Dermot Finch's speech to the Leeds City Region Summit 2009

Date: 27/11/2009

Thanks for inviting me to speak at today's Summit.

Well done

First, well done to all the Leeds City Region partners for signing your pilot programme today.

Centre for Cities has championed city-regions for the last five years. We've consistently called on individual local authorities to collaborate more across real economic areas. And we've advocated for more formal city-regions, with powers over transport, housing and skills. That's exactly what you're agreeing to do today.

If we're honest, you weren't first in line to sign up a year or two ago. So extra congratulations for getting so far.

We nearly didn't get here. Not that long ago, people were saying city-regions are dead. Lots of city-regions were worrying about what to call themselves. And we were spending too much time on the internal wiring of city-regions, rather than what they can deliver.

City-regions should be more like TV. I'm not interested in how a telly works. I just want to watch Corrie and X Factor. The same goes for Leeds City Region. You've now sorted the internal wiring. After today's switch-on, you need to focus on delivering real programmes for the 3 million people that live here.

Delivery

You've picked your team of 10 local authorities. And you've lined up your Boards and Plans for housing and regeneration, employment and skills, transport and innovation. You now need to get on and deliver.

Leeds City Region can now start to reverse the tide of centralisation. But you won't be able to blame Whitehall as much. Now that you are more in the driving seat, you will need to take real responsibility for some tough decisions on cuts and investment.

You are best-placed to decide on how to spend housing and transport budgets. But you will have to do more with less. And you'll soon have to consider combining functions like planning and economic development - to save cash, to pool expertise and to drive forward your plans.

Interdependence

The towns and cities within Leeds City Region are becoming more interdependent, and each play a different economic role within this economy. That's the main finding of the recent report we did for The Northern Way, with The Work Foundation.  

We looked at commuter flows in and out of Leeds:

• York is quite independent - only 5% of York residents work in Leeds, and hardly any Leeds residents work in York.
• By contrast, Wakefield is quite dependent on Leeds for jobs - 14% of its residents work in Leeds, but only 3% of Leeds residents work in Wakefield.
• Bradford's labour market overlaps a lot with Leeds - 10% of its residents work in Leeds, and 6% of Leeds residents now work in Bradford.

Leeds City Region needs to acknowledge this interdependence. You should push for more collaboration between your 11 local authorities, and less parochialism - so you can compete more effectively, nationally and globally. This won't be easy.

Leeds is the key driver of the City Region, with its deep and diverse retail and financial services sectors. Above all, the City Region should focus on strengthening growth in Leeds. At the same time, you should build on the distinct assets of all your other towns and cities - from York to Barnsley. And make sure that your transport, skills and housing are helping people to access jobs.

The City Region pilot should help you do this - with simpler funding packages, joint plans, and better coordination with Yorkshire Forward and other agencies.

Where next?

This pilot is just the start. Most of it is common sense, and should have happened a while ago. There's much more to do.

I have one main critique: the pilot talks more about "alignment" than "autonomy". That's because the City Region will have to coordinate its plans with a lot of existing national and regional strategies - and all those Whitehall departments, the Regional Development Agency, Homes & Communities Agency, Skills Funding Agency, etc.

Over the next five years, you should press for more autonomy over transport, skills and housing budgets. A Single Budget for the Leeds City Region should be the next goal, with you leading and deciding on your own priorities.

You should also use your clout and scale to push for more revenue-raising powers, so you can invest in your own infrastructure priorities. Retaining and pooling the whole of the Business Rate across the City Region would be a powerful tool - and would help you fund potential new vehicles like Accelerated Development Zones.

Party politics

To be honest, the Leeds City Region pilot is a bit of a headache for all three main parties. It highlights the tensions between regions, city-regions and local authorities - and raises some tricky questions about elected mayors.

Labour is the only party wedded to regional development agencies in their present form. Although the Leeds City Region has emerged on this Government's watch, Ministers have given only muted support to city-regions and still see RDAs as the dominant player in each region. There has not been much support for Economic Prosperity Boards today - permanent, binding, statutory city-regions - so it's not clear that Leeds City Region will go down that route.

The Conservatives have been inconsistent on RDAs. Caroline Spelman told the Tory conference last month that "regionalism will go - lock, stock and barrel". But her colleagues have said that each RDA will be judged on a case-by-case basis, and some like One North East could survive. This is confusing. Between now and the election campaign, the party needs to clarify its position on RDAs - so that voters know whether RDAs are staying or going.

The Conservatives' proposals for single-authority elected mayors in 12 cities also need to be revised. For the Leeds City Region, these proposals mean there could be an elected mayor in Leeds and in Wakefield. This would go against the grain of the Leeds City Region. Just as the City Region is getting its act together, two elected mayors in two different parts of the City Region would be a distraction. A single Metro Mayor for the whole Leeds City Region would be a much better idea - armed with a large personal mandate, and able to extract more powers for the City Region.

The Liberal Democrats' position is equally unclear. Vince Cable told their conference in Bournemouth that he would scrap RDAs. But what would he do with the RDAs' programmes on regeneration, skills and business support? The Lib Dems haven't been very vocal on city-regions, so I'm not sure what they would do with Leeds City Region.  

The Centre for Cities believes that, over time, Leeds City Region should take on more financial powers - maximum flexibility on spending, through a Single Budget; and new revenue-raising powers, like a pooled Business Rate. And if the City Region is to have real impact on the national and global stage, it should ultimately be represented by a Metro Mayor. There's very little support for that right now, but we believe it's the right way forward in the long run.