Opinion Piece - Blog

Local government & the commons: the time has come

From Barcelona to Cleveland, from Paris to Belo Horizonte, cities are increasingly questioning the growth machine urbanism of the past 30 years. This new municipalist movement is not about adding social and environmental concerns to a traditional urban agenda; this is a change of the political and economic model. A model that seeks to redress the failings of liberal economics, by building a more economically and socially just alternative.

In June 2017 the new municipalist movement gathered in Barcelona – a city at the forefront of progressive urban policy – for Fearless Cities, the first international municipalist summit. Community organisations, city-mayors, councillors and citizens from six continents met to discuss the potential of cities to ‘spur democratic transformation across the world’. The dense three day programme included sessions ranging from remunicipalisation to developing feminist economies, through to bringing radical democracy into the city council.

Including the excluded to build a more inclusive society

“…we must think of the relationships between citizen and state before we think of the structures…realising a common language, shared values, empathy, respect and a way to work together is essential”. – Jenny Rouse

Earlier this month, CLES held an event to close the first phase of our ‘Elephants in the Room’ series. Funded by Lankelly Chase, the event reflected on a year’s worth of work undertaken in Greater Manchester, bringing together 15 decision makers and 15 people with lived experience of severe disadvantage to build an understanding of how they could work in partnership to tackle the causes of inequality in the region.

Elephants in the room

Within the public and voluntary sectors, the coming together of citizens and professionals to design, deliver and evaluate public services is often called ‘coproduction’ and is very of-the-moment. The idea is that citizen’s knowledge and first-hand experiences of disadvantage are just as valuable as the professional knowledge and budgets of people working in these sectors. If these two forms of knowledge come together effectively, the result should be services with a greater potential to change lives.

Improving the social efficiencies of local markets is not protectionism

Over the course of the last ten years, the Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES) has undertaken work around, what we call, ‘Local Wealth Building’. This work has sought to challenge the orthodoxy of the UK’s approach to economic development. In recent weeks, this work has been portrayed by national media as a core cog in reinvigorating our local economies and places. It has come with some critique, the more pertinent of which this piece seeks to address.

What is Local Wealth Building?

Local Wealth Building is a growing movement in Europe and the USA, and the ideas and practice of local wealth building are coming to the fore as a reaction against a liberal economic approach to ideas, and the extractive nature of return on local inward investment. The orthodox assumption that economic benefits will ‘trickle-down’ to the local economy and will benefit communities is being challenged, like never before.

A true Living Wage – 5 reasons it’s needed

The new real Living Wage was announced this week as part of the Living Wage Foundation’s ‘Living Wage Week’ and reveals the work still needed to ensure employees and families are paid what they need to live. As part of CLES’ belief in progressive economics for people and place, CLES has contributed to the Greater Manchester Living Wage Campaign and our work around community wealth building through anchors has supported the proliferation of the Living Wage.

There has been progress in this agenda, but there is work to do to ensure that everyone is paid a fair wage for a fair day’s work. It is not enough to view job creation as success, we need good employment, which is secure, paid fairly, and provides opportunities for progression. This blog highlights why the advancement of a true Living Wage is important.

The impact of devolution upon frontline services

At the Labour Party Conference in Brighton last month, CLES and APSE launched their report looking into ‘The impact of devolution upon frontline services’. This report set out to look at why Frontline services have been absent in devolution rhetoric to date. A surprise given the ‘localise’ ethos is key to the devolution deals.

Gaps in the Greater Manchester Strategy

The new Greater Manchester Strategy ‘Our People, Our Place’ was launched last week with ten new priorities announced to make Greater Manchester one of the best places in the world to grow up, get on and grow old. With a compelling focus on people – described by Mayor Andy Burnham as Greater Manchester’s ‘greatest asset’ – and some whispers of alternative economics, the Strategy shows a marked shift towards new priorities for GM. However, its strength will be in its delivery, and there are some gaps that could be addressed to go further towards achieving the goals set out in the strategy.

People and Place

Collaboration between the public, private and voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) sectors to deliver place based growth which benefits local people is at the forefront of the new strategy; certainly in rhetoric terms.

Community Wealth Building: harnessing the potential of anchor institutions in Preston

Anchor institutions bring wealth in the form of jobs and supply chains; they are rooted in place and as such are vital to the functioning of our local economies. In Preston, anchor institutions have started to realise their potential and make significant contributions to wider local economic development, as our latest spend analysis illustrates.

Over the last six years, CLES and Preston City Council have been working together to harness the potential spending power of seven local anchor institutions: Preston City Council, Lancashire County Council, Preston’s College, the University of Central Lancashire, Cardinal Newman College, Lancashire Constabulary, and Community Gateway. In our work we have sought to collectively change cultures and behaviours so that greater economic, social and environmental benefit is derived for the Preston economy and its residents.

Barcelona: building a new local economics

‘We are living in extraordinary times, that need bravery and creative solutions.’ – Ada Colau, Mayor of Barcelona.

I recently visited Barcelona – invited to attend and speak at Municilab. The visit builds on ongoing activity that CLES is undertaking with organisations within the city. This two-day event was a fascinating and exciting exploration of municipalism, and how to build a more social and economically just Barcelona.

Wealth for all: an activist local government

Re-municipalisation? Not the catchiest term, but across Europe and the UK, local government is on the rise. Instead of succumbing to the inevitability of decline and being the last line in mopping up social pain, more people within local government are stepping in – making the economy work better for all.

For many years, economic growth hitched to public sector reform has been the mantra. For some areas it is working, but growth is often meagre or fails to trickle down, and reform is often eroded by demand. The promise of a ‘devolution revolution’ turned into an evolution and is now largely stalled. Inclusive growth has opened doors to a questioning look at economic growth policy but it’s more geared toward national policy. Indeed, warm words around ‘unlocking the potential of growth’ offers nothing particularly new to what many local authorities have been doing for years in terms of adopting living wage policies, working with local business and local labour markets. However, alone this is no enough.

Podcast: Where next for the Greater Manchester economy?

Professor Diane Coyle (Co-Director of Policy@Manchester) and Neil McInroy (Chief Exec of CLES) discuss the economic and social challenges faces Greater Manchester and how they’d like to see them tackled.

Podcast hosted by Jess Lishak of Policy@Manchester. Listen here or download.

A new urban economic agenda: localise, socialise, and democratise

There are sensible ways through which we can reorganise the UK economy, argues CLES CEO, Neil McInroy. He explains how a new urban economic agenda can be implemented and how it can help build a more socially just future.

All things must pass and the dominant urban economic model of the last few years is starting to creak, and a new progressive agenda is threatening to replace it. At its core is a rejection of liberal economics, a questioning of urban economic policy, and a desire to reorganise our city economies: social justice and environmental sustainability are not just hopes but central objectives.

Yes, we should move public sector anchors out of London

Today, the Centre for Cities (CfC) issued a new report suggesting that the re-location of the BBC to Salford has had minimal impact on employment across Greater Manchester and that city-regions looking to attract public sector organisations should not overplay the potential benefits. The work is framed by analysis of the types of jobs which have been re-located, the sectors where jobs growth have happened over the last five years, and the scope of displacement of jobs from across wider Greater Manchester.

While it is important to highlight quantitatively the short-term impact of re-location on employment change, the Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES) would argue that any assessment of impact of public sector re-location has to go beyond employment. We would argue that the BBC re-location has brought a whole host of benefits for the direct MediaCity locality, for the City of Salford, and for Greater Manchester including:

Broadening out an economy: making it work for all

The recent report from the Industrial Strategy Commission, ‘Laying the Foundations’ [1], outlined the key foundations for a successful long-term industrial strategy, one which can shape our future economy, and the recent Taylor review of modern working practices [2] is potentially laying the foundations for how we might work in our future economy. But will they make it work for all?

A new lens for industrial policy?

In January, we argued what a modern industrial strategy should look like, suggesting again, in May, that an industrial strategy that works for all places, should present a devolved approach to building a more foundational, collaborative and co-operative economy, developing industrious places and people, not just our traditional industrial sectors. So, it is pleasing to see the Commission advocate more of a place based and a whole economy approach. One delivered locally, where social policy is not separate but intrinsic to any industrial strategy. The Commission agrees that trade-offs between short term efficiency and long-term equity should be considered more seriously, arguing we need to invest in infrastructure to create the conditions for growth in all places. The report challenges the current methods of appraising the benefits of public investments, suggesting they disproportionately benefit parts of the UK where the economy is already strong, so we clearly need to adopt a new lens if we are to deliver an economy for all.

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Opinion Piece - Blog

Local government & the commons: the time has come