CLES Summit 2013: Time for a ‘coalition of belligerents’

This year’s CLES summit, held in Manchester the day after the spending review, was filled with calls for anger and protest, for more belligerence from local councils, and for moving on from the past to forge a new way forward for local areas.

Neil McInroy, chief executive of CLES, set the scene for the day: ‘This is a transition moment. We’ve come from security and are moving to a place unknown. We need to create a new system for how economy and place work together.’

With the backdrop of even further cuts to the budgets of local councils, CLES chair Michael Ward began by describing the economy as ‘not waving but drowning’ and called the spending review a ‘huge theatrical coup which sees declining revenues, falling output and productivity obscured by a display of dazzling projects’.

But there was a sense that, amid the gloomy new reality, a new way forward is emerging. Here’s a snapshot of some of the ideas that came from the day:

• An asset-based approach: David Boyle, a fellow at the New Economics Foundation, made the case for cities and places to use what they have. ‘There is a learned helplessness about British cities’, he said. ‘They’ve learned to take handouts and inward investment and neither of those are around now’. But places are finding new futures by using the people and resources they have, such as Ludlow creating a food economy and Cleveland, Ohio localising the spend of its institutions.
• Focus on priorities: Alex Jones, chief executive at the Centre for Cities, urged cities to forge their own destinies based on what they need rather than on national priorities.
• Stop the spatial divide: Writer Lynsey Hanley made a plea for interventions to stop the huge divide within and between places, citing Blackpool Council leader’s decision to give breakfast to all schoolchildren. As she said: ‘He couldn’t afford to and couldn’t afford not to.’
• Forget the past. It wasn’t that good anyway: Professor Henry Overman from the London School of Economics, made a provocative case for the money that was wasted in the past. ‘Shiny buildings don’t generate jobs and Legi [Local Enterprise Growth Initiative] was about shifting jobs about a kilometre’, he said. ‘A lot of stuff we advocated was wrong. Local authorities can do things better. We need to have the conversations about how we improve the lives of poor families with less resources.’
• Create local banks: Richard Kemp, leader of the Liberal Democrat Party Group at Liverpool Council, is proposing a Bank of Liverpool and for the powers the north once had to be reclaimed. ‘We had our own economic tools in the past. Today if we’re lucky decisions about Liverpool will be made by politicians in London; if we’re unlucky they’ll be made by financiers in Shanghai.’
• Invest in your town and people. Jim McMahon, the leader of Oldham Council, has created an investment framework for the town, including a job guarantee for young people, and is using the assets already in the town – its land banks and social capital. ‘Oldham belongs to its people. The primary responsibility comes from them. We all need to roll our sleeves up and do better.’
• Stop using the word ‘growth’. Ann Pettifor called for a shift away from the idea of growth in favour of the term ‘economic activity’ and to create jobs through greening the economy. ‘The world I dream of is labour intensive. We grow our own food and work locally.’
• Merge departments in localities. ‘Why are there six HR departments and multiple procurement offices in a single region?, asked Richard Kemp. He called for more partnerships at the local level.
• Focus on local supply chains and businesses. Research from Localise West Midlands made a powerful case for moving away from inward investment, multinationals and absentee landlords in favour of boosting local businesses. And Transition Town Totnes talked through its local economic blueprint, which proves the value of local investment.
• Invest in second tier cities: Chris Murray from the Centre for Cities, talked through the problems with the UK’s over-reliance on London. ‘First do no harm’, he said, ‘At the very least devolution won’t make things worse’.
• Understand the role of the voluntary sector: Richard Caulfield, chief executive of Voluntary Sector North West, said: ‘We are not about replacing the state.’ He wants acknowledgement of the weaknesses of the commissioning process and the dangers of relying on social finance. ‘Grant funding is a great way to support all the activity the voluntary sector does.’
• Get angry: Richard Caulfield also called for more protest, for the overturning of the bedroom tax and the 7-day wait for benefits and for challenges to the narrative of the demonisation of the poor.
• Get belligerent: Neil McInroy ended the conference by calling for a ‘different type of centralism’, for reform of Whitehall and the City of London, for federalism to ‘rear its head’ and for ‘a coalition of belligerents’ from the social, business and public sectors to ‘go back to our institutions and prepare to get belligerent’.

A selection of Tweets and images from the day can be found here