Tag: Eamonn Boylan

BREXIT CONSEQUENCES BEGIN TO BITE.

 

BOTH BREXITEERS SHOULD BE OUT OF THE CABINET.

A government weakened by scandal and divided over its approach to Europe continues with its ill-starred attempt to leave the European Union.

One leading Brexiteer Cabinet Minister Priti Patel has resigned, but another, Boris Johnson is still in place despite risking extending the detention of a British national in Iran.

Immigrant workers, vital to our caring services, are staying away, jobs are going at British Aerospace in Lancashire and Vauxhall in Ellesmere Port. Both industries rely on the easy movement of parts across borders. Thousands of lawyers and civil servants are being taken on to deal with the whole miserable negative exercise of Brexit. (No doubt their wages will be coming out of the £350m a week that was promised for the NHS.) The port of Dover is making plans for the huge congestion that will build up after March 2019.

So how is all this affecting the heart of the Northern Powerhouse? What is the economic outlook in Greater Manchester as the Budget approaches? I’ve been testing economic opinion which indicates that the crash that was forecast immediately after the EU referendum didn’t happen because of a credit boom and the growth of car leasing. It is felt that is now coming to an end as inflation and now the rise in interest rates kicks in. There is a fall in business confidence amidst the chronic Brexit uncertainty with a demand that the 2019-21 transitional agreement be broadly in line with the final agreement.

Northern economists believe we are looking at a growth rate of 1.5% not 2.5% that was previously hoped for. Looking further into the future we need to prepare for automation, robotics and paying more for UK workers as immigration falls.

In Greater Manchester next year jobs growth is expected to be flat. Employment in retail and financial services will be weak. Mike Blackburn, boss of the Local Enterprise Partnership, is worried that ministers don’t realise the impact Brexit will have on an area which exports 58% of its goods to the EU compared to a national average of 42%. He wants powers returned from the EU devolved to the North.

The Chancellor will be under severe pressure in the Budget to do more on housing. Steve Rumbelow, CEO of Rochdale Council, wants a major programme of council house building. He points out that permission for 50,000 houses in Greater Manchester are not being exercised.

Joanne Roney has had a quiet start since succeeding Sir Howard Bernstein as CEO of Manchester Council. She has indicated her priority is people rather than infrastructure development which characterised her predecessor’s tenure. She identified poor school starts for a large section of Manchester pupils fed into poor GCSE performance leaving colleges to teach Level 2 skills.

Eamonn Boylan is charged with looking at the picture across Greater Manchester as CEO of the Combined Authority. The spatial strategy which deals with the use of green belt and brownfield land is being rewritten after running into opposition from Mayor Burnham, is being rewritten.

Boylan points out the devolution deal is much more about powers than giving the city region money. Promises over devolving power over adult skills had still not been delivered. Local politicians and officers had many bright ideas about what could be done locally. For instance, there was an abundance of advice on how to get to university but very little on taking up vocational courses.

So that’s a sample of the thinking of people charged with putting the concept of the Northern Powerhouse into reality. But they are handicapped by the shadow of Brexit. Let’s hope for a substantial change in popular opinion that would allow Labour to oppose our leaving the EU and we could have an Exit to Brexit.

Follow me @JimHancockUK

WILL THE WHOLE NORTH GET DEVOLUTION ?

 

PATCHY ROLL OUT.

This week saw some significant developments in the roll out of devolution in Greater Manchester at least. It was always going to take a lot to fill the shoes of Sir Howard Bernstein, the retired Chief Executive of Manchester City Council, so it is no surprise that we now have two Chief Executives, Joanne Roney running the city and Eamonn Boylan the Combined Authority(CA).

I was in the new CA headquarters on Oxford Street last week and reflected that exactly 43 years ago I walked into County Hall on Portland Street, the Greater Manchester Council’s new HQ. In 1974, It was felt it was a good idea to have a strategic authority for the whole county. After a costly abolition in 1986, we are now back to square one in some ways, although having an elected mayor may make it different.

While the devolution band wagon is visible in the Greater Manchester and Liverpool city regions, elsewhere in the North the roll out is patchy and incoherent with a great deal of uncertainty about how far meaningful devolution will extend beyond the Liverpool and Manchester City Regions. Lord Porter, the Tory chair of the Local Government Association thinks devolution is dead because the government has encountered petty squabbling in areas of two tier local government or opposition to the concept of elected mayors in more rural areas.

That is an extreme view. Whilst it is true that Brexit is a major distraction in all departments and that the Communities Secretary Sajid Javid remains in an inactive sulk having been moved from his role as Business Secretary, there was enough energy and ideas at the recent NP conference in Manchester to convince me that the project is not dormant. But if business outside the Manchester and Liverpool City Regions want similar packages they need to knock politicians heads together across the rest of the North.

A RAGGED PICTURE.

Leeds is the greatest underperformer so far. This great city should have been electing a mayor this May with a full devolution deal. Disputes with some surrounding authorities have prevented this and the latest idea for a mayor for a Yorkshire wide body across three combined authorities looks set for a ministerial veto as it would need new parliamentary legislation. Sheffield isn’t having a mayoral poll this year either. This is partly because of a row with Derbyshire over whether Chesterfield could be included in a new South Yorkshire authority even though it has no border with it.

Now we come to the town of Warrington which recently flirted with the idea of joining the Liverpool City Region. That would have scuppered the idea of bringing the town together with the two Cheshire councils in a powerful authority at the southern end of the North West. The Merseyside dalliance is now over and Warrington council leader Terry O,Neill is hoping for a devolution deal this summer. However, a new constellation has entered the Cheshire scene…literally. A grouping of Cheshire’s two councils and the Local Enterprise Partnership have come together with six Staffordshire authorities under the Constellation Partnership. They’re starry eyed about the economic potential of the HS2 hub around Crewe. However, the idea of an elected mayor may be a sticking point once again.

Lancashire has suffered for years from having sixteen councils, thirteen districts, two unitaries and the county council. The leader of Lancashire Council, Jennifer Mein, is the equivalent of the German Chancellor Angela Merkel in the sense that she has used calm and wise leadership to try and bring all the parties together. Wyre Council has stood out against a deal for a long time and Fylde has now joined them. A devolution deal will have to await the result of the closely contested county election next month.

Elections are also due this summer in Cumbria where the idea of an elected mayor for this largely rural county has been a stumbling block. Relations between the districts and county are not good with talk of a combined authority being formed without Cumbria County Council’s involvement.

Follow me @JimHancockUK

 

 

‘ALEX FERGUSON’ SNAG FOR MANCHESTER COUNCIL

 

IN GIANT’S FOOTSTEPS.

How does Manchester Council avoid the “Alex Ferguson” problem in finding a successor to the retiring Chief Executive, Sir Howard Bernstein? You know the problem, Brown after Blair and Moyes after Ferguson.

Bernstein has worked for the local authority for 45 years and for the last 18 years has been Chief Executive. In that time the city has left behind the trauma of the IRA bomb in 1996 to become the leading city in the North. Throughout Sir Howard has sent a message to the private sector that the city is open for business. As a result Manchester has the feel of a young city for entrepreneurs that can look London in the eye.

His other achievement has been to respect the political process. Nobody elected him. The people’s mandate is held by Sir Richard Leese who has been leader throughout Sir Howard’s tenure, a remarkable partnership in its longevity and effectiveness. Such partnerships are rare and can go wrong. We remember the bust up in Liverpool between Chief Executive David Henshaw and leader Mike Storey. Bernstein and Leese have known where the boundary lies between local government officer and politician.

Bernstein is widely regarded as one of the leading figures in local government and the former Chancellor George Osborne recognised this in his efforts to found the Northern Powerhouse.

It has not all been plain sailing for Sir Howard. He failed to get the congestion charge and the BBC to locate their new headquarters in the city. Critics say he was more interested in shiny new buildings than the council’s basic services. He has been dismissive of charges that the devolution deal lacked democratic endorsement.

That said the town hall is losing a giant and the question is, who will succeed him?

POSSIBLE CANDIDATES.

The first thing to say is that there aren’t hordes of candidates out there qualified for this, one of the top posts in local government.

One immediately looks at the current Chief Executives in Greater Manchester who have helped in the creation of the Combined Authority. It would be great for a woman to get this job. Donna Hall, holds the top job at Wigan Council and recently won an award for transformational leadership. Theresa Grant used to work for Manchester Council, did a great job running the athlete’s village during the Commonwealth Games and is now Chief Executive at Trafford. Then there is Eamonn Boylan, who served for six years as Sir Howard’s deputy and is currently in charge at Stockport.

There is a strong possibility however that Manchester will want to cast its net wider and bring in a fresh face outside the current “Greater Manchester” family. Charlie Parker cut his teeth with the city’s Inner City Unit and is now Chief Executive of Westminster Council. Sean Harriss, formerly top man in Bolton, is now in charge at Lambeth.

At a recent Downtown event there was a suggestion that a “blue sky approach” might be taken bringing in someone with more of a business background. Would Charlie Cornish, Chief Executive of the Manchester Airport Group, fill the bill?

It will ultimately be a matter for Sir Richard Leese in what may be one of his last big decisions. Few would envy his “Alex Ferguson” dilemma.

Follow me at www.jimhancock.co.uk