As someone who remembers the Small Firms Service, Manpower Services Commission, The Training Agency, TECS, Business Links and the establishment of RDAs, I refuse to be overly exercised by the development of\u00a0Local\u00a0Economic Partnerships.<\/p>\n
We know that\u00a0they\u00a0will have significantly reduced budgets. \u00a0We know that they will be led by some concoction of ‘private’ and ‘public’ sector with a seasoning of social enterprise for good measure.<\/p>\n
We can be\u00a0relatively\u00a0sure that they will have considerable\u00a0bureaucratic\u00a0overheads –\u00a0necessary\u00a0to ensure\u00a0openness, accountability and probity and that they will tie themselves up in the same debates about economic development policy that have raged with sterility for decades; picking winners, encouraging start-ups, clusters, sectors, creative classes, beautification, yada, yada, yada.<\/p>\n
We know that they will be very heavily influenced by professions allied to construction and engineering. Planners,\u00a0place-makers, architects, developers who can throw big money at making sure they\u00a0retain\u00a0the lion’s share of public spending even as the spending pie shrinks. \u00a0One just needs to look at the key ‘Partners’of the current Regeneration and Renewal National Summit<\/a> to see the evidence.<\/p>\n We can also be sure that they will embrace a strategic, top down\u00a0approach\u00a0to\u00a0economic\u00a0development that pretends that economic development happens in a bubble that is disconnected from cultural and social development. \u00a0No doubt these too will get their own shrivelled strategic bodies. \u00a0The paradigm of economic growth as an unmitigated good will hold sway in the strange world of economic development. \u00a0Ideas of sustainability and steady state will not be seriously\u00a0entertained\u00a0(unless of course they paradoxically provide opportunities for growth). \u00a0Visions will be developed by the anointed<\/a>, and most of us will see the world of economic development at best, ‘through a glass darkly’.<\/p>\n Facilitation is\u00a0unlikely\u00a0to get a look in. \u00a0Whole person approaches will be ignored (economic\u00a0development\u00a0will continue to speak to homo econimicus<\/a>), co-creation is as close as we will get to responsiveness and bottom-up. And let’s be clear, co-creation as conceived by the state is nowhere near responsive and bottom up. \u00a0It still asks ‘how do we engage people in the agenda of the state’ and not ‘how do we engage the state in the agendas of the people’. \u00a0For me this is the ultimate deceit that lies at the heart of ‘Big Society’ and that needs to be carefully and thoroughly outed.<\/p>\n We can also be sure that those who actually live in the communities and give their time and skills to help make things better will be expected to do so for free as budgets for community development shrink and are increasingly\u00a0targeted\u00a0at problems (obesity, crime, drugs etc) that see humans as essentially degenerate instead of at the development of aspiration, hopes and dreams which see people as essentially good and progressive.<\/p>\n So I refuse to be exercised. \u00a0LEPs will <\/strong>evolve. \u00a0They will be largely ineffective in spite of the fact that\u00a0they\u00a0will be stuffed to the ginnels with good, committed, well meaning people. \u00a0And in a decade they will evolve again. \u00a0The sign-makers, website developers and letterhead printers will rub their hands with glee.<\/p>\n I will put my energies into supporting bottom up,\u00a0responsive\u00a0approaches that honour peoples humanity, that build social capital, that\u00a0value\u00a0the contributions of all, regardless of sector, ambition or potential. \u00a0And I will keep looking for genuinely innovative approaches to the thorny question of progress?<\/p>\n In practice this means helping others to develop initiatives like Bettkultcha<\/a>, Cultural Conversations<\/a>, TEDx Leeds<\/a> etc (we are blessed with a resurgence of such civic endeavour in Leeds) that holds real promise to nurture something very exciting.<\/p>\n But I will also endeavour to provide some contributions of my own. \u00a0For me this\u00a0means\u00a0trying to develop Progress School<\/a> and Innovation Lab<\/a> as places to foster radical personal and organisational transformation.<\/p>\n And just perhaps we might be able to persuade those in authority to trust us, to support us, to help us.<\/p>\n Who knows?<\/p>\n