Break on through to the other side

In the run-up to the election, the government hosted a summit of regeneration and housebuilding decision-makers to help outline policy for a third-term Labour government. At the same time, Regenerate organised its own summit of seven players (see right) to debate policy objectives and ways to convert them into facts on the ground. Our panel came up with recommendations that could give the new government something to think about.

Central government

Although the government has taken a big interest in regeneration, it has introduced too many quangos, initiatives and funding streams.

Wilson Why do we have URCs? Why do we have UDCs? Why all these various bodies?

Charlesworth Before I came here, I tried to write down all the sources of funding available in this market, and all of the authorities responsible for delivering regeneration – and I ran out of paper.

Derbyshire The government has got pilotitis – E E there is a proliferation of pilot programmes. It’s not about not having the money. Our research found that in 2003 the government’s budget for regeneration was underspent by 64%.

What’s the solution?

Obviously, some rationalisation would help. Failing that, it would be useful to have some clarification on what’s what.

Even at a regional level there isn’t that clarity in priorities, so something is wrong

Pete Wilson

Majid It would be great to have a one-stop shop that says what funding is available, what agencies there are, that sort of thing.

Regional government

The government’s failure to set up an effective decision-taking body at the regional level was regarded as its Achilles’ heel – and something that has serious repercussions for regeneration.

Derbyshire We notice that regions find it absolutely impossible to identify priorities at a regional level. That is something we have noticed particularly on large-scale projects in the North. If you take the Tees Valley, where there is only enough economic activity to sustain serious economic growth in one out of five towns, who is going to make the choice about where investment will go?

Wilson At one level we’ve got local area agreements and the local strategic partnerships that are supposed to know how to deliver joined-up policies for health, education and housing in the voluntary sector. But even at a regional level there isn’t that clarity, so something is wrong.

Charlesworth You need someone who can take a perspective on infrastructure for the required cross-region rather than in a district or in a county. Without that you can’t have an effective operational region. If you do have autonomies of growth of GDP then you can achieve synergies across borders.

Lane The RDAs have to some extent brought these processes to bear. The difficulty is that there’s so much regeneration activity around it is quite difficult to co-ordinate and prioritise it. There is more co-ordination and prioritisation now than there used to be – but still not enough.

Many people working in the public sector aren’t equipped with the skills to do the job

Nahid Majid

What’s the solution?

Although voters in the North-east thought otherwise, it looks as if John Prescott’s proposal for regional assemblies was not such a bad idea after all.

Derbyshire I’ve come to understand why Prescott wanted regional assemblies. One of the reasons for having regional assemblies might be to have sensible regional economic and spatial strategies that have political support.

Local government

Our panelists considered local authorities to be a prime obstacle in the joining up regeneration, more for their lack of skills than a lack of will. Sadly, there was no local authority representative on our panel to fight their corner.

Lucas A lot of the big regeneration projects are not coming out of agencies such as SEEDA, they are coming out of local authorities and the local authorities don’t have the skill to do them.

Majid Many people working in the public sector are not equipped with the skills to do the job. You have to have the project management skills in place to deal with these large-scale projects. But we also have to consider the political dimension here. Decision-makers have to go through a political process and a lot of officers are quite nervous of making a decision, whether it is planning or anything else.

The approach of focusing regeneration investment on the worst first must go

Ben Derbyshire

Lane It is easy to criticise local authorities, but they have a huge number of responsibilities, so to see what the implications of a project are, people have to be consulted and things have to go through all the correct procedures.

Charlesworth One way of dealing with that is to take it out of the remit of the local authority and form a partnership.

Lucas But often when that happens, the local authority perceives it as failure on its part.

What’s the solution?

Our team of experts offered advice on how to work with local government, and how local authorities could work more effectively.

Lane The first thing to look at is the local authority buy-in. The local authority has to be totally committed politically to the concept.

The local authority has to be totally committed politically to the project

Bob Lane

Lucas The first question I ask at major regeneration projects now is: Has it got buy-in from the politicians?

Ellis Maybe projects should involve both the private sector and the public sector. The private sector’s concerns are things like: How much time have we spent on this? Are we getting a return yet? Is this project going anywhere or is it sitting here for another five years? Whereas in the public sector, especially in a town council, there are not the same pressures and for the individual officers, life goes on. Maybe there is a need to put together that slightly different dynamic and those different aims.

The rules

The rules and regulations governing procurement and funding have become the stuff of regeneration folklore. The following points are a few of the many problems faced.

Derbyshire There is a propensity for the state to go headlong into complex procurement procedures. Competitive procedures may involve perhaps four teams in parallel, each doing a masterplan on the back of a masterplan that has already been prepared. The opportunity cost of the three that lose is enormous – and at the same time we have a shortage of skills.

Charlesworth We go through that on every single project in PFI.

Lucas PFI isn’t joined up to other things. We are working on a major regeneration project that has a PFI in the centre of it. But instead of being invited to work with it, we’ve been told to ignore it.

The first question I ask at major projects now is: has it got buy-in from the politicians?

Joanna Lucas

Wilson Then there’s the fact that every funding regime is on a totally difficult timescale.

Lane And there’s the time. With the Official Journal, we’ve worked out that it takes six to nine months to go from a preliminary notification to selecting someone.

What’s the solution?

Throwing away the rulebook isn’t an option but rules could be simplified and the amount of duplication reduced. That would not only help to join together individual regeneration projects, it would also save money.

Wilson There is an enormous amount of waste here …