background of collegiate and collaborative working, but we have certainly seen that Yorkshire Forward has galvanised partnership working in response to crises-flooding, for example-and/or longer-term investment in the regional economy and competitiveness.

I have talked about the knowledge economy but, for us, that has been an agenda that we share and on which we work well together. We found Yorkshire Forward open and good to work with overall. You mention failings, but on what we want to do better, we are very much interested in working on the international agenda-on promoting the region internationally and looking to attract inward investment. A number of our universities have a significant global reach, and we have an opportunity to capitalise on some of that. We have plans in place to move some of that forward.

Political and economic uncertainty is obviously of concern at the moment. We would be concerned if things stopped or were unpicked at this stage. Any potential inertia or further instability would be particularly unhelpful. That is one of the things that we would wish to flag up.

 

Q109 Mr. Cawsey: Again, I think it is slightly unfair when people come to the second evidence session having heard the first. I think that they should be made to go into soundproof booths and listen to some awful music, such as MP4 blaring away. I want to talk about something that was mentioned earlier, but I shall tilt it a little more towards your areas of expertise. As was mentioned earlier, RDAs have increased their responsibilities. For example, they are now administering regional development grants and the European regional development funds. Has that led to them not being able to deliver as effectively some of the things that they were there to deliver in the first place, such as skills? Or, to put it the other way around, has that clarified the fact that-certainly in your case, Margaret-skills is more a matter for your organisation?

Margaret Coleman: Before Yorkshire Forward took on its additional responsibilities, I think that we had done so. We have a very good relationship with Yorkshire Forward at all levels in the organisation, but I think that that has come about through robust discussion about the sort of strategic spend on skills. I would say that it still takes a lively interest in skills, particularly in relation to the work we have been doing with people under threat of redundancy and with workless people. It has also contributed about £5 million to the Train to Gain enhancement fund. I suppose that if we had any slight issue to take with it, it would be about how far in its partnership working it is able to attribute work to its partners, and congratulate them on the contribution that they have made to particular projects, rather than taking the credit almost entirely for itself.

Amelia Morgan: From our perspective, we have certainly not seen a lack of focus across the piece in terms of Yorkshire Forward's role. We see the strength of its commissioning approach to initiatives, whether around innovation or skills. We welcome that and have found it helpful, so there has been a move in the relationship with universities from being simple delivery partners to actually co-investing and collaborating together to generate ideas. That has certainly been incredibly welcome from our perspective.

 

Q110 Mr. Cawsey: So do you think that an RDA role is about commissioning rather than delivery itself, and do you think that Yorkshire Forward has that balance right, particularly on the skills agenda?

Margaret Coleman: I think that, largely, it does and that there has perhaps been slightly less clarity around things such as some of the work with those under threat of redundancy, particularly in Corus and Scunthorpe in south Yorkshire, and possibly around the Train to Gain enhancement fund. But I would say that it is definitely more commissioner than deliverer, and I think that is the corporate view. I think it is very important, however, that when there are trials and pilots of particular activity, partners know that is what they are, rather than an additional bit of delivery that you are not aware is going on somewhere in the region.

 

Q111 Mr. Cawsey: Should it ever be a deliverer? Is it a much more preferable system to have that clear separation, and that it commissions?

Margaret Coleman: I would say that it is preferable to have that separation and that, where there are to be delivery pilots, they are done by others-not necessarily ourselves, but I am thinking about learning providers, such as colleges, universities and private providers.

Amelia Morgan: I echo that. I think that, as a strategic body, a focus on commissioning and using appropriate vehicles is welcomed. It keeps the clarity of focus. Certainly, that is how it has tended to work in terms of working with universities. I think that, broadly, it has the balance right in terms of emphasis between delivery and commissioning.

 

Q112 Mr. Betts: Could you say something about the make-up of the Yorkshire Forward board and how well it represents your areas of interest?

Amelia Morgan: As you may well know, we have a vice-chancellor on the Yorkshire Forward board. He has been with the board for a number of years. We have found that that is incredibly helpful, in addition to working with other members of the Yorkshire Forward board and also our officer level. In terms of representatives from the business community, that is quite well placed. I certainly do not have any specific concerns about the make-up of the board.

 

Q113 Mr. Betts: Wouldn't you be happier if locally you could choose which vice-chancellor was on the Yorkshire Forward board rather than it being chosen for you by someone in Whitehall?

Amelia Morgan: We had good involvement with Yorkshire Forward in discussion about the representative on the board, given that the appointment process is done centrally. That for me is a tier 2 issue; it is about dialogue in terms of the outcomes that an individual would contribute to the make-up of the board, where Yorkshire Forward is trying to drive the agenda.

 

Q114 Mr. Betts: Don't you think it would be better if someone was on the board representing universities so that they spoke with authority, knowing that they had the support of their colleagues and were accountable to them, rather than having gone through an opaque appointment system that nobody quite understands, but someone emerges, a bit like the Pope?

Amelia Morgan: I have touched on the collegiate nature of the way that vice-chancellors work. Certainly, from our perspective we have good dialogue when the board comes together, as in the Yorkshire Universities Board of Vice-Chancellors. Our representative, Professor Arthur, is well versed in the issues of the sector in the region. I am not ignoring the appointment process, but in terms of genuine partnership working, that is a good appointment for us.

Margaret Coleman: In terms of skills, there has been a tension over the educational representation on the Yorkshire Forward board. In the past 10 years, first of all it was a vice-chancellor, then it was a college principal and now it is a vice-chancellor again. There is always a bit of tension between whether it is the higher education voice or the further education voice that is heard.

 

Q115 Mr. Betts: Why not both?

Margaret Coleman: Yes, why not have both? I suppose that in terms of skills there are some employers on the board who have really fine reputations in terms of investing in skills. Linda Pollard, who is the vice-chair, has long been associated with the Learning and Skills Council. In fact, she was briefly the regional chair and before that she was the chair of the LSC in North Yorkshire.

 

Q116 Mr. Betts: So generally you are satisfied with it?

Margaret Coleman: Generally I am satisfied, but if you were to ask the Association of Colleges, they might not be as satisfied.

 

Q117 Shona McIsaac: I want to pick up on some of the things you touched upon earlier. You mentioned some of the things that were in the PricewaterhouseCoopers report about education and skills and the region's performance in relation to that. I should like to have your assessment about not just where we are, but the progress that is being made towards the skills and innovation targets in the regional economic strategy.

Margaret Coleman: In terms of the engagement of people in Skills for Life, for instance-what Yorkshire Forward contributes to the Skills for Life target-in '07-'08 through Train to Gain alone, we had a 385% increase and a 549% increase in terms of achievement. So huge numbers of people are achieving who did not before.

 

Q118 Shona McIsaac: How many people would that be?

Margaret Coleman: Something like nearly 6,000 participants.

Let me give you the figures. It would be 22,600-the latest ones-and 10,400 achievements, so not numbers to be sneezed at. For level 3 there was a 404% increase in '08-'09 from the previous year, which was 13,300 participants. Achievements increased by 405%, which was 3,900. At level 2, we had 65,200 participants, a 65% increase on the previous year, and 29,100 achievements, which was 80%. There has been an increase through things such as Train to Gain and targeting levels 2 and 3. I mentioned earlier that Yorkshire Forward had contributed £5 million, so we have a £45 million pot with a Train to Gain enhancement fund. More businesses are accessing that, not just for NVQs but for non-accredited learning, and for leadership and management skills and higher level skills.

 

Q119 Shona McIsaac: But how does that relate to the targets in the regional economic strategy? That all sounds good but I want to get a feel for how other regions are performing. If they are performing better, we are still going to end at the bottom of the league table for schools.

Margaret Coleman: In terms of the statistics-though I am not sure this is entirely accurate, I am giving you an informed remark-we tend to be around fourth or fifth in terms of progress around Train to Gain and educating the adult population. I spoke earlier about where we are regarding the end of statutory education, which is very worrying. We were the second best region in the country for adding value up to the age of 19, by taking the 16-year-olds who were not doing so well and working through further education apprenticeships to get them somewhere decent. That value added-the distance travelled-is becoming pretty static, so that is something we need to look at. Unfortunately, the number of young people undertaking apprenticeships in the current year is down 6% on the previous year. The national figure is nearly 10% down, so we are not as bad in terms of going backwards as the national figure but I still wish we were going forward.

 

Q120 Shona McIsaac: What further action is needed from Yorkshire Forward to get to grips with this skills and innovation target?

Margaret Coleman: My view links to the idea of focus and alignment of effort. It is a question of increased focus on a limited number of priorities. It could be Skills for Life, it could be level 2, it could be apprenticeships. Those are all targets, but we need to agree which are the absolutely drop-dead targets, and the agencies should work together to deliver them for the good of the region.

Amelia Morgan: I echo Margaret's points, but there is a challenge around gaining more momentum. We have all seen the league tables for 0-19 education, and certainly there is a strong partnership approach, to which Margaret alluded, around alignment funding for growing our own talent and raising aspirations. That is absolutely integral to what we need to continue to do to gain momentum. In interpreting national policy, such as "New Industry, New Jobs", we need an integrated approach to investment planning for industries and skills in the future, so that it is clear where the emphasis should be when shaping learner demand. Employers can then articulate future needs, and the bodies responsible can align investment planning.

We have made considerable progress on innovation in dialogue with Yorkshire Forward. There is more to do to put the region on the radar of the research councils, in particular, and to encourage the flow of investment in good and world-leading science. We need to continue to align business support packages to enable businesses, particularly SMEs in our region, to invest in making their businesses more efficient and to innovate with regard to their products and services. What goes with that is a continued investment and prioritisation of culture change; investment in innovation should be integral to growing your own business. We have a way to go. Some of that is about infrastructure and allying university strengths to key industry priorities in the region. We certainly wish to see that being a long-term priority; we do not want short-termism.

 

Q121 Shona McIsaac: Essentially, you seem to be saying that there needs to be intervention to achieve those hopes.

Amelia Morgan: Yes. I don't think they would be achieved without it.

Margaret Coleman: We are saying that we think there should be greater focus, and that that focus should be more widely embraced across partners, because we can then all bring our efforts to bear on a particular number of outputs.

Amelia Morgan: Absolutely, particularly in the current economic climate. Real focus and action on an agreed set of priorities will be the key.

 

Q122 Mr. Cawsey: That leads quite nicely on to what I was about to say. I am interested in priorities, and I suppose that I am learning the lessons of history. A few years ago, I spoke to a retired senior manager at the steelworks in Scunthorpe. We were talking about the period during the '80s when there were massive job cuts. As well as that, training was cut back heavily and apprenticeships went down to very low numbers indeed. People who were skilled craftsmen were encouraged to leave and come back as contractors. It all went fine for a while, but eventually all those people retired and suddenly there was a skills shortage. I remember saying that I could not believe that that had not been foreseen. It was such an obvious thing. You did not have to be a genius to work it out.

I was interested in the answer, which was, "We were trying to keep the steelworks until the end of the year. We were not trying to keep it for the next five or 10 years. We were in such dire straits, and we were really worried that if we didn't take radical action, we would just be out of business, and would not be trading with anybody ever." You could see that to a certain extent. What is Yorkshire Forward doing at this particular moment? Just about all MPs, lots of businesses, local authorities and everyone must be saying to it, "This business is in dire straits, and that business is in dire straits. What are you going to do now to firefight and keep the jobs?" At the same time, Yorkshire Forward is still responsible for ensuring that we train and upskill people and have a good work force for the future. How will it perform when faced with such a dreadful dilemma?

Margaret Coleman: The LSC has worked most closely with Yorkshire Forward in the region on the financial services effort; that would probably be a good example. Yorkshire Forward commissioned Deloitte to do a study, not only on financial services and potential massive redundancies in Halifax and Bingley, but on how we could promote Yorkshire and the Humber as the centre of great expertise in financial services for the future, so that we could maintain Yorkshire and the Humber's leadership in financial services and convince external potential investors that the work force in Yorkshire and the Humber was raring to go.

I sat on the regional Minister's financial services task group, as did many of the major leaders in the financial houses and Jobcentre Plus. I would say that Yorkshire Forward, Jobcentre Plus and the LSC worked quite closely on that, particularly on skills. I assisted the consultant from Deloitte in writing the future skills bit of that report, largely because-I suppose that this seems like a mantra from me this afternoon-I was concerned that the report talked about schools and universities and rather missed what further education colleges and apprenticeships could contribute to skills in the region.

Amelia Morgan: You may be aware that, in terms of university engagement with Yorkshire Forward, the Higher Education Funding Council for England put a call out to the universities for a rapid response to support individuals and businesses through the recession, and Yorkshire and Humber was the most successful, comparative to size, in securing funding. We were the only region to secure match funding, using the Train to Gain enhancement fund, from Yorkshire Forward. That is about £6 million-worth of initiatives, led by university collaborations and including our lifelong learning networks. Those initiatives bring our colleagues in further and higher education together with local authorities to deliver local solutions-for example, consultancy, access to CPD, and training and development-to businesses and individuals. The initiatives also look at rolling out leadership and management skills to individuals who are either facing redundancy or have recently been made redundant. Those programmes are currently live and will assist more then 1,000 businesses and individuals over the next year or so. That was, for us, an excellent piece of partnership working.

We have been working with Margaret's team, our colleagues in Jobcentre Plus and others to ensure an integrated approach with good, sound referral mechanisms, so that we are not duplicating effort in responding to and supporting individuals and businesses. The other thing that we would highlight is that Yorkshire Forward has not taken the focus off the longer-term agenda, so there has been a good balance between mobilising effort and starting to look to the longer term, whether that be around adult skills-

Mr. Cawsey: You are nodding, Margaret.

Margaret Coleman: I agree.

 

Q123 Mr. Cawsey: That is interesting, so tell us a bit about how successful you think Train to Gain has been in the region.

Margaret Coleman: It has been very successful-almost so successful that it has been extremely difficult to manage. It is almost like managing a run on the bank, because there have been so many learning providers and businesses interested in Train to Gain. One of the things that maybe I should mention is that, from 1 April this year, Train to Gain referral and brokerage have been managed through Business Link, which Yorkshire Forward now looks after, so we had to transfer that to it, which went particularly smoothly, and I think that it is working rather well.

In '08-'09 we were at 109% of our target in terms of people who had engaged at all sorts of levels and had got some kind of achievement. There is such a huge demand for access to Train to Gain for all sorts of training, not just training relating to Government targets, such as level 2 and level 3, and skills for life, but also leadership and management and employers wanting to undertake non-accredited training, which is why we created the Train to Gain enhancement fund using the European social fund. Yorkshire Forward contributed £5 million to that.

We are also trying to increase the pot for Train to Gain, again by using the European social fund; it has been extremely difficult to manage the demand within the funding envelope because it has been so successful.

Amelia Morgan: I've mentioned our connection with Train to Gain. We have found that it has enabled employers to access a range of provision, including more flexible provision from universities, particularly around short courses. I would highlight that the Train to Gain enhancement fund is currently being used-as a form of match to the economic challenge fund from the Higher Education Funding Council-on internships for recent graduates in the region. That new programme has been rolled out and is already having an impact in raising awareness among the SME business community of the value of graduate skills and talent in increasing productivity. We see that as a significant positive outcome of using the funding flexibly and wisely around certain priorities.

 

Q124 Mr. Cawsey: My concern is not particularly with Train to Gain, which is obviously an employer-based system for improving business performance by upskilling existing employees. That is fine and all well and good, but I am concerned about the people who aren't employees and whose families may not have been employees for two or three generations. When Guardian Glass came to Goole, it had an open day for local people interested in employment there. The company told me afterwards that it was frankly appalled by the large number of people who could not get through a very basic literacy and numeracy test. Therefore, it was not surprised to learn that those people were long-term unemployed. I am sure there are other examples across the region. There seems to be little going on, and the numerous attempts to bring some skills training to Goole via the LSC and other partners have so far failed to materialise into anything. Although there is a lot of available labour-because people are out of work and can move across from other European countries-we are seeing the cementing in of an underclass that is not getting any skills training or help. What are Yorkshire Forward and the other partners doing? If the focus is on employees, it will ensure that the underclass stays there for ever.

Margaret Coleman: But Train to Gain is only one aspect.

Mr. Cawsey: I realise that. I am saying that I ain't seen much evidence of the other.

Margaret Coleman: Let me talk about that for a moment. Maybe I can say something about Goole. That story is very puzzling because Goole is on my radar as an important growth area with all the developments there. A number of activities are going on, alongside developing the skills of people in work. Although Yorkshire Forward is linked and involved, our major partner in delivery is Jobcentre Plus, through our integrated employment and skills programmes, which bring additional funds. Some of those are for young unemployed people, some for long-term and some for recently unemployed. We are also using some of our European social fund to try to develop that activity. Maybe we should have a discussion outside the meeting about developments in Goole.

Where an employer is trying to source local labour, we are keen to work with Jobcentre Plus on local employer partnerships, where the training and the jobs come hand in hand. People are trained through our funds or those of Jobcentre Plus in order to become employable, to have basic skills and all the rest of it. We want to work with employers to achieve that. For instance, you mentioned Corus earlier on. We have just put £100,000 into Corus across the region. Yorkshire Forward has been a strategic partner. It happens to be something that we are doing through the European social fund, a programme called Forging Ahead, which is offering one-to-one and small-group support to people who are under threat of redundancy, so there is quite a lot going on. I would say that in some of the areas Yorkshire Forward is offering the lead, either with local authorities in the localities or with particular employers-with some employers it is Jobcentre Plus, with some we take the lead. We try to work closely together, the three partners, in terms of addressing worklessness.

 

Q125 Mr. Cawsey: Is this too low level for your universities to be expressing a view?

Amelia Morgan: It is absolutely vital in terms of the regional economy, as you have already touched on, that we look at an employable work force, whether that is returning to work and/or the quality of education nought to 19. There is a clear leadership role for universities with schools, in terms of whether it would be around STEM-science, technology, engineering and maths-so that we have the appropriate skills and the right kinds of choices at the right kinds of levels.

The one thing that I would touch on is the role of the thematic board-the regional work and skills partnership. Part of its work is around tackling those not in employment, education or training. That thematic board, under the changes from the sub-national review, is now starting to build momentum and drive that forward, but obviously it has to connect to what is happening locally, to ensure that we get appropriate delivery and the right kinds of solution.

 

Q126 Mr. Cawsey: I'll say one more thing, and then shut up. It strikes me that I could go back now to parts of the area that I represent, and pretty much the same people and the same families would still be finding it difficult to move into reasonable permanent employment. Skills are a big issue in that.

Thinking of the two biggest developments that came to Capitol Park, there was the glass factory, which was always a slightly different kettle of fish because it was for skilled or at least semi-skilled people to move into anyway. A lot of local people who have those skills are now doing those jobs-that's great. Then put alongside that Tesco with a large distribution centre and many hundreds of jobs, which have a degree of skills that are necessary but not very high skills like degrees or anything else. Yet what I find is that the centre has hundreds of people who are not from the area at all-most are not even from this country-and I still have this rump of people who I think could be doing those jobs. Somehow we are not doing enough to give people the basic skills they need to be able to take forward those opportunities. Yorkshire Forward was great at getting the place to come-absolutely brilliant-but I just wonder how many more of my constituents got employment as a result.

Margaret Coleman: Part of the trick of getting the employers to come would be saying that we expect them to employ local people and to have apprenticeships. I think that that is something that in terms of public procurement is going on with local authorities. I am not sure how far it goes on in-

Mr. Cawsey: In the private sector. What I'm told is that they always agree to it but then never bother with it. But there we are-once they're there and have had the grants, there is not much you can do.

Chairman: Shona?

 

Q127 Shona McIsaac: Can I come back in? I'll drop my final questions as a deal. I want to echo what Ian is saying. Certainly, this is a problem in my area and around the region, but I think it is more graphically demonstrated in towns such as Goole, and areas such as Grimsby and Cleethorpes, where there were industries in which thousands of people could work-the fishing industry particularly. You did not have to have literacy and numeracy skills, so no real value was placed on educational training within the community. Those attitudes go very deep and down through the generations.

Marvellous work was done to bring new jobs into the coalfield areas, but I have a feeling that there is a mismatch in the region that Yorkshire Forward is not recognising. We have pockets, one of which is Goole. There is some evidence of it in Scunthorpe. There are similar problems in Hull, but they relate to the huge industry that employed thousands of people where literally no numeracy or literacy skills were required. If you have a grandfather with that type of attitude, it will permeate down through the generations.

I know that the Skills for Life programme is out there. As Ian says, it gets to a certain group of people, but it is not getting through to those who feel totally disconnected from educational aspiration. Given that they are some of the targets that have been identified, what more do you think Yorkshire Forward could be doing to assist councils to get under the skins of the communities to get to grips with the issue?

Margaret Coleman: It goes back to what Amelia and I were saying about choosing priorities and focus. My sense is that Yorkshire Forward is much more engaged with higher level skills than with basic numeracy, literacy and intermediate skills. As for the coastal strip of the east, there is a great deal to be said about developing a strategy for those particular locations. It is not as though there are not absolutely excellent deliverers of skills there. For example, Grimsby Institute of Further and Higher Education, which serves both Grimsby and Cleethorpes, has an excellent reputation, as does Hull college. Within the Humber is the Humber Learning Consortium, a very successful third sector organisation. I am the Learning and Skills Council national champion for third sector issues. Perhaps there is something about Yorkshire Forward engaging more systematically with the third sector as well, which traditionally has managed to reach out to the hardest-to-reach in respect of low-level skills and building ambitions of confidence.

Chairman: I am conscious of the fact that we might need to go and vote so, if we could reach the end of our session before that, it would be better for all concerned.

 

Q128 Mr. Mitchell: Some time ago, we talked about Train to Gain. Can you tell us about the effects on Train to Gain and the other opportunities offered to young people for training at different colleges in our area of the revelations in The Observer on Sunday about imminent cuts-almost disguised as "efficiency savings" in Government-speak? Is what was said accurate? How will it hit our area? Are you in a position to tell us?

Margaret Coleman: I am not in a position to tell you about funding beyond 2009-10. For 2009-10, which is up until the end of the Learning and Skills Council, the funding to our region has not been as high as I would have wished. That is because there was a finite envelope of funding and the Learning and Skills Council nationally had to work within that envelope and manage the cash flow, as a consequence of which there were particular limits on the amounts that regions could have. In Yorkshire and the Humber, we could have done much more business through Train to Gain than we had the funds to do and that is a disappointment to me. That is why I mentioned earlier that we have used European funding to increase the pot so that we can do more business in that way.

In the future, the Train to Gain programme from 1 April 2010 will be the responsibility of the Skills Funding Agency. The Skills Funding Agency will have a regional presence, but it is a next step national agency and part of BIS.

 

Q129 Mr. Mitchell: If the savings go ahead, you will have to trim your sails even more tightly and cut down the number of places.

Margaret Coleman: I don't know the extent of the efficiency savings. I have heard horror stories about the amounts that there are going to be. I expect we will know when we get our grant letter later this year.

 

Q130 Mr. Mitchell: Okay. I just observe that my revelations came as a bit of a shock. Let us come on to the transitional arrangements, now that the LSC is being scrapped. Could you tell us what the transitional arrangements are? Would you also reflect on the major cock-up the LSC created in the funding of three building programmes, when the regions were clearly encouraging institutes, such as the Grimsby Institute, to knock the lot down, which I think they did in Barnsley?

Chairman: I don't think that is relevant to the inquiry.

Mr. Mitchell: It is, because there was a breakdown in communication between the regional bodies and the national one. Now there is to be a new framework, could that breakdown happen again?

Chairman: The Building Colleges for the Future programme is not to do with the work of Yorkshire Forward. That was to do specifically with the LSC, so I am going to say, "Don't answer that question."

Mr. Mitchell: But the building has to do with Yorkshire Forward.

Chairman: I am conscious of the time, as well.

Margaret Coleman: There is a very important issue about Yorkshire Forward that I have talked to the chief executive about. As the mechanisms for future capital funding come into being, there is an expectation that there will be co-funders, and the RDAs would be important co-funders of college capital. Yorkshire Forward has no history of contributing to further education college capital; it has contributed to private sector and higher education capital. Indeed, a higher education centre is about to be built in Grimsby. I have been urging Yorkshire Forward to bear that in mind, because I don't want the colleges in this region to be disadvantaged if their RDA doesn't want to make a contribution to capital development.

 

Q131 Mr. Mitchell: Are the local authorities going to be ready to take up the burden?

Margaret Coleman: Some local authorities have already done so, by finding-and sometimes contributing-land. Some local authorities will need to take a much closer interest than they are doing at the moment. Some are very good, particularly East Riding, which is working closely with East Riding College on its potential capital build in Beverley.

 

Q132 Mr. Mitchell: Will Yorkshire Forward be able to help those authorities?

Margaret Coleman: I have sent figures of all the RDA capital contributions across the nine regions to Yorkshire Forward, to show it what has been done in other areas, but I am not aware that it is revising its capital investment.

 

Q133 Mr. Betts: Is Yorkshire Forward doing enough, in terms of investing and promoting research and development? Could it do more? There is still a golden triangle in the university world; we don't seem to be able to break out of it and get the recognition that we should for research facilities in Yorkshire universities. Should Yorkshire Forward be doing more in that regard? Has it failed, or is it beyond an RDA to achieve more in that field?

Amelia Morgan: Yorkshire Forward has contributed significantly to promoting the region as a good place to invest in research and development. We welcomed initiatives such as the Science Council and the regional innovation strategy, which set out an ambitious vision for the region. We are aware that the research power in our region is growing all the time. The White Rose consortium of York, Leeds and Sheffield may seem the most research-intensive body, but the recent research assessment exercise highlighted pockets of high-quality, world-class research in other institutions. I think that we have been particularly successful in highlighting those collaborative strengths-whether they be in environmental technologies, health care or advanced manufacturing-in which we can be world-leading and which can attract and get that kind of inward investment so that you then foster collaborative partnerships with business and build the capacity, utilising the high-quality science and expertise to attract further investment and collaborations. I am not sure if I have completely covered your question.

 

Q134 Mr. Betts: Have the RDAs done as well as they can? Is there any more that they could do?

Amelia Morgan: What we have to do now is to ensure that the business support mechanisms to foster investment in R and D align with those aspirations, so that we promote investment in innovation in the broadest sense. One of the initiatives, for example, is the innovation voucher scheme in which, as you may be aware, we already offer a £3,000 voucher to encourage businesses to innovate. A significant proportion of them already collaborate with universities. We are getting good referral between universities and Business Link, which is already starting to generate efficiencies and improvements in businesses. We need more of that, and also more of a coherent perspective-whether it be to inward investment or to a "Team Yorkshire" approach to promoting knowledge-rich university assets-when trying to attract businesses. We should then create the mechanisms that encourage them to invest and grow their business in our region.

Chairman: Ms Coleman, Ms Morgan, thank you for your attendance today; we are most grateful.