Dr Peter O’Brien, Executive Director – Yorkshire Universities
Last week saw the publication of a new report by the Harvard Kennedy School for Business and Government, which attempts to answer a fundamental question that has long been the subject of scrutiny and debate: ‘Why hasn’t UK Regional Policy worked?’. Co-authored, amongst others, by the ex-Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, and MP for Morley and Outwood, Ed Balls, and Dan Turner, currently working with the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority, the report is based on an impressive number of interviews with former leading politicians (including Prime Ministers), civil servants, local government leaders, senior academics, and key figures in civil society. Significantly, ninety-three interview transcripts have been published alongside the report itself. The authors claim, “there is no real substitute for reading the interviews in full”, and, in fairness to them, the interviews are illuminating.
The report summarises a series of practitioner views on how widening regional inequalities, said to be tied to “a political geography of discontent”, which has been amplified in recent years, have been addressed (or not) by UK public policy.
Anyone who has conducted, or has attempted to undertake, semi-structured interviews with ‘elites’, will testify that this specific research method can be valuable, but it can also be time-consuming to arrange and complicated to complete with total success. It also requires active reflexivity (or distance) on the part of the interviewer with the interviewee. The first challenge of interviewing elites depends on securing access, and in navigating complex issues of power and positionality. Evidently, this report and the research methodology underpinning the study, had little trouble in gaining access to some high-profile and influential people. The second challenge is to ensure sufficient triangulation takes place with what is being said during an interview, and that of other sources of data and analysis, given that elite interviews should only be relied upon as one research tool. It is important, therefore, to position this new report, as part of a series, and crucially as a follow up to in-depth analysis published by the Kennedy School, earlier this year, under the title, Tackling the UK’s regional economic inequality: Binding constraints and avenues for policy intervention.
Few of the conclusions in the new report will come as a surprise, and they include points, such as: economic change makes it difficult to stem and reverse spatial inequalities; skills, infrastructure, innovation, and governance are all part of the mix; over-centralisation, and a tendency to chop and change policy, and local and regional institutions and initiatives, has hindered long-term, sustainable growth and development; exceptional local leadership can drive (or hinder) reform; and there has been limited national political support – from across all parties in government – for devolution and decentralisation. George Osborne, leading advocate of the deal-making approach with cities and city-regions, makes a robust defence of universities, and argues against any restriction on student numbers in higher education. Many ex-politicians who are interviewed express regret and often frustration, but you are left asking why they were either unable or unwilling to enact the kinds of change that they are now advocating.
On a personal note, I read with particular interest the interviews with people who I have worked with, at various times, during the past two decades. For example, my own PhD research, completed in 2004, on regionalism and organised labour, as a postgraduate at the Centre for Urban and Regional Development Studies, Newcastle University, was co-funded by the Trades Union Congress (TUC) Northern Region. Frances O’Grady, former TUC General Secretary, states in her interview that “we’ve [in the TUC] always been a little cautious about our role and devolution”, and this certainly echoed findings from my own research twenty years ago. In addition, those from the North East of England, such as former Newcastle City Council Leader, Nick Forbes, give first-hand accounts of how local politics, political relationships, and territorial jousting within the North East, has shaped sub-national and devolved governance in the region since 2010.
There was also a poignancy in reading the late Bob Kerslake’s fascinating account of his long experience at the heart of local and national government. His concluding remarks that, “levelling up is essential, it’s not a ‘nice to have’, it is absolutely essential”, should resonate with all political leaders committed to making the UK a fairer, more equitable, and more prosperous, country.
Finally, for those of us working as part of the Yorkshire and Humber Policy Engagement and Research Network (Y-PERN), which is bringing academic research closer to policymakers in Yorkshire and the Humber, this new report reminds us that no matter how authoritative our evidence is, politics matters, and that decisions on funding, investment and institutions are sometimes based on factors that do not follow where the research suggests we should go.
