We need a 'C20' summit
Author: Dermot FinchDate: 02/04/2009
Publication: Local Government Chronicle
All eyes have been on the summit of leaders from the G20 group of nations this week.
Gordon, Barack and co should by now have signed their communiqué, calling for more concerted global action to combat this global recession. Looking beyond the G20, and this month's Budget, what further action is now needed at the local level here? Many of the root causes of this recession are global, and they do demand global solutions. That's what the G20 was all about.
But the real-life impacts are local. Job losses and business closures are now mounting in specific cities, from Hull to Plymouth. The actual fallout is different in different places. London will be hit the hardest, but will recover more strongly than other cities. Cities such as Barnsley and Swindon look more exposed than York and Reading.
These local impacts call for more concerted local action. Not just global communiqués and national initiatives, but powerful, city-level action plans. Many cities have already put their own action plans in place, but these are not radical or wide enough. Our cities in particular need more powers and flexibilities to get through this recession, and retain as many jobs as possible. Just as the G20 countries need to collaborate and co-ordinate their recovery plans, so too do local authorities across the UK.
Alistair Darling's Budget will have to square a very big circle. What more can the government do to kick-start our economy back into growth, given the dire state of our public finances? How much scope is there for further fiscal stimulus, on top of the £20bn announced in last year's pre-Budget report? Not much, according to the governor of the Bank of England and the Conservatives.
Meanwhile, every local authority is now feeling the squeeze. Pressures on budgets are intense, as demand grows for welfare support and advice about debt. Many councils are already cutting jobs. Leeds has announced that 650 jobs will be going over the next year, and more cities are likely to follow as we approach the 2010 spending review.
While they struggle to cope with increased demands on their services, councils are doing what they can to support their local economies and tackle the worst effects of the recession.
Many councils have now got their own 'recession action plan' - with basic steps such as prompt payments for local businesses, more council apprenticeships, and innovative moves such as the proposals to establish a 'Bank of Essex' .
These proposals are welcome, but won't be enough to stem the flow of job losses. That is why the chancellor should announce some targeted, time-limited spending measures to support urban economies in his Budget, for example, to freeze business rates for one year, invest in public transport, and support new house-building.
The ability of councils to respond to the full force of the recession is hugely hampered by their limited powers and flexibilities. That is why we support the Core Cities Group proposals for accelerated development zones, and the plans for new forerunner city-regions.
City leaders need much more flexibility to target resources to where they are most needed. Despite progress on local area agreements, local authorities' hands are still too tied. We need to move towards single budgets for our biggest cities (like Birmingham), where local leaders can target funding more effectively - and also achieve efficiency savings.
It's too late to stop this recession, but we can at least start preparing our cities for the next one. Gordon Brown should now add the 'C20' to his diary - a high-level summit with the 20 largest cities in the UK, to agree on an urban action plan for combating the recession here at home.
A version of this article first appeared in the Local Government Chronicle.
