It’s a given to say everyone in the economic development profession is focused on delivering prosperity for their region.
For local government, as the main vehicle for economic prosperity, success is measured via the creation of local jobs and efficient local expenditure and provision of services which, in turn, creates revenue for the council.
However, there is a tension in local government – that creating jobs is seen as the greatest need over winning and attracting new businesses to their area.
Amazon Web Services may set up a data warehouse in the local area that will, in itself, require fewer than 40 direct staff to operate. But the bigger picture is that you have the world’s biggest cloud computing company investing over £100m on your doorstep, which has a knock-on effect during construction and through its ongoing supply chain.
Yet councils and many local enterprise partnerships measure success solely on job creation. Once new jobs are secured, they may then look to participate in the longer term vision of that business and shared industry infrastructure investments that aren’t solely about employment, as well as scoping out plans for future industries.
For this is where the UK is heading – and fast. There will still be a high street in two decades, but on the horizon the biggest fish in the supply chain will increasingly shift to robotics, artificial intelligence, computer centres, life sciences, advanced manufacturing and space, industries which require fewer jobs but require large capital expenditure.
In my experience, I’m not sure that all local governments (especially in England) have the tools to adapt the connection with national growth agendas and the industrial strategy to develop the so-called ‘future industries’, and fully exploit these for the benefit of local areas. But, in part due to more grants being available, there are clearly some pockets of very good practice across the UK that many English local governments could seek to learn from.
Wales has done this well, with the development of brownfield sites to secure long-term defence manufacturers to the region which is creating a huge export market for them.
Scotland is very good at attracting advanced manufacturing businesses and they fund and incentivise companies to go there which then has an impact on jobs created through the supply chain.
Bombardier Aerospace in Northern Ireland is a success story, though, due to Northern Ireland being relatively removed from the rest of the UK economy, the shift in unemployment is very sensitive and they appear to focus on local job creation over anything else.
The industrial strategy, which is currently out for consultation, needs to provide some transparency about the areas of focus for growth, and in turn local government needs to respond effectively, having assessed their natural strengths to future growth industries.
But equally councils must become set up to deliver this dual challenge of both job creation and inward investment of critical industry infrastructure, such as space ports around the country.
The reality is that both are needed – but rarely does local government succeed in rejuvenating an area through a long-term commitment to jobs while also creating plans for future expansion.
So, here are eight questions that economic development and inward investment teams in local government should be asking themselves: