Dr Pernille KOUSGAARD

Dr Pernille KOUSGAARD

Head of European Policy

Northwest Regional development Agency

ABSTRACT

Devising a single regional programme in the North West of England

The NW of England has been eligible for structural funds interventions under the programming approach since the late 1980s. While eligibility has shifted a little geographically since then, eligibility has focused on areas and/or communities is economic decline and economic and social exclusion. Parts of the region have had eligibility under different objectives in each planning period, a trend which has led to sometimes unhelpful boundaries. The emergence of a regional tier of governance in the UK has added to the mismatch between European and domestic policies and funding regimes. The new programming period present an opportunity to align policy and funding streams within a single framework of the regional ERDF programme.

The NW of England is a large regional economy, worth approximately €150 billion in 2005. The population is close to 7 million and the region borders Wales, the Irish Sea, Scotland, The North East, Yorkshire & the Humber and the West Midlands regions in England. There are some 230,000 firms in the region, from the very small to world leaders such as Pilkington’s (glass), Astra Zeneca (bio medical), British Nuclear Group (nuclear) and Evans (pharmaceuticals). Our recent economic growth has outstripped that of England and 150,000 jobs have been created.

However, this growth is not evenly spread across the region and we have a number of geographical areas which are under performing (West Cumbria, East Lancashire, and Merseyside). For the region to perform at the Englandaverage, we would need 80,000 more people with degree level qualifications, 120,000 more people with basic level qualifications, 80,000 more people in work and 38,000 more companies. In global terms, the economic performance gap converts into an annual productivity gap of €19 billion. It is this gap that the Regional Economic Strategy seeks to address.

The current structural funds in the 2000-2006 period has divided the region into eligible areas, including Objective 1 (Merseyside), Objective 2 (spatially defined areas across the rest of the NW region) and Objective 3 (everywhere outside Merseyside). Due to delivery mechanisms in the 1994-99 period, the Objective 1 programme has continued to be managed separately from the Objective 2 and 3 programmes. And, although the programmes deliver similar types of activities, the differences are marked. One programme is made up of individual projects; the other has an agreed method of delivery through Action Plans. The links between ESF and ERDF are closer in Objective 1 than between Objective 2 and 3.

Within England, the context for the new programming period has shifted dramatically. In 1999, Regional Development Agencies were established by the UK government and since then, a three rolling cycle has produced a Regional Economic Strategy for each of the English regions. The RES is produced by the relevant RDA. It is however important to stress that the RES is of and for the region. In other words, regional, sub regional and local partners sign off the RES and agree to take responsibility for delivery of certain actions.

In the NW, the current RES was agreed in March 2006. It was informed by the Regional Advisory Group, bringing together partners for across the spectrum of economic actors in the region, private, public, education and NGOs. The RES vision

A dynamic, sustainable international economy which competes on the basis of knowledge, advanced technology and an excellent quality of life for all

is further both thematically and spatially targeted. So, there is a focus on knowledge transfer from our Universities to businesses, innovation (product, process), leadership and higher skilled jobs. An also a focus on exploiting growth opportunities in the three city regions of Manchester, Liverpool and Preston as well as smaller urban centres such as Crewe, Chester, Warrington, Lancaster and Carlisle. Emphasis is also given to particularly economic black spots of Barrow in Cumbria, East Lancashire, Blackpool and West Cumbria. Worklessness with its emphasis on tackling no/basic skills as well developing higher level skills are important. The RES is also set within the context of the UK priorities for sustainable Development, which includes four themes (sustainable consumption and production, climate change and energy, natural resource protection and environmental enhancement, and sustainable communities).

The RES has three drivers (improving productivity and growing the market, growing the size and capabilities of the workforce, and creating the conditions for sustainable growth) and five themes (business, skills and education, people and jobs, infrastructure and Quality of Life). A number of transformational activities (45) have been agreed. These include development of internationally competitive sectors, innovation (product and process) in companies, support for major research concentrations, develop resource efficiency, workforce development, particularly in priority sectors, delivery of regional strategic sites, road, rail and airports infrastructure, delivery of the equality and diversity strategy, employability activities, focused investments in economically under performing areas.

The RES is in fact the NW’s practical response to the EU Lisbon agenda, which also underpins the Competitiveness and Employment Objective of the Structural Funds 2007-2013.

The new programme period presents the region with a great opportunity to develop the programme within a clear regional context and also support the transition of Merseyside into the new second Objective. Over the last 12 – 18 months, partners in the NW have been developing sub regional partnerships which will coordinate delivery on the sub regional elements of the RES and deliver identified priorities. Sub Regional Action Plans are being finalised at the moment and will be an annual rolling strategy exercise. They and the RES will provide the context for a programme which is both regionally and sub regionally focussed. We have agreed to have a single regional ERDF programme.

The draft programme takes as its starting point the Lisbon and RES agendas. Four priorities are proposed – targeted business support, innovation/knowledgetransfer, creating conditions for growth and sustainable communities. Two rounds of consultations have taken place and a full public consultation is planned for October/November. There is a strongtradition of cross cutting themes within the structural funds programmes and the new proposals will carry forward and mainstream the sustainable development and equality (and diversity) themes.

Despite the long partnership and programming tradition and best practice within the NW region, this is not an easy process. The mid term evaluation showed that there was little collaboration between the programmes and the fact that the whole region is now eligible under the same objective gave us the opportunity and push to go forward with one programme. We are now in the process of forging new regional and sub regional partnerships to prepare the ground for the 2007-2013 programme. This involves the difficult decision by Merseyside partners to agree to the development of a single ERDF programme, which clearly recognises their ring fenced amount of funding and strategic priorities.

As a consequence, governance structures will require careful thinking and stakeholder engagement. The governancearrangements will have to open, transparent and the PMC must be able to hold the managing authority to account, set the strategy and overarching framework, monitor performance and generally fulfil its role as per the regulations.

Match funding is always seen as an issue by partners as the funding streams do not easily align. This time round, we have the perfect opportunity to ensure that the main public sector funding streams do align – these include the RDA, Neighbourhood Renewal Fund, HEIs, local authorityfunding for economic development.

Links to the national ESF programme are critical to get right. At the moment, the planning horizon for this programme is about 3 months behind the ERDF work and the focus is proposed as basic skills and low levels skills. This is in line with the UK’s Lisbon National Reform Programme, but not entirely in line with the aspirations of the RES and the ERDF programme. We are consequently planning to use the flexibility offered by the regulations for leadership and management and possibly technical and high levels skills in relation to the priority sectors/clusters.

Inter-regional activity – well, in principle we would like to include, but are finding it difficult to include. There is not clear guidance at the moment, but lots of ideas (fast track regions, transnational activity). We have established a small Task and Finish group to investigate.

In summary, a challenge which will allow regional, sub regional and local stakeholders to focus the EU investments in the 2007-2013 programmes.

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