Meet the YPIP Team and the Communities Innovating Yorkshire Fund
The core YPIP team are now all in post and working together to drive forward the project with partners across the region:
Holly Ingram is the YPIP Project Manager. Holly has a background in modern languages and has worked in a range of Higher Education project roles over the last 5 years including digital education, intercultural opportunities and research culture – h.l.ingram@leeds.ac.uk
Lizzie Bonsor is the YPIP Administrator. She has worked in a range of refugee-facing organisations over the last five years both within Leeds and further afield, including charities, community interest companies and community organisations – e.a.bonsor@leeds.ac.uk
Lauren Cox is the YPIP Communications and Engagement Manager. Lauren has worked with the voluntary, community, faith, and social enterprise (VCFSE) sector across Luton and Bedfordshire for the last 5 and a half years in roles with the local authority and a criminal justice charity – l.a.cox@leeds.ac.uk
YPIP and Y-PERN are currently working on aligning their online presence and creating a website that will host both initiatives.
One of the key pieces of upcoming work is the ‘Communities Innovating Yorkshire Fund’ which will launch in early 2025.
This fund will be used on emerging projects, studies, activities, and ideas that reflect YPIP’s focus on accelerating community-led inclusive and sustainable growth. Projects must bring together a collaboration of different stakeholders through meaningful community engagement. There will be two funding pathways to be inclusive of grassroot and larger scale community organisations to demonstrate their innovative ideas.
Watch this space for further updates on the fund, and please do give a heads up to partners who are working across our themes in the region.Contact the team at ypip@leeds.ac.uk
Y-PERN’s Policy Director Dr Peter O’Brien and Diana Beech, chief executive of London Higher explore the kinds of value that are created when higher education institutions work together regionally.
Keir Starmer’s new Labour government is committed to delivering five key missions: growth; NHS reform; clean energy; safer streets; and opportunity for all. Underpinning this approach is a shift towards a more active, smarter state that works in partnership with business, trade unions, local leaders, and devolved governments, guided by a new industrial strategy that seeks equitable economic growth across the country.
A sub-national architecture of devolution is taking root in England as a model of civic leadership, led by mayors and mayoral combined authorities. An English Devolution Bill is also set to drive further effective regional development by giving mayoral combined authorities and local authorities greater capacity and resources to set out ambitious growth agendas for the regions and to pull the necessary levers to achieve those ambitions.
In London, the capital’s devolved infrastructure goes back 25 years, while in Yorkshire, by June 2025, there will be four mayoral combined authorities with elected mayors covering Hull and East Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire, and York and North Yorkshire. Devolution is always an unfinished story; as devolved administrations mature, they build capacity to take on more responsibility and accomplish more.
There are significant opportunities for higher education institutions in Labour’s adoption of a place-based, partnership-led approach, bringing in skills, research and innovation, educational opportunity, public sector productivity, and effective policymaking at the regional level. But it will also test the capability of universities to forge and sustain meaningful regional collaborations with each other and with regional policymakers and industry.
Our combined experience of working in regional university networks shows the power and impact that networked collaboration among higher education institutions can have, but as a sector we need to collectively buy into the idea that collaboration for the good of our regions is not an optional nice-to-have, but a core part of the higher education mission.
Strength in diversity
Policymakers and their teams have lots of stakeholders and priorities, and limited bandwidth. Regional groupings of universities offer the golden opportunity for efficiency in connecting up policymaking to expert insight and research, without the need to go from institution to institution.
One of the real strengths a regional network can offer is access to diversity of institutional knowledge; with research-intensive, modern and specialist universities involved in both our networks, our collective views are nuanced and our access to insight very broad indeed, meaning we can broker expertise across a wide range of local priorities.
This capability is seen at its most powerful through strategic engagement with regional policymakers. London, for example, has a plethora of boards and policy initiatives such as the London Partnership Board, which brings together representatives of key institutions across the capital including business, health, local government, and further education to build London’s capability to tackle future challenges.
In Yorkshire, a ground-breaking memorandum of understanding between Yorkshire Universities and Yorkshire and Humber Councils provides a framework for a long-term strategic partnership between local government and higher education in the region. The Yorkshire and Humber Policy Engagement & Research Network (Y-PERN) facilitates inclusive and place-based academic policy engagement, while the Yorkshire and Humber Policy Innovation Partnership (Y-PIP) is expanding the range of research activity co-designed and co-delivered between the region’s universities, policymakers, local communities and businesses to help drive positive, practical change within and across Yorkshire.
It’s worth adding that the London Higher and Yorkshire Universities staff are accustomed to working with policymakers, skilled in generating ideas and connections, and knowledgeable about the policy landscape – that doesn’t mean that individual institutions don’t need those capabilities to some degree, but having a shared hub of expertise has a helpful amplification effect and can be a space for capacity building on the development, monitoring and evaluation of policy and its impacts.
Regional growth
The dual role of universities in educating a highly skilled workforce and driving innovation and knowledge exchange through research means that they are critical delivery partners in regional economic growth agendas. Regional networks can play a role not only in forging collaborations between universities, but in connecting the sector to business and local communities.
Each of our organisations has a clear – though slightly different – theory of how our member higher education institutions collectively contribute to economic growth, including through tackling specific productivity challenges, investment in infrastructure, improving business leadership and management, educating future entrepreneurs, and through cultural and civic engagement – and we’re always ready with the examples to back up those arguments. Our analysis is rooted in a whole-region context for innovation activity, giving us a view of the larger ecosystem in which our universities are operating and the various assets that are available across our networks.
On a practical level, regional university groups can use their convening power to deliver major changes. In Yorkshire and the Humber a legacy of high-carbon emitting industry, threats from flooding, and a series of energy transitions that have affected communities inequitably across the region have generated a consensus on a need not only for decarbonisation, but a green energy agenda infused with social justice. The Yorkshire and Humber Climate Commission, the largest place-based climate commission in the UK acts as a vehicle to mobilise Yorkshire’s universities’ combined research and policy expertise to tackle climate, sustainability and environmental challenges.
Expanding opportunity
Individual institutions have their own widening participation missions and priorities for access, but through collaboration we can expand our collective reach to prospective students and create a much more navigable higher education opportunity landscape for learners. London Higher’s Access HE division is long-established, and is able to create opportunities for targeted programmes of outreach activity to priority groups such as care leavers, and engage in collective advocacy on widening participation funding.
London Higher’s recent acquisition, redesign and relaunch of the Study London campaign is equally helping to drive international education exports to both the capital and nation by bringing together London’s higher education sector under one powerful brand to drive growth and opportunities, and maintain London’s competitive advantage on the global stage.
As in other parts of the country, universities in London and Yorkshire have much to contribute to interventions and investments that match needs of their localities. While London’s universities have deep local roots, a large number of the capital’s institutions are inherently global, with the ability to leverage international connections to attract and retain major foreign direct investment. However, the funding and talent that arrives in London does not only benefit the London region but generates wider impacts right across the country.
Similarly, Yorkshire’s universities have global connections that transcend regional boundaries. In the case of Sheffield Hallam and York St John, some institutions are also forging a physical presence in the capital, making them key players in creating, nurturing and retaining talent and driving international trade and investment. The powerful reputations of London’s and Yorkshire’s universities are therefore vital to delivering on national and sub-national growth agendas.
Wherever the region, and whatever its strengths, regional university groups are going to be key under this government in delivering the devolution deals each part of the country needs.
The new Government’s plans for English devolution are rightly ambitious, but important questions remain and more consideration should be given to the whole picture of sub-national governance and the role of local government in it – argue Y-PERN Policy Fellow Dr Neil Barnett (Leeds Beckett University) and Paul Hayes, Senior Policy Engagement Fellow at Leeds University Business School.
The incoming Labour Government has wasted no time setting out its intentions for the Devolution agenda in England. Notably, in an early and much-publicised meeting at No. 10, Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner met with the twelve elected Metro Mayors in England to outline the intention to deepen their responsibilities, give them more financial flexibility, particularly for economic development, transport, skills and housing, and to establish a new relationship of central-mayoral partnership. This has been hailed as a significant change in the relationship to one in which Mayors considered they had been ‘talked down to’ by previous administrations. The new Government clearly see sub-national devolution as key to driving its growth agenda, with new responsibilities over spatial planning mooted, along with a requirement to produce Local Growth Plans.
Quickly following the meeting, Angela Rayner wrote to all areas she labelled as ‘devolution deserts’ (e.g. Hampshire) not yet covered by a devolution deal to, essentially, ‘get a move on’. Following this, the King’s Speech outlined an English Devolution Bill which will set out a new, standardised, Devolution Framework with devolution as the ‘default setting’.
“The Government in Whitehall is overloaded, and as a result people in the regions grow increasingly impatient about the decisions being made in London which they know could be better made locally. Under our new style of government, we will devolve government power so that more decisions are made locally. We will bring forward a sensible measure of local government reform which will involve a genuine devolution of power from the central government.”
1970, Conservative Party Election Manifesto – ‘A better tomorrow’
An end to bartering behind closed doors?
There is much to be welcomed here. The detail of the new Devolution Framework remains to be seen, but it offers an alternative to the bartering, often ‘behind closed doors’, of deal-making with individual areas, which has been the case so far, and has been based on an opaque and piecemeal process seemingly without underlying principles. It is not yet clear whether this is intended to fully replace the ‘Tiered’ approach to Devolution (with four levels of powers) introduced by Michael Gove (former Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities); but it does seem likely that, as of now, differing places will find themselves with differing powers.
With respect to Yorkshire, it remains to be seen if there will be a ‘levelling up’ of the Combined Authorities (CAs), to give a more congruent set of responsibilities within and across the Region. Another issue is the current status of the Devolution Deal for a Hull and East Riding Mayoral Combined Authority, agreed with Gove, but yet to be confirmed.
Remaining questions: how will power be bestowed?
There are, however, other questions, which remain. The Prime Minister has spoken about new ‘powers’ for Metro Mayors, but it is unclear as to what this means in practice at this stage. For example, will Mayors, and CA’s get new statutory duties, or will they get more responsibility for allocating resources and funding, as is the case now. Will the new ‘powers’, be allocated to Mayors as elected officeholders, or go to the Combined Authorities collectively? Early indications seem to be that the Government is keen to ‘streamline’ decision-making by extending the powers of Mayors and allowing for majority voting in Combined Authority decision-making. This, however, has the potential to bring to the fore competing claims for democratic legitimacy between Mayors and constituent local authority leaders.
Remaining questions: the role of local authorities
Secondly, the focus of the devolution discourse, so far, has been on Mayors and CAs. There has been little mention of devolution to local authorities, but it is local government that provides the foundational services which must underpin any attempt to ‘kickstart’ economic growth. Angela Rayner has recently recognised this, and promised longer-term and more flexible funding settlements, and an end to competitive bidding for pots of funding (what one Council Leader referred to as ‘knobbly knees contests’). Councils will, however, continue to face severe financial constraint, at least in the medium-term, but as it stands it is unclear where (or if at all) they fit in the ‘Devolution Revolution’, and some fear that local government powers may actually be ‘sucked upwards’. Several areas have been unable, or unwilling, to secure agreement on the necessary combinations of councils necessary to be granted a Devolution Deal. The Government, however, is seemingly intent on getting more areas into the devolution fold by September this year. Not only does this seem overly ambitious, but paradoxical in the sense that the whole direction of travel is supposed to be based on enhancing local voice.
Moreover, the agenda also seems to continue the focus set in train by the previous government; devolution will be agreed between government and the ‘top level’ unitary or county local authorities (Angela Rayner’s letter was addressed to the leaders of these councils) with the remaining District Councils in county areas only considered as consultees.
We are likely to see a continuation of an inexorable move towards large, unitary, county councils in a ‘streamlining’ of the system, completing a re-organisation of English local government, which has proceeded incrementally and almost by stealth over the past two decades. This is despite clear evidence of the service or financial benefits of moving to larger councils, let alone the implications for local democracy.
The new Government’s intention to waste no time and move quickly to deliver growth, and its focus on delivery, are understandable, and, given this context, stepping back to raise the issue of wider local government structures may seem somewhat obtuse. However, more time and consideration should be given to the whole picture of sub-national governance and the role of local government in it.
Remaining questions: what’s the best approach for delivery?
Finally, the new Government’s ambitions are rightly and necessarily ambitious. A new approach based on partnership and outcomes has been signalled. The focus is on delivery and ‘what works’. Here, necessary conditions have been highlighted – the need for ‘joined-up’ government, and for a mission-driven approach, for example. Those of a certain age (like the authors) will remember these phrases as central to the Blair Government’s ‘modernisation’ agenda for public services and indeed New Labour’s ‘Third Way’. Moreover, localism and handing down power from Whitehall played a big part in the Coalition Government’s rhetoric after 2010. In the case of New Labour, the result, in reality, was an intensification of central control via hundreds of performance indicators; the Coalition Government passed the Localism Act 2012, which fell far short of the rhetoric, and the subsequent years were also dominated by austerity and intense financial control.
This is not to say that all governments disappoint, but to point out the scale of the task if Labour are to re-set central-local relations and, in doing so, achieve the long-pursued and seemingly elusive ambition of changing civil service culture and the desire of Ministers to keep close oversight for things over which they will be expected to assume public scrutiny.
The process of learning from evidence, then, should include learning from the difficulties previously experienced in striving for ‘joined-up’ approaches, for example, and from areas where there might have been signs of success. One initiative worth re-examining, for example, which ticks the boxes of localism, joined up working and a focus on outcomes and missions, would be place-based budgeting (aka ‘Total Place’), which was piloted during the Brown administration, but not built on after 2010.
It may also be worth re-examining proposals around what Hazel Blears (former Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government) described in 2007 as ‘devolution to the doorstep’. What powers should be devolved down to local council level, and potentially below? Freedoms to bring in local private landlord licensing without central approval immediately come to mind, and there will be other localist ideas that councils may want to push Angela Rayner for. The new Government’s intended new path gives fresh hope for that such initiatives can be brought back into the debate.
In this briefing, Dr Neil Barnett (Y-PERN Policy Fellow for Yorkshire & Humber Councils) takes a broad look at the international trend towards devolving powers to regions and the evidence for its overall benefit.
In recent decades, there has been an international trend towards devolving powers or duties to sub-national tiers of government as best practice, promoted by a range of bodies such as the IMF, World Bank, and OECD, the EU, and influential think tanks.
The review of evidence reveals a number of key themes which shape current understanding of devolution to regional and sub-regional bodies. These include whether it ‘works’, what are its diverse effects, how we can capture and understand its beneficial outcomes (both in economic terms and the well-being of citizens), and does it enhance democracy?
Our review indicates that the evidence reviewed is contradictory, and is based on differing methodological approaches and focus. This means a definitive answer to each of the questions above is not possible, with a more concise answer being – ‘it depends’. The evidence is often circumstantial, meaning it is difficult to establish a firm relationship between any particular scale of governance and outcomes.
Assessing the effects of devolution is thus dependant on a series of questions, including: what form does it take? where and when is it taking place and why? and who is involved and how do they interact?
Treating international ‘lessons’ with caution
(1) What is studied differs; sometimes it is regions and sub-regions, which can cover widely differing geographical sizes and populations, and at other times cities or metropolitan areas.
Importantly, a variety of methodologies are applied to different countries, even if selected as ‘similar’ for comparison purposes. Furthermore, ‘similar’ countries such as those across the OECD and the EU have differing constitutional, political, economic and social histories and contemporary contexts. This raises the question; where we are looking and what are the most appropriate international comparator case studies?
(2) The terminology differs both in terms of how different sub-state geographies are described and the multilevel (re)distribution of governmental powers in different international case studies.
International literature most commonly focuses on decentralisation of administrative, fiscal, and political powers. Pike et. al, provide a helpful ‘sliding scale’ or ‘spectrum’ of decentralisationi:
In the UK, the term ‘devolution’ has been attached to the agenda of sub-national re-organisation. The scale of decentralisation is strongly connected to when the UK government has sought to undertake reform.
Since the late 1990s, ‘asymmetric devolution’ has seen full control over a diverse range of policy areas, and some legislative, welfare, and fiscal powers, to the Scottish and Welsh Parliaments and to a lesser extent the Northern Ireland Assembly.
In England, the creation of a piecemeal patchwork of sub-regional Combined Authorities since 2010 is more closely aligned to political decentralisation.
This raises questions as to the overarching intention of decentralisation in the UK and why does the initiative exist?
(3) Decentralisation, then, occurs to varying degrees in different states (including the UK).
In practice, it is rare for there to be ‘full’ (federal or confederal) devolution, or self-rule; more often we see shared rule. Measuring these varying degrees means that proxy measures of devolved or autonomous powers have to be used. Whilst these have become quite sophisticated (see for example the Local Autonomy Index (LAI)) they inevitably involve some degree of subjectivity.
(4) In reality, in most states there are several levels of sub-national governance. The specifics of place and geography are key, meaning that ‘lessons’ from other international contexts are limited in value.
In the UK, devolved sub-state Multi-Level Governance (MLG) systems are highly complex and irregular, and do not function in strict hierarchical, scaler fashion.
For example, Combined Authorities (CAs) in England, interact with local authorities and other organisations at a variety of scales. While each hold some decentralised powers, these are not consistent in their distribution, and CAs are dependent on other levels of government for implementation. Much depends on the actual practices of inter-level relationships, requiring fine grained knowledge not just of formal structures but of informal relationships; highlighting the importance of understanding who is involved, at what level of government, and how they interact.
What do we know? Impacts of decentralisation in different policy areas
Research on specific policy areas underlines the importance of recognising the caveats outlined above, but we can also find some valuable ‘take-aways’ from reviewing international evidence:
The Economy: With respect to economic growth, impacts of decentralisation depend on its form, and context and purpose of reform. The relative state of the macro or ‘national’ economy however is key. This noted, once popular assumptions about cities being ‘engines of growth’ have been superseded by place-based ‘polycentric’ approaches which recognise the importance of multi-level institutional arrangements, and wider inter-relationships of cities, towns and rural areas. Moreover, it is clear that the particular combinations of administrative, fiscal and political decentralisation are important in terms of whether they complement each other, or not, in particular places.
Productivity & Inequality: There is some evidence of positive impacts on productivity of decentralisation to areas with an over-arching geographical co-ordinating capacity, but also a lack of clarity as to what scale this should cover. Contradictory impacts are found on inequality, where degrees of autonomy have been found to increase, and at other times decrease, spatial disparities. Effects on the delivery of a range of public services are similarly mixed.
Health: Impacts on health have proven hard to isolate from inter-related social, economic and cultural factors, and, as in other policy areas, causality is hard to prove. Again, the importance of context, pre-existing conditions, and complementarities between policy interventions is evident.
Democracy: There is surprisingly little explicit evidence of the democratic impacts. Intuitively, decentralised units should bring power ‘closer’ to people and stimulate greater democratic engagement and participation. Most evidence refers, though, to local government (i.e., below sub-regional level), and is largely inconclusive.
Place, Institutional arrangements and ‘quality of governance’ matter.
Having been presented with a lengthy and complex range of evidence, it is possible to state that ‘the Jury’ is not only out but is most likely confused. Sifting through international evidence is not wholly a frustrating exercise though; there are some broad but clear messages.
Firstly, although we can’t assign benefits clearly to particular scales, we can state that it is the mix that matters. Decentralisation takes a variety of forms and it is the place-specific complementarities, or disjunctures, which produce positive and negative effects.
Secondly, ‘place-based’ approaches are necessary but should not been seen to be in strict dichotomy with wider, national, distributional ones. The evidence points implies that decentralisation should take place within a coherent national policy framework (both across England and the UK), with sufficient freedoms and flexibilities at sub-state national level to allow for local knowledge to be utilised and for place-sensitive policies to emerge within an overarching institutional framework.
Thirdly, following on form this, in all of the policy areas above, it is clear that institutionsand the quality of governance are key influences. Both terms have formal definitions but also refer to a wider range of relationship-based practices and networks of interactions. Institutional settings provide the support, legal frameworks, rules, norms and conditions of behaviour of everyday practices which make the complex environment of MLG function or otherwise.
Getting the right ‘fit’ of these things is dependent on political and cultural settings, along with historical legacies left by previous reforms (as is clear in the complex governance system in Yorkshire, and Humber for example). There is need to also acknowledge that devolution in itself is not a panacea, and its processes and overarching purpose need to be worked at and allowed to evolve with regards to what, where, when, why, who, and how. Reviewing the international literature therefore emphasises a need to focus on practicesin actual settings, and towards behaviours and agency of the actors involved in devolution across Yorkshire and Humber.
Next Steps
Further briefings on the evolving evidence in the UK and related issues of local governance in the Yorkshire & the Humber region are to follow.
Photo by Lewis Ashton: https://www.pexels.com/photo/aerial-view-of-the-staithes-harbour-north-yorkshire-england-10413677/
Y-PERN Policy Fellow Dr Juan Pablo Winter and University of Hull colleague Dr Gill Hughes argue that devolution for Hull and East Yorkshire presents a chance to engage communities differently – whether on flooding and coastal erosion or tackling poverty.
The devolution deal for Hull & East Yorkshire first announced in the Autumn Statement 2023 and outlined in the subsequent devolution agreement will provide the area with new powers and funding to potentially increase opportunities and living standards through inclusive growth.
The deal will see an elected mayor given control over funding for housing, job creation and public transport, including £400m in investment over 30 years. After the deal was ratified by bothcouncils, an eight-weekpublic consultationwas launched on 2nd January 2024. If approved, the new elected mayor and combined authority could start their work in May 2025.
“The Hull & East Yorkshire devolution deal can be seen as a first step to engaging communities differently … placing communities at the heart of the process.”
Juan Pablo Winter & Gill Hughes
Across England, devolution has sought to transfer selected powers and funding from national to local government and ensure that decisions are made closer to and with the people they affect. This deal represents a significant opportunity for communities to rebuild their trust in local authorities (and understand what they do), sit at the decision-making table and have their voices heard.
The University of Hull is in a position to enhance the consultation process through its engagement activities with both communities and policymakers, working with a distinctive approach to community engagement which is built on two interrelated aspects: (1) Relational engagement and (2) Shifting and sharing power for action and change. This ensures that engagement with partners is focused on creating equitable and relational encounters, which start from needs identified by partners, enabling a more cooperative and collaborative way of working that shifts power and culture in academia to be more responsive – sometimes referred to as a ‘flipped university model’.
This emanates from the successfully trialled Ideas Fund (IF) – a Wellcome Trust funded programme delivered through the British Science Association in four areas of the UK (Hull being one). Twenty projects are now growing, collaborating and creating ripples and added value across the city and within the university.
A key outcome of the IF is to enable the development of a broader infrastructure, which supports equitable relationships between communities and researchers to ensure sustainability beyond the life of the IF and to allow for the learning to be shared with others interested in working differently. Consequently, the IF provides a new narrative with evidence on different ways of funding, which is capturing the attention of funders such as UKRI and Research England and has contributed to applications for securing Impact Acceleration Awards, now embedded in the Hull Impact and Knowledge Exchange (HIKE) funding at the University.
The Devolution deal also proposes that Hull and East Yorkshire will develop “an integrated approach to create an Adaptation Hub, which is focussed on supporting climate vulnerable communities, supporting adaptation and resilience plans, engagement and delivery of measures”. We believe the most efficient way to use that funding is by working collaboratively, building on existing initiatives and learning from local knowledge. In that vein, the University of Hull has helped create a Water & Coasts Network in Hull and East Riding. As a joint initiative between Risky Cities, Living with Water (LWW – a partnership between 2 local authorities, Yorkshire Water, the Environment Agency and the University of Hull) and the Yorkshire & Humber Policy Engagement and Research Network (Y-PERN). We see this network as a connection point for projects, which brings together knowledge exchange between communities, projects and institutions to link into the University.
Similarly, working with LWW offers a partnership approach to working together to simultaneously establish the gaps and needs around flood risk and coastal erosion, which can inform future co-led research and activity. We want to build trust and long-term relationships to enable partnerships to work together and to be in place – in readiness to co-create bid applications, co-develop new ideas for projects, and engage in established projects using participatory, responsive, proactive, and needs-led approaches. This is just an example of what is already happening that can help build connections and collaborations, maximise resources, add value and offer a connected approach to working and engaging with communities and other stakeholders.
Another project the University of Hull has been actively involved in developing and delivering is the Poverty Truth Commission (PTC), where the question is, ‘What if people who struggled against poverty were involved in making decisions about tackling poverty?’ The commissioners comprise two groups; half with lived experiences of the struggle against poverty [Community Commissioners] and half who are leaders within the city or region [Civic Commissioners]. Collectively, they work to understand the nature of poverty and the underlying issues that cause it and explore creative ways of addressing them.
In Hull, several areas have been identified that will benefit from the use of established research or require new research, e.g. mental health services and housing policy. In the PTC, changes occur throughout the intervention, and those involved can see concrete outputs while participating in the process. This, in turn, assists in building relational trust because action happens. An ambition would be to ensure that, beyond the commission, decision-making would include insights from communities to ensure that equity and effective policymaking tackle poverty in the city.
The UK government has recognised devolution as a journey, not a one-off event. In that sense, the Hull and East Yorkshire devolution deal can be seen as a first step to engaging communities differently. By placing communities at the heart of the process, devolution should aspire to build on the Poverty Truth Commission slogan – ‘Nothing about us without us is for us’.
It also represents an opportunity for academics, policymakers, and communities to learn from each other, strengthen their relationships, collaborate, and work together towards more inclusive growth. The projects outlined have social justice as a key driver and aim to develop an appropriate infrastructure to build trusting equitable relationships with policymakers and communities. In supporting the devolution consultation, the University of Hull is thus proactively sharing knowledge learned from engaging with community groups and shifting and sharing power for action and change.
Dr Gill Hughes is a lecturer in Youth Work and Community Development and Education Studies at the University of Hull and is a joint development co-ordinator for the Wellcome Trust funded British Science Association initiative – ‘Ideas Fund’.
Dr Juan Pablo Winter is the Y-PERN Policy Fellow for Hull, East Yorkshire & the Humber, based at the University of Hull.
The visual minute was made by Becky Bryson, an artist from morethanminutes.co.uk
The best way approach to regional economic development is still a matter for debate and research, says Dr Richard Crisp from the Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research (CRESR) at Sheffield Hallam University.
Enduring social and spatial inequalities are seeing policymakers across Yorkshire and the Humber grapple with new ways of tackling old problems in recent years. The Doncaster Economic Strategy 2030 launched in January 2023, for example, places the wellbeing economy at the heart of its approach, while also nodding to inclusive growth,community wealth building and the foundational economy as guiding frameworks.
This accelerating interest in ‘alternative’ approaches to economic development shows a new willingness among local policymakers to experiment and innovate to improve the lives of residents and strengthen communities. A key driver is growing concern that longstanding ‘traditional’ approaches such as promoting growth in high-value ‘tradeable’ sectors have done little to tackle disadvantage or reverse environmental degradation.
“Y-PERN will play a key role in exploring how alternative approaches to regional economic development are being adopted and implemented across the region, and what outcomes and impact is being achieved.”
Dr Rich Crisp
The emergence of alternative approaches creates a complex policy space as different frameworks vie for attention or are combined in a ‘pick and mix’ approach. This is particularly the case in England which lacks the strategic national steer provided by the devolved governments in Wales and Scotland.
For example, the Scottish Government’s Programme for Government 2023 to 2024outlines commitments to a wellbeing economy and community wealth building. Preparations for a Community Wealth Building Bill and a Wellbeing and Sustainable Development (Scotland) Bill are also under way.
How then are we to make sense of these approaches and their deployment in a fragmented landscape of governance in England, with local authorities and combined authorities – where they exist – all doing things differently? What are the distinctive features of these approaches, how they are being put into practice, and what impact are they having?
An overview of five ‘alternative’ approaches to economic development
Our analysis of cornerstone texts and core strategic documents highlights key differences in the visions set out, the mechanisms to drive change, and the geographic scales and challenges the approaches respond to.
Wellbeing economy and doughnut economics are the two approaches which most clearly articulate a vision of the “good life”, often underpinned by an outcomes frameworks to measure progress. In terms of mechanisms for change, there is a common concern for democratic participation, but also marked differences in terms of prescriptiveness with community wealth building offering the most defined set of principles and tools (e.g. progressive procurement and plural ownership of the economy). With respect to geographic scale, there is rarely clarity on the geographic disparities to be addressed (aside from community wealth building), despite the mobilisation of these approaches by many local authorities.
Our paper identifies key gaps in current knowledge. Advocates claim these approaches can generate transformative economic change. However, we still know little about how they are being understood, adopted and implemented in different places. A lack of evaluation also means evidence on the outcomes and impact of initiatives is also scarce.
To address some of these gaps, the research team are undertaking workshops with stakeholders in Sheffield as well as Birmingham, Cardiff, and Glasgow to gain insight into the experiences, challenges and outcomes of deploying alternative approaches. Due to report in Spring 2024, we hope our work sheds some light on this complex and fragmented policy terrain.
That said, the more recent emergence of further alternative approaches in both academic and policy circles such as degrowth or postgrowth, the circular economy and regenerative economies suggests there is little prospect that the current flux will settle anytime soon.
Y-PERN will play a key role in surveying and clarifying this complex policy terrain by working with academic and policy partners to explore how alternative approaches are being adopted and implemented across the region, and what outcomes and impact is being achieved. Y-PERN provides an ideal platform for sharing learning and good practice from across and beyond the region. This will sharpen understanding around the potential for alternative approaches to support more inclusive and sustainable economies and places.
Richard Crisp is a researcher at the Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research (CRESR) at Sheffield Hallam University. He specialises in research on inclusive and sustainable economies, ‘alternative’ approaches to economic development, poverty, worklessness, and social and spatial inequalities.
Reference and credit for full paper referred to in this blog:
Dr Juan Pablo Winter, Y-PERN Policy Fellow (Hull, East Yorkshire & the Humber), and team invited policymakers, academics and people with lived experience to reflect on their role and examine underlying assumptions.
Place-based approaches to policymaking seem to be gaining momentum in the UK. Whether people think it is cost-effective or feel it is just the right thing to do, the fact is that, over the last few years, there has been an increased interest in understanding the interconnections and relationships within a place and how working together can have a broader, deeper, and lasting change for the community. Within this context, in Hull and East Yorkshire, we have invited policymakers, academics and people with lived experience to sit at the same table, reflect on their role and take action and responsibility for improving the quality of life of their communities. In so doing, we have three underlying assumptions.
Assumption 1: “Nothing about us, without us, is for us”.
The University of Hull is participating in several collaborative programmes across our city and region which seek to contribute to these agendas. The programmes include Y-PERN, Y-PIP (Yorkshire & Humber Policy Innovation Partnership), and the Ideas Fund. All three initiatives provide a space for the communities to be heard, to identify what is out there, what is needed, where the gaps are, and get actively involved from the beginning of the process. Consequently, to generate a collective understanding of policy, practice and community priorities around different themes, the three programmes organised a workshop together on the 5th of July. The event brought together more than 40 stakeholders from the City Council, the business sector, civil society organisations, people with lived experience and academia.
Assumption 2: Academics, policymakers and people with lived experience must work on sharing knowledge and agreeing on common understandings.
Participants were asked to reflect on what is already known about community experiences, preferences and needs around inclusive growth, green economy, and innovation. Then they were asked to uncover what research is needed to support and inform community-led policy and practice in each theme. Finally, the participants had to reflect on what needs to change about how communities, researchers, and policymakers interact. Unsurprisingly, an important part of the discussion was about academics and policymakers’ language. People do not know (and most of the time do not care) what acronyms mean or what sustainability or a greener economy looks like. Most marginalised and underserved groups worry more about their daily needs than understanding academic jargon. Moreover, there appears to be a lack of trust in information and frustration on how issues such as greenwashing have made people not trust the idea of a greener economy (leading to inaction).
Assumption 3: Engagement requires time to know what is out there, build trust and an extra effort to include “the unengaged majority”.
The participants highlighted that there is a vibrant community sector in the region. The question they posed was how to bring those networks together. Other challenges raised by the participants were how to engage everyone in a meaningful way, criticising that there are always the same people participating in different projects (that would participate anyways, with or without being invited). Hence, the challenge is to engage “the unengaged majority” and reflect on the nature of that engagement, communicating better, building trust, and understanding the different timeframes between what academics, policymakers, and communities might need.
Overall, we aim to build on current initiatives to shift and share power through innovative ways of working. We believe there is a big opportunity for this in Hull and East Yorkshire, with increasing initiatives that look for engagement on an equitable level, including funding for place-based approaches to policymaking and community engagement. Workshops like the one we had can help us build new ways of working with the community to promote meaningful and sustainable change.