Dr Peter O'Brien, YU Executive Director
Drawing on his personal and professional experience, Dr Peter O'Brien explores Andy Burnham's vision for government and reflects on what this might mean for both Yorkshire and the higher education sector.
The next leader of the Labour Party, Andy Burnham, has set out his principles and vision for how, when he becomes Prime Minister in the next few days, he plans to fix the economy and the country, and change politics for the better.
It is perhaps a challenge for someone who leads a Yorkshire-based organisation to offer reflections and support for an approach said to derive its origins from the North West, and is termed as ‘Manchesterism’. But I will give it a go. I hope my background, as well as experience of regional and place-based partnerships, might illustrate some of my credentials for this effort.
As a Lancastrian, who was born in Bolton, I lived my formative years in Westhoughton, which is a stone’s throw from Makerfield, and was part of the parliamentary constituency that existed before the current Makefield Parliamentary seat was created. Villages within Makefield, such as Hindley and Platt Bridge, were all-too familiar places in my childhood, and my parents still live in the local area.
There was a fifty-fifty split in my high school, in the 1980s, between the kids who came from Bolton and those from Wigan. Each day, and opposite what is now the Bolton Wanderers Football Club Stadium, my school bus would pass a huge British Aerospace factory and steelworks. Both were key industrial assets for the region during the Cold War but have long been replaced by housing. In 1986, the year before I started my GCSEs, Greater Manchester County Council, the then strategic body for ten local authorities, was abolished. Weekend trips to Manchester, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, saw visits on the train to a city centre that was unrecognisable from the bustling ‘metropolis’ we see today.
Burnham’s recent speech in Manchester, at the People’s History Museum, emphasised the critical importance he attaches to “broad coalitions”, of building a more “collaborative politics”, and for these to work effectively within and across the places where people live. It also illustrated the values he places on history, identity, supporting the underdog, and tackling injustice. His platform for Government has, at its heart, greater devolution and autonomy, the redistribution of power and resources, and a sizeable reduction in Whitehall centralisation. Under Burnham, the Civil Service will be instructed to get behind places and to work with local and regional leaders to make quicker, more joined-up decisions.
Whilst Burnham recognises the role that universities play at the heart of local economies – something that all Mayors do – he does, nevertheless, present a challenge to the HE sector in how it responds to and contributes towards his intention to create vocational education pathways that have ‘parity of esteem’ with academic routes. We know, however, that there is not a binary divide, and that pitching pathways in competition with each other is unproductive. Many universities in Yorkshire offer vocational and technical post-18 education. But we do need to answer the question of how best to enable and incentivise a model that encourages more universities to work collaboratively together, and with FE, to help create and drive local and regional tertiary education systems. And HE needs to step up to contribute effectively towards local and regional skills plans. This is essential if we are to increase and expand learning opportunities for individuals, provide the best environment in which to build rewarding careers, and supporting business, industry and public services to be more productive, efficient, and responsive, in a rapidly evolving and technologically complex world.
One of the fundamental questions is how regions and places can apply, within a narrow window, the decades long learning and experience of Greater Manchester, and adopt place-based systems of governance and development that will produce visible, positive impacts and benefits for people, communities and business. At various points, Manchester has been punctured by shocks, crisis and tragic events. If there is to be a rewiring of Central Government, so that it works better and in a genuine spirit of collaboration with regions, then this could short-circuit the time for places outside Greater Manchester to build the absorptive capacity needed to grasp the opportunity afforded by more devolution. Greater Manchester, in the vanguard, spent years building local coalitions of political leaders, business, universities and others, but it was also relentless in hammering on the doors of Whitehall and Westminster, calling on the centre to let go.
So how does ‘Manchesterism’ land within Yorkshire, and what lessons and experiences can we share with our friends across the Pennines (and elsewhere) that would reinforce and strengthen the Burnham approach to governing through more regional and local autonomy? From the perspective of the HE sector, there are some tangible examples in our region that we can point towards.
In his Manchester speech, Burnham highlighted the hollowing out of local government, as demands on local authorities have risen significantly, and at a time when the size of Government nationally has been growing. Any move towards devolving more power to the regions will need to be accompanied with equipping local government with the tools and resources to help create growth in every postcode.
At Yorkshire Universities (YU), we have long valued the foundational role that local government makes to the prosperity, wellbeing and success of our region. The strategic partnership we have had for five years, with Yorkshire and Humber Councils (YHC), embodied through a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), has been the bedrock of an innovative place-based alliance between all universities and all local and combined authorities in the region that has seen us pool our respective ambitions and assets to work together on four priorities: the economy; devolution; health; and climate and the environment. This framework complements other mechanisms, such as the three Mayors White Rose Agreement, and the HE Compact with the West Yorkshire Combined Authority. It also reinforces the vital role that universities in Yorkshire play in driving innovation and sector and cluster led economic growth, currently supported, in part, through programmes like the Investment Zones and the Local Innovation Partnerships Fund.
Greater Manchester’s model was, in part, built on the existence of locally based research, insights, intelligence and analytical capacity that was able to tell a powerful and compelling story of the city region’s economy, and, importantly, its future trajectory. The Manchester Independent Economic Review, for example, was a seminal moment in shaping Greater Manchester’s long-term vision and strategy. In Yorkshire, the YU – YHC MOU has paved the way for significant investment from UK Research and Innovation, and now from local and regional partners, to combine and utilise the research expertise of Yorkshire’s academic community to work in partnership with policy makers and communities to strengthen policy, strategy and investment decisions, informed by connected data and analysis. Across local and combined authorities, YU, alongside the Yorkshire and Humber Policy Engagement and Research (Y-PERN), is supporting the development of new Areas of Research Interest (ARIs), whilst YU and YHC are trialling new approaches to backing graduate employment and employability. Earlier this year, Y-PERN produced a report, drawing on insights from regional and local political leaders, on how devolution could progress further within Yorkshire. The Yorkshire and Humber Policy Innovation Partnership (YPIP), another mechanism within the MOU, has been instrumental in convening the voices of communities in Yorkshire, facilitating agency from many places who have felt marginalised, to examine and produce solutions on how to tackle specific place-based challenges. YPIP has also founded the Yorkshire and Humber Office for Data Analytics (YHODA), which supports data-driven decision-making through open-access data and analytics., working with communities, businesses, and policymakers to promote insights and solutions that drive inclusive and sustainable economic (or in Burnham parlance good) growth. The success of the MOU is laying the ground for emergent and constructive partnerships with the large Civil Service cohort based in Yorkshire, including individual three policy campuses and hubs. These discussions are focused on how universities, local and combined authorities, and Central Government, can work better together within and across the region. The existence of the Yorkshire Policy Officers Network, facilitated by YHC, has also laid the ground to build the kinds of trust between that underpinned many of the foundations of the Manchester model.
Andy Burnham and his team will want to hit the ground running, mindful of a clock ticking towards the next General Election. Existing and successful regional and place-based working, which involves universities, of all different shapes and sizes, can, with the necessary support and resources, provides the critical infrastructure, talent, ideas, and energy, to make a difference. It might not be fashionable to shout about ‘Manchesterism’ in Leeds, Sheffield, York, Hull, Barnsley or Wakefield, but the principles are the same, and at YU we and our members are ready to play our part in helping to turn ambition into reality.
