Y-PERN is transforming the way academic researchers and knowledge exchange experts in the 12 Yorkshire and Humber universities work in partnership with policymakers in the region.
The deepening of devolution across our region presents a unique opportunity to co-create evidence based policies that bring real benefits to communities.
Take a look at Y-PERN’s 4-page summary to find out what we’re doing, where and how.
On Monday 8 July 2024 a unique gathering of policymakers and those with lived experience of poverty came together to reflect on a shared journey of change and celebrate progress made.
Across the UK, Poverty Truth Commissions (PTC) bring together two groups: people with lived experience struggling against poverty, who are known in the process as Community Commissioners; and people who are decision-makers or policymakers from civic or business life who are known in the process as Civic Commissioners.
In Hull, these groups came together over a period of 2 years to listen to each other’s experiences and build relationships. They met as humans, not job titles, and they shared their stories and agreed priorities for a local area with the aim of improving the lives of people in poverty.
Perhaps uniquely, the Hull PTC has been joined by two academic researchers, Dr Gill Hughes, Senior Lecturer at the University of Hull and Y-PERN Policy Fellow Dr Juan Pablo Winter, who have attempted to capture some of the learnings from the journey to take forward. They have drawn on methods including Participatory Action Research (PAR) and Transformative Participatory Evaluation (TPE). This aligns with the ethos of the Poverty Truth Commission and responds to a long-term relationship between the commissioners, facilitators and evaluators, based on trust, commitment, and mutual respect, valuing everyone’s unique perspectives and contributions.
The evaluation team commissioned My Pockets, a film production company and arts organisation based in East Yorkshire, to tell the story of the first Hull Poverty Truth Commission.
Community commissioners have experience of poverty, and civic commissioners are leaders in organisations within Hull and East Yorkshire, who have access to systems and services that can sometimes impact experiences of poverty. Together their voices narrate this film. Relationships and trust grew supported by facilitation from The Forum, Timebank and Groundwork, who were part of the consortium of the voluntary and community sector, which convened the commission.
The film was premiered at the Hull PTC ‘awakening’ event on the 8 July, and the team are proud to share that more widely now:
Y-PERN’s Chief Policy Fellow, Dr Andy Mycock reflects on the mayoral and local election results in Yorkshire and the Humber and what it could mean for Y-PERN and YPIP’s ongoing mission.
The local and combined authority elections held across the Yorkshire and Humber region in May 2024 provide some important insights into how the political and electoral ‘tectonic plates’ shifted. The overall voting patterns across Yorkshire and Humber were largely similar to those across the rest of England. Labour’s share of the overall vote (about 35%) was similar to last year. The local elections gave us some indication of the likely outcomes in a general election, but the Blackpool South by-election was likely a more insightful indication of where the country stands in terms of national party politics. Below are some headline thoughts on our region:
Mayoral Elections
The mayoral election in York and North Yorkshire (YNY) provided the headline result in the region, with David Skaith (Labour) beating Keane Duncan (Conservative) by almost 15,000 votes. Skaith’s campaign centred on local economic growth while not making any significant spending commitments.
One significant point of note was the turnout of 191,279 (just under 30%) – higher than many expected and a positive sign of initial recognition and buy-in from voters for the new combined authority (and in line with most previous initial mayoral elections in England).
Skaith will seek to hit the ground running and will welcome the proactive approaches to pre-election engagement by our Y-PERN universities in supporting the YNY Mayoral Combined Authority (MCA) transition team. Y-PERN will actively seek to develop existing relationships with YNY MCA officers and also the new mayor’s advisory team.
The other two mayoral contests went as many expected – with Tracy Brabin and Oliver Coppard both winning comfortably. Comparisons with previous elections in terms of party support are somewhat difficult due the change in voting system to ‘first past the post’. Brabin received just over 50% of the vote share, as did Coppard (50.9%). Both mayors and officers in the Combined Authorities in South and West Yorkshire will likely be concerned about the somewhat poor turnouts in relatively mature Combined Authorities. While South Yorkshire turnout increased marginally from 2022 (26.4%) to 27%, West Yorkshire’s turnout dropped from 36.5% to 32%, a surprise considering local elections were held across the region on the same day.
Key Takeaways
The victorious Labour mayoral candidates all showed restraint in the policy remit of their manifestoes, largely resisting the temptation to speak to policy areas beyond their current delegated powers. Moreover, the focus of all the mayoral candidate manifestoes spoke strongly to the shared work of predominant Y-PERN and YPIP areas of interest (climate/sustainability, local economic growth and skills, transport, arts and culture). Furthermore, the shared focus of Y-PERN and YPIP on enhancing the reach and resonance of community engagement could help support future voter engagement with the Combined Authorities and turnout in elections.
Local Elections
As expected, Labour also had healthy returns in many of the local council elections across the region. It is interesting to note that support was not however as sizeable in terms of vote share (35%) as the 1996 local elections (43%) which preceded the 1997 general election. This in parts reflects that Labour has been in power in many local authorities across the Yorkshire and Humber region for some time and some of the issues concerning finances and governmental competency are viewed by the electorate to reside at local as well as national level.
Overall, Labour-led councils strengthened their hold on power, but with some notable exceptions. All five local authorities in West Yorkshire remained Labour-led, but the party lost overall control in Kirklees; they remain the largest party there but new Kirklees Labour party group leader, Carole Pattison, will need to work with other political parties to address significant fiscal challenges facing the council. They also lost some councillors in Bradford. However, this should not impact too strongly on any forthcoming general election as voting switches have taken place in wards where Labour has very strong existing support.
In South Yorkshire, Sheffield City Council remains in no overall control (NOC), with Labour still leading the council as the largest party. Barnsley and Rotherham also saw Labour make modest gains. Notable across West and South Yorkshire was some growth in the Green and Lib Dem vote and councillors, and the relative success of Reform UK where they took votes from all the main parties (though they didn’t stand candidates in many seats).
In Hull, the Lib Dems fought off a strong Labour challenge to maintain control of the Council (Labour made a gain of one councillor). There were no elections in East Riding, but the other notable result was Labour taking the Humberside Police and Crime Commissioner post from the Conservatives (this has not been connected to the forthcoming mayoral role in Hull and East Riding MCA). The turnout was very low at 17%. There were no local elections in York and North Yorkshire.
Key Takeaways
The overarching messages is that the political landscape is both increasingly monochrome in one sense, as Labour is now in control of most local authorities across the region and the three mayoral roles. This will see some closer synchronisation of local and sub-regional policymaking in each of the three areas with a mayor. This noted, the political landscape remains complex and often influenced by a range of local, regional and national issues.
The Next Steps
Y-PERN and YPIP will continue to seek to support local and combined authorities across the region by listening and learning from our local and combined authority officer and elected representative colleagues. Our collective mission is to enhance cross-local and combined authority capacity and collaboration across the Yorkshire and Humber region. The emergence of the Policy Campus in Sheffield – which is part of a growing civil service footprint beyond Whitehall – is another significant opportunity for Y-PERN and YPIP to build multi-level policymaking capacity across the region.
Multi-level and cross-regional collaboration facilitated and supported by Y-PERN and YPIP will though need to adapt to the widening remit of our region’s Combined Authorities – particularly in the areas of local economic strategy and growth – as regional devolution deepens at a time of limited resources for some of local authorities. The forthcoming UK general election will also provide new challenges and opportunities for local and combined authorities, further highlighting the importance of collaboration with the region’s universities through Y-PERN and YPIP.
Dr Juan Pablo Winter is Y-PERN Policy Fellow for Hull, East Yorkshire & the Humber, and facilitates academic policy and community engagement in the region.
Juan is responsible for…
Engaging community groups with academics and policymakers to drive sustainable transformations in the region. In so doing, Juan recognises and respects the ethics and responsibility of facilitating community engagement and building trust and long-term relationships with various stakeholders.
Juan’s most looking forward to…
Developing and facilitating academic policy and community engagement in Hull, East Yorkshire & the Humber and reflecting on how these relationships/initiatives can have broader, deeper, and lasting change. Ultimately, Juan looks forward to promoting a research culture that is more collaborative, needs-led and responsible.
Key areas of focus for Juan are…
Community projects addressing flood, water, and coastal erosion issues in Hull and East Riding. He is also working collaboratively with policymakers and people with lived experience in the Poverty Truth Commission, evaluating underlying issues that create poverty, and exploring creative ways of addressing them. Additionally, he is partnering with Voluntary, Community, and Social Enterprise (VCSE) stakeholders to assess their requirements concerning the integration of systems and services.
As part of his role, he has been actively involved in the IDEAS Fund. This project builds on relational engagement between researchers and communities. It aims to shift power and change university processes, narratives, and ethics towards a more inclusive and community-led approach to research.
Juan is also a representative of several Knowledge Exchange teams across the University of Hull, including the Knowledge Exchange Concordat Steering Group, the Public Engagement Task & Finish Group, and, most recently, the University Devolution Team that has been set up to engage with the devolution deal process in Hull and East Riding.
Juan joins us with a background in…
Political science, international development, and participatory action research. For the last 15 years, Juan has developed a career in public policy, community engagement and social change in Chile, South Africa, and the UK. Before joining Y-PERN, his last post was as a PDRA on an NHIR-funded research project on Adult Social Care in the UK. His role was to enhance collaboration and facilitate communities of practice between academics, practitioners, and people with lived experience.
The University of Hull’s commitment to working with, and to the benefit of, local and coastal communities continues with new projects bringing creative community engagement to people in Skipsea and Cowden.
This forms part of our wider objectives to work more closely and collaboratively with other organisations, partners and communities who already live and work in coastal areas. This includes highlighting and sharing the important and often overlooked life stories and experiences of those living along the East Riding coastline.
Working with partners from the newly funded East Riding Coastal Transition Accelerator Project (CTAP), academic researchers and PhD students from the Energy and Environment Institute organised two informal drop-in workshops in November 2023. Local residents were invited to share their experiences of coastal change, putting their stories onto large-scale printed maps, and sharing photographs and memories of the changing local coastline.
In doing so we built on the ‘learning histories’ approach we previously utilised in our Risky Cities project. By drawing on individual experiences and collective histories we are able to generate discussions that drive climate awareness, action and resilience.
Building on the legacies of previous projects in Withernsea and Skipsea, we wanted to better understand what people’s stories could tell us about how communities can be supported by academic researchers working on coastal change. By putting community needs at the start of the research design process we hope to better serve our local communities as part of our University-wide commitment to being a positive civic organisation in the region.
We wanted to hear and amplify the voices of those who are seldomly heard, who are most exposed to the effects of coastal erosion and who have tried to overcome the challenges by building on the knowledge that has been shared over generations. As academic researchers this also makes our work more likely to have real-world impacts, which is something that we are deeply committed to at the Energy and Environment Institute and in our partnership with the Yorkshire & Humber Policy Engagement Research Network (Y-PERN). From our previous work on the Risky Cities project, we know that building strong, lasting relationships with communities is really important for delivering research that makes a difference. It is also important for the Coastal Transition Accelerator Project that local voices inform their work to increase community resilience.
Participants shared testimonies, images and family albums they have kept over the years. They told us their stories and what matters, worries them, and what they have learned from their experience of living along the coast. From years of neighbours watching parts of the coastline change and houses, shops and farms come and go; to memories of walking dogs along the beach and increasingly difficult access to the shoreline as entryways are washed away; to a cow falling over the cliff edge and walking up the beach to be rescued further north.
These stories highlight the social, historical and physical impacts of erosion and how experiences of change, loss and hope are encountered at an everyday level. They express a need to remember and support the voices of those most affected, with many participants expressing their frustration those who had lost the most were often those also having to pay for demolition of unsafe properties.
We plan that these creative workshops will form part of our continued engagement with partners and communities on the east coast – as we scale up our community engagement work across East Riding and continue to develop community led knowledge of the coast.
Originally posted on the University of Hull
Dr Andy Mycock is Y-PERN Chief Policy Fellow, providing overall strategic leadership of the programme and coordination of the team of Y-PERN policy fellows across the region.
As Chief Policy Fellow, Andy is part of the Y-PERN directorate providing overall strategic leadership of the programme, working closely with the Senior Programme Manager, Kayleigh Renberg-Fawcett. Andy leads on the coordination of the team of Y-PERN policy fellows across the region, and the delivery and evaluation of the four programme Work Packages. He has responsibility for delivering Work Package 3 which focuses on policy engagement training, dissemination, and community engagement. Andy is the key contact point for engagement and networking with academic and policy communities across Yorkshire and the UK more widely, and dissemination of Y-PERN outputs.
Chief Policy Fellow of the Yorkshire and Humber Policy Engagement and Research Network
A political scientist with extensive experience of research-led academic policy engagement, Andy collaborates with a wide range of government and non-government stakeholders across the UK and internationally. Andy sits on the executive committee of the University Policy Engagement Network and is an elected trustee of the Political Studies Association. He was invited to sit on the UK Government Youth Citizenship Commission (2008-9) and chaired the Kirklees Democracy Commission (2016-2018) and have frequently advised UK and devolved governments on youth citizenship policies. Andy is an academic member on the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Political Literacy and has submitted a wide range of evidence to UK and devolved parliamentary select committees. He contribute regularly to BBC local and national media, and a range of print and broadcast media across the UK and internationally.
Andy’s key research interests and publications focus on democratic and community engagement and participation in public policy, and devolution politics and policy in the UK, and has co-edited special editions on devolution and constitutional reform in England. Recent funded research projects include ‘Lowering the Voting Age in the UK’ and ‘The Civic Journey’. Andy has also published widely on the legacies of the British Empire, Brexit, and the Anglosphere and Commonwealth, and co-organised the British Academy-funded special conference on the theme of ‘The Anglosphere and its Others: The English-Speaking Peoples in a Changing World Order’.
Andy was President of the Children’s Identities and Citizenship in Europe Association (CiCea) network (2020-22) and sit on the executive committee of the Erasmus+ funded Citizenship Education in the Context of European Values project (2020-24). He is also a trustee of Youth Focus North West, a leading regional youth work body, and have worked closely with local, regional, and national policymakers in designing and implementing youth representation bodies such as the Greater Manchester Youth Combined Authority.
Andy’s PhD, studied at the University of Salford, was a comparative study of the legacies of empire in the United Kingdom and the Russian Federation, with a focus on issues of identity, citizenship, and government. Before moving to the University of Leeds, Andy held academic positions at the University of Salford, University of Manchester, and most recently the University of Huddersfield, where he was Reader in Politics and a Director of External Engagement with responsibility for policy engagement.
Dr Peter O’Brien, YU Executive Director
Last Wednesday’s Autumn Statement saw the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Jeremy Hunt, and the Treasury, publish a raft of documents that introduced new interventions designed to boost growth, or to report on complex policy challenges where the Government had commissioned research to investigate or had sought external advice.
One of the most noticeable features of the Autumn Statement was the publication of an updated Devolution Framework, and, for those of us who keep a close eye on events in Yorkshire, the announcement of a new Level 3 Devolution Deal for Hull and East Yorkshire. In addition, twenty-four hours ahead of the fiscal event, an order to form a Mayoral Combined Authority (MCA) in York and North Yorkshire was presented to Parliament.
Subject to local consultations, led by Hull City Council and the East Riding of Yorkshire Council, as well as parliamentary approval, the prospect of four MCAs being established – covering the North, South, East and West parts of the White Rose County – heralds the arrival of a fundamental stage in Yorkshire’s devolutionary journey that has been years in the making. The framework for ‘Level 4’ Devolution Deals sets out how MCAs and Mayors can apply for devolved powers over adult skills, local transport, and housing and regeneration, similar to those negotiated in the first trailblazer agreements with Greater Manchester and the West Midlands. Significantly, the Government confirms its intention to roll out single department-style settlements to all areas in England with a Devolution Deal, thus attempting to negate a long-standing critique that too much funding allocated to MCAs has been fragmented and piecemeal. In other policy areas, however, some of the proposed measures under the Level 4 Framework remain limited. For example, in education and skills, the Department for Education offers only a commitment to “consider the future role of eligible institutions in the delivery of LSIPs and the Local Skills Improvement Fund.” Whilst the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, and UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), pledge to “consult elected mayoral authorities on the development of relevant future research and innovation strategies”. UKRI will also publish regional data on its investments. Actions you might reasonably think would be undertaken already.
Responding to the news that the ‘yet to be formed’ North East MCA is about to enter negotiations for a trailblazer deal, to be concluded by spring 2024, the Yorkshire Post called on the Mayors of South and West Yorkshire to waste little time in applying for more powers and funding, but, at the same time, counselling that, “it is critical that the Mayors display a deft touch when it comes to diplomacy. They need to engage all stakeholders in a meaningful way and show that it is about collaboration and bringing everyone in the region along on the journey”. A further (welcome) illustration of the support for MCAs and Mayors to work together appears on page 10 of the Hull and East Yorkshire Devolution Deal, where the Hull and East Yorkshire MCA is encouraged to explore opportunities for further collaboration with neighbouring MCAs, and “across the whole of Yorkshire through the Yorkshire Leaders Board”. Yorkshire Universities (YU) welcomes wider and deeper devolution within and across all parts of Yorkshire. Equally, we support all Mayors in the region working together, where possible, on shared priorities and forming coalitions with each other, and with other places, on areas of mutual concern. YU stands ready to support, and to facilitate, any collaborations that our member institutions have a particular interest in forging, and where higher education has a unique contribution to make. There are some fantastic examples of Yorkshire’s universities leading, with public sector organisations and business, projects and programmes that support research and innovation, enterprise, entrepreneurship, skills, regeneration, high value sectors, and inward investment and trade. Devolution could help to accelerate and strengthen these partnerships.
Recent developments (re)confirm that the deal-making approach to devolution, and to local and regional development, is an incremental process that tests the capacity and capabilities of Whitehall and local policymakers. The arrival of the Devolution Framework, intended to guide regions on the application process for seeking new powers and funding, is a welcome step forward, and it reflects earlier calls for the development of a clearer roadmap for decentralisation in England. Yet the finances of local government – the sector that is vital to making devolution a long-term success – remain fragile, and the Autumn Statement has done little to alleviate existing budgetary pressures. According to local authority leaders, the funding squeeze is expected to increase, and it threatens to undermine efforts to boost growth in places and communities that, more than ever, need to experience and to share more in the proceeds of greater prosperity. The real risk is that what is given with one hand, is being taken away by the other…
