Sustaining Regeneration through
Partnerships in the Changing Economic Climate
The 2008 Japan Day Seminar was held in in Matlock,
Derbyshire
in collaboration with
Derbyshire County Council on the
18th of November, under the theme of Sustaining Regeneration through
Partnerships in the Changing Economic Climate
and explored the role of local authorities when working in
partnership with private enterprise and other organisations in
regenerating the local economy.
Proceedings of Japan Day
Seminar 2008: Sustaining Regeneration Through Partnerships in the
Changing Economic Climate
Derbyshire
County Hall, Matlock – 18 November 2008
The
event began with an opening by the chair, Professor Robin Hambleton of
the University of the West of England. Prof. Hambleton then
introduced County Council Chairman Joyce Sanders for the civic address
to the event, remarking that is was a great privilege for Derbyshire to
be the 2008 host of the Japan Day Seminar, especially during the 10th
anniversary of the Derbyshire-Toyota link. Cllr Sanders paid
tribute to the role of the Japan Local Government Centre (JLGC) in
coordinating the event, held as part of a month-long celebration of the
link, and for choosing Derbyshire as its 2008 venue. She was
pleased to announce that the link had been renewed for another decade
as part of the celebrations and thanked Mayor Suzuki and accompanying
councillors of Toyota City for their attendance at the event.
Prof.
Hambleton then opened the debate by calling the first speaker, Tom
Levitt MP. Mr Levitt had recently been appointed Assistant
Regional Minister for the East Midlands and it was in this capacity
that he was speaking to the seminar, as the billed speaker, East
Midlands Regional Minister Phil Hope MP, was now unable to attend owing
to his recent promotion to care services minister. Prof.
Hambleton also mentioned that it was somehow apt that Mr Levitt was
speaking in place of the regional minister as he is a former Derbyshire
County Councillor.
Mr Levitt began the seminar in
earnest
with his speech on ‘The Government’s Response at National and Regional
Level to the Economic Downturn’. He outlined the role of the
regional ministers, as introduced in summer 2007, particularly with
regard to the East Midlands Development Agency and the Government
Office for the East Midlands. Furthermore, he added that the
role
of assistant regional ministers was newer still and very much under
development in terms of their role in relation to the actual regional
ministers. As far as the East Midlands was concerned, since
becoming regional minister, Phil Hope had announced his five priorities
for the region as being:
1)
economy
2)
skills
3)
housing
4)
social exclusion
5)
public services
Furthermore,
regional sounding boards had been established around housing and social
exclusion in order to identify best practice. As the roles of
regional and assistant regional ministers were still relatively new in
British government it remained to be seen how they would perform under
even more recent changes to the machinery of government in regional
policy, such as the National Economic Council, the Regional Economic
Council and the Council of Regional Ministers.
In terms of
actual activity in the East Midlands, Phil Hope had convened two
regional economic cabinets since the creation of the new economic
councils, in October and November. This was intended to
discuss
specific action required in the region to prevent any burdens on local
businesses and to ensure joined up government policy locally.
He
believed that the leadership of the Prime Minister and the provision of
local intelligence from the region would ensure that its economy would
be strengthened against problems in the global economy.
Locally
the fruits of this strategy were in evidence at the Toyota plant where
the new Avensis model was due to enter production and significant
investment continued to be made through employment of local people and
in their skills, which benefited the wider regional.
While
the East Midlands had its own economic challenges, the region was
helping the rest of the UK economy advance on a global level, he
argued. However, in order to do so, it was key to engage with
other countries, to both learn from them and forge trust. Mr
Levitt paid tribute to JLGC for its role in this process and finally
paid tribute to Toyota as its plant demonstrated a robust local economy
and the results of all the partners in the region pulling together to
secure investment.
Prof. Hambleton thanked Mr
Levitt for his
speech and said that it demonstrated how when tackling economic
challenges needs vary on a local basis. He then opened the
debate
to questions from the floor.
Q: Frank McArdle (South
Derbyshire District Council): Where does the East Midlands stand in
terms of other European regions and what is the RDA doing to narrow
that gap?
A: Tom Levitt: To some extent
Derbyshire is a
success by European standards as it has not suffered from some of the
knocks encountered by other regions amid the financial
crisis.
While it’s true that the region is not in the higher division of
European regions, it is adjusting the regional economic strategy to
take this into account.
Q: Chris Watson (INLOGOV): I
think
it’s important to stress that international links are not just about
trade and investment issues but also education and culture, which can
also be economically beneficial. For instance, the higher
education sector also employs people in each region and international
students are vital to its success.
A: Tom Levitt: Agree entirely,
after all the world is getting smaller.
Prof.
Hambleton thanked the assistant regional minister for taking the time
to speak to the event and answer questions as he was due in Westminster
later in the day on parliamentary business. He then called
the
next speaker, Noboru Fujishima, Director of the Japan Local Government
Centre, whose talk ‘Successful Government-Business Partnerships in
Japan’ was to introduce a Japanese context to the discussion.
The
Director’s presentation introduced the rates for regional disparity in
Japan and went on to set out measures that the central government had
put in place to tackle this through reforms such as merging
municipalities, from over 3,000 to 1,800 or so. The Ministry
of
Internal Affairs & Communications was currently considering the
Permanent Autonomous Residents’ Zone as a means of tackling rural
depopulation. He then set regeneration in a Japanese context
by
detailing the example of Yokkaichi City, where he had served as Deputy
Mayor, which was once the leading location for the petrochemical
industry in Japan. In particular, he drew attention to the
investment plan drawn up by the city council and key local agencies and
partners in order to mitigate against the decline in the industry,
which had been affected by domestic and foreign trends. While
some aspects of the plan had not come to fruition, others exceeded
projections, with an overall net benefit to the local area.
He
also introduced a further example of an innovative local zoo, which had
used the internet to drive up entry levels and save it from
decline. He then took questions from the floor.
Q:
Peter Matanle (University of Sheffield): In my experience of Japan,
quite often some local governments create short-lived tourist booms
which saddle the locality with obsolete and expensive
facilities.
How did Yokkaichi guard against this?
A: Noboru Fujishima:
It is true that Yokkaichi did build a tower that failed to deliver on
expectations but lessons have been learnt from this and local
governments are far more prudent about this sort of thing now, out of
necessity.
Q: Robin Hambleton: At this
stage it might be useful to outline how local government is funded in
Japan?
A: Noboru Fujishima: Compared to
the UK, Japan relies more strongly on local taxation to fund local
services.
Q:
Cllr Heather Wheeler (South Derbyshire District Council): Is the local
income tax accepted by citizens in Japan as fair and necessary?
A: Noboru Fujishima: Yes, very
much so. The population understand how it is raised and used.
Q:
Cllr Dave Wilcox (Derbyshire County Council): Can I ask how the
semiconductor plant you mentioned came to be built as it wasn’t in the
original investment plan for Yokkaichi yet ended up contributing the
most investment.
A: Noboru Fujishima: Luck,
basically, though the deregulated local environment played a part in
the decision to relocate there.
Q:
Peter Dougal (Gateshead Council): What criteria were used in the merger
process of municipalities, were there any negative effects and is this
now complete?
A: Noboru Fujishima: Yes, there
were some
unintended negative effects, such as the loss of local identity in the
move towards larger municipalities, though the Ministry has learnt from
this and is considering the Permanent Autonomous Residents’ Zone as an
alternative to gain efficiencies in local government.
Prof.
Hambleton thanked Director Fujishima for his presentation and
introduced the next speaker, Andy Sawford, Director of the Local
Government Information Unit (LGIU), who spoke on ‘Partnerships and the
LGIU’. Andy opened his remarks by mentioning that in a
previous
employment role he was actually a speechwriter for Phil Hope, so them
both appearing on the same bill would have been ironic yet appropriate
somehow. He then went on to say that in the past local
government
in Britain had remained wedded to notions of deference, the class
system and hierarchy and while he did not know what the situation was
in Japan, this had thankfully given way in Britain as these were not
relevant in a global economic era. He said that he was
honoured
to be appearing at an event organised as part of the 10th anniversary
celebrations for the Derbyshire-Toyota link as this was evidence of a
successful economic partnership between two countries. In
fact,
the LGIU was celebrating its 25th anniversary this year and had been
named think tank of the year. While the challenges had
changed
since its inception, it was hoping to remain relevant by addressing
four key policy areas:
•
local sustainability
•
children’s services
•
service transformation
•
local democracy
The
likelihood of recession meant that now more than ever local government
has to innovate and compete by learning from each other and he hoped
that a dialogue between the LGIU and JLGC would prove beneficial
here. He noted the recent series of mergers of municipalities
in
Japan and the prospect of new mergers in Northern Ireland and offered
to facilitate a dialogue between Japan and Northern Ireland through the
LGIU to learn from the Japanese experience. He also noted the
high level of Japanese investment in Britain but argued that investment
alone was insufficient to avoid decline, though thankfully councils
like Derbyshire had shown leadership and preserved its economic
position. Furthermore, he hoped that rumours of a possible
scaling down of the government’s response to the Sub-National Review
consultation were not true, as research from the Local Government
Association had shown that the effects of the recession would not be
limited to only London. In concluding, he said that
leadership
was more important than structures and devolution from the centre
needed to go further and faster. Finally, he thanked JLGC for
organising the event.
In opening the floor for
questions,
Prof. Hambleton suggested that recent conditions had shown the limits
to what the central state can achieve and that the Sub-National Review
was an opportunity to reverse this. Furthermore, like in
Japan,
issues such as demographic change had come to the fore, as evidenced by
the recent Policy Exchange report recommending abandoning
underperforming regions or demands to tackle the postcode
lottery. Andy Sawford agreed with these points and sought to
argue that the approach taken by Policy Exchange was wrong.
Q:
Cllr Dave Wilcox: In Japan, projects such as the Shinkansen have
actually exacerbated disparities between regions by drawing even more
people into urban centres. How can Britain avoid this?
A:
Andy Sawford: Transport infrastructure remains a thorny issue for
regional competitiveness in the UK also. The recent debate
over
Crossrail shows this.
Prof. Hambleton thanked Andy for
his
contribution. After a short break, Dr Peter Matanle of the
White
Rose East Asia Centre at Sheffield University, commenced his
presentation on ‘Higher Education and the Challenge of Japan’s
Shrinking Regions’, concentrating on the example of Sado
island.
He analysed depopulation in one region of Japan, Niigata Prefecture and
showed that population shrinkage has been proceeding from rural areas
towards urban centres, affecting progressively larger settlements, and
argued that, under the current national population decline, regional
depopulation and its consequences should be understood as illustrating
possible futures for urban Japan. This focused first on
Niigata
Prefecture in the national context, then on selected settlements, and
examined migratory patterns in one rural area, Sado Island. He
demonstrated that the most significant cause of net out-migration from
Sado has been for educational advancement, and rounded off by
presenting qualitative discussions of a new educational venture in
Sado. He concluded by stating that regional depopulation has been a
predictable outcome of Japan’s national developmental project, and the
lack of success in dealing with this amounts to a major policy failure
by successive Japanese governments. However, the future for some of
Japan’s regional communities need not be bleak, given the
implementation of policies suited to local, rather than national,
strengths and needs. Following the presentation by Dr Matanle there was
one question from the audience.
Q: Koichi Kawai (Embassy of
Japan): Is it not the case that if every failing region decides to
establish a new university that an already overcrowded market will get
even more crowded? Is there any best practice from the UK to avoid this?
A:
Peter Matanle: Yes, it is my contention that the British system has
worked well in this regard in recent years, by networking institutions
across a wider area it is possible to tailor provision according to
local needs and avoid over-concentration of provision.
The
seminar then heard from Clive Bridge, Corporate Affairs Director,
Toyota UK. In his presentation ‘ Toyota Manufacturing UK –
Working together with partners‘, Mr Bridge outlined the process behind
the decision to build its car manufacturing plant at Burnaston in
Derbyshire, having examined a number of potential sites in Europe for
its operations, as well as its facility at Deeside in North
Wales. The site was constructed on a former airfield and the
local councils had played a part in attracting the company to the
area. Mr Bridge went on to outline the management ethos on
the
site and how it engaged with the local community, both local people and
local councils. For instance, the company was striving to be
carbon neutral through high levels of recycling on-plant and a
tree-planting programme. Furthermore, during periods of low
demand for production, rather than lay off workers and then rehire them
it loaned them to the community for volunteering projects.
Furthermore, the management engaged with the workforce through joint
decision-making and constructive dialogue with the trade union
Unite. It had also invested heavily in the workforce through
training and qualifications. Questions for Mr Bridge then
followed.
Q: Susan Handley (LGA): How
typical of Toyota is it to take the long term approach as taken in
Derbyshire?
A:
Clive Bridge: It is a core company value so therefore typical across
the group. Toyota takes a long term view and provides
deliberate
support to the local community.
Q: Robin Hambleton: Toyota
has invested in the local environment for the benefit of the local
community. How can local government match that?
A:
Clive Bridge: There are many ways local government could help, such as
the provision of better infrastructure to enable the company to recycle
more effectively.
The final presentation of the
day,
‘Partnership Working in Economic Development’, was given by Nick
Hodgson, Chief Executive of Derbyshire County Council. Mr
Hodgson’s presentation concentrated on the recent example of the
Markham Vale business park, the council’s flagship regeneration
project, which he contrasted with the process behind the construction
of the Toyota plant. While the Toyota plant had been built in
the
south of the county at Burnaston, the Markham Vale development with
situation in the north of the county near Chesterfield. The
site
of the development was on the former Markham Vale colliery,
transforming a disused facility and former major local employer into a
functioning source of economic activity once more. The £62m
project will not only bring 5,000 new jobs and £130m of private
investment to the county but will also transform the appearance of the
disused colliery. Funding for the project has come from a
variety
of sources including £14.5m from the Department for Transport (for a
new motorway junction), £7.5m from English Partnerships, nearly £6m
from EMDA/Alliance SSP (sub-regional strategic partnership), £5.9
million from the European Union’s Regional Development Fund and £1.6m
from British Coal. Furthermore, the council had worked with a
private developer Henry Boot in order to bring this about, he
said. Mr Hodgson then responded to various questions from the
floor.
Q: Patricia Coleman
(consultant): Having attended the
Japan Study Tour I’m aware of the constitutional and funding
differences between the two countries but how does the council envisage
coping with the economic challenges it faces?
Q: Chris Watson (INLOGOV): What
sort of companies does the council wish to attract to this new
development?
A:
Nick Hodgson: We would very much like to attract jobs of value for
local people, long term skilled jobs in manufacturing if possible.
The
main business of the seminar concluded, Prof. Hambleton made closing
remarks as chair and focused on four themes he drawn from the
presentations given. Firstly, that the challenges facing the
English regions are very real. Secondly, economic crisis can
be
an opportunity. Thirdly, we should value international
dialogue
for the fresh thinking it can provide to such problems.
Finally,
we should recognise the importance of place in what we do. In
this, the seminar closed and retired to the reception, which heard from
Toyota City Mayor Suzuki and High Sheriff of Derbyshire Lord Ralph Kerr.
