ur local economic approach is working for the few, not the many. A dominant ‘growth at all costs’ agenda is not delivering socially or even working particularly well for local growth. Backed by the treasury, the agenda has worked for some areas, but, overall, growth is anaemic: low wages, insecure work, and inequality. However, there is change afoot. Inclusive growth appears to be slipping onto the mainstream agenda.
The UK was once proud of local government and its employees. Today, through a combination of disrespect and neglect, we are dangerously blasé. Today, a dark cloud hangs over them despite their great efforts in very hard times. Talented people have left, and, as services reduce, capacity is being hollowed out.
From time to time a new phrase is coined. Sometimes the new phrase articulates a new solution, at other times it reinvigorates an old one, or – more cynically – masks it. In economic development we now have the phrase ‘inclusive growth’. Does inclusive growth represent a step change or is it just a new oxymoronic phrase for the failing cycle of growth and exclusion? Maybe it’s just semantics, a new term for the toxic ‘trickle down’?
More devolution of powers and budgets from Whitehall offers councils the chance to tackle poverty and inequality by ‘doing things differently’.
A think-tank has urged councils to use new devolved powers from Westminster to help tackle poverty and inequality.
CLES has been working as part of a consortium with Carnegie UK Trust, University of Stirling and the Scottish Towns Partnership. Commissioned and funded by Carnegie UK Trust and the Scottish Government, the consortium have now devised the UK’s first and unique online tool, which has facts and figures for all 479 towns and cities across Scotland.
The cuts imposed on councils are too steep, happening too fast and unfairly distributed. There needs to be real-terms growth in the resources given to local government and distribution according to social need.
Too often policy has little empathy toward the poorest. We already know that the policy default settings, such as trickle down and a ‘rising economic tide will lift all boats’ are just not strong enough to tackle poverty, even in times of growth. But increasingly, some policy seems alarmingly detached from the plight of the poorest. We don’t need to look very far to see this detached lack of empathy. It’s in the words of politicians, who denounce the benefit claimant as ‘a shirker’, but applaud the virtues of elite greed.
Ill health is not just a social problem, says the chief executive of the Centre for Local Economic Strategies. For the past four months an independent inquiry has been sifting through evidence to examine why health inequalities are growing both within the north of England and between the north and the rest of the country.
Local enterprise partnerships are dominated by large businesses to the detriment of growth in our communities. Small businesses account for 47% of the UK’s private sector employment and around a third of turnover, but they are being left out of the loop when it comes to shaping and nurturing local economic growth.
This connectedness with the social sphere should be central to any local economic development. What is the point of local economic development if it does not deliver social outcomes or address poverty? In this we need to think about building a local civil economy – an economy which is decent, fair and works for people.
