MINUTES OF THE 57th MEETING OF THE SOUTH EAST ENGLAND DEVELOPMENT AGENCY HELD ON 17th JUNE 2004 SEEDA HEADQUARTERS, GUILDFORD
Present:
James Brathwaite (Chairman), Rob Anderson, Clive Booth, Liz Brighouse, Poul Christensen, Sarah Hohler, Peter Jones, Janis Kong, Mary McAnally, Terry Mills, John Peel, Peter Read, Phil Wood
In attendance:
Pam Alexander, Jeff Alexander, Gilly Bartrip (item 8), Charlotte Dixon, Paul Hudson, Jay Hunt (item 8), Paul Lovejoy (for John Parsonage), Pam McHale (item 4), Liz McSheehy (item 5), Marianne Neville-Rolfe, David Rawlins, Jonathan Sadler (item 11), Paul Martin (GOSE)
Item 1 Welcome and apologies for absence
Apologies had been received from: Rob Douglas, Keith House and John Parsonage
Item 2 Minutes of the last meeting (12 May 2004)
Peter Jones, not Peter Read, had declared an interest as a member of the Hastings Task Force.
The dates of SEEDA events at party conferences should have read:
Lib Dem: 21 September, Bournemouth
Labour: 28 September, Brighton
Conservative 5 October, Bournemouth
The minutes were then agreed and signed by the Chairman.
The Board NOTED actions and matters arising from the minutes.
Item 3 Declarations of interest
John Peel as member of Sussex Economic Partnership in relation to core funding for South East Economic Partnership (item 12)
Item 4 Fiona Mactaggart, Under Secretary of State, Home Office
The Minister emphasised the importance of the Voluntary and Community Sector (VCS) to the UK 's economic agenda – registered charities had a total income of £21 billion and employed over 500,000 people. The sector was becoming increasingly professionalised and the Home Office was providing funding for training and IT to help it to prosper without reliance on grants.
The VCS could bring innovative approaches to problem-solving, for example to race equality and community cohesion, and there were plenty of examples of this in the SE. The public sector needed to be more intelligent in making a contribution to race equality and community cohesion, for example through the planning and design of housing projects. An example of problems that could occur if this was not taken into account was in Bradford where problems had been caused because rigid boundaries between areas that received funding and those that did not gave the impression to local people that some were getting preferential treatment.
The Minister commended the work SEEDA was doing with the VCS and had witnessed at first hand as MP for Slough the benefits of projects such as the Slough Enterprise Gateway targeted at Asian women. Other parts of the country could learn from SEEDA's experience and the Home Office was keen to work with SEEDA and its partners to improve the capability of the VCS to make a strong contribution. The Minister then invited SEEDA to consider piloting in the SE a new community cohesion impact assessment tool that the Home Office was developing.
The Chairman welcomed the Minister's recognition of SEEDA and its partners' work with the VCS. Charlotte Dixon then gave a short presentation describing this work in more detail.
The Minister brought to the attention of the Board a new Home Office consultation document "Strength in Diversity" which aimed to get views on the citizenship agenda as it applied to both British and non-British people living in the UK.
In discussion, Sarah Hohler commented that certainty of funding was a big issue for the VCS. She also wondered whether in responding to the development agenda enough attention was paid to community cohesion, particularly when it came to new high density housing projects.
Clive Booth noted that the Big Lottery Fund provided very significant funding to the VCS and was starting to look at the regional dimension of this support. The competence of VCS organisations varied widely and he asked whether there were plans for accreditation or kite-marking of good performers – the proposed assessment tool could be very useful in this respect.
Mary McAnally asked about Home Office interaction with DTI's Social Enterprise Unit. As Chair of Sport England South East, she was also particularly concerned with how to unlock the potential of sports clubs to contribute more effectively to community and social cohesion.
Liz Brighouse commented that Milton Keynes had received a lot of funding to help establish a thriving VCS and this had been very successful. She had attended the 3 rd EU Cohesion Forum in Brussels and had been struck by the high level of interest in community cohesion. It was important not to devise top-down solutions but to involve individuals and empower them to develop their own solutions.
Janis Kong wondered how the concept of personalised solutions to community cohesion problems could be used in infrastructure developments.
Peter Read was encouraged that the Home Office was starting with an economic case for the VCS and wondered what the business case was.
The Minister responded that the Home Office were putting about £80 million into regional and national hubs to promote the professionalisation of the VCS. She had met the previous day with the DTI minister responsible for social enterprise and new charity legislation in train would allow sports promotion organisation to be charities without dual registration. More generally, this legislation would establish two classes of companies: Charitable Income Organisations, which were predominately about promotion of activities like sport but with a relatively small trading operation; and Community Investment Companies which were predominately trading operations. She was keen to help bring the experience of the wider VCS sector to some of the issues sports organisations had so far not tackled eg gaining reasonably priced insurance cover for volunteers.
Vastly more money was spent on procurement than on grants to organisations so it made sense to look at how public sector procurement policy and business procurement activities could be joined up with policies aimed at improving community and social cohesion. There was a need for a brokering function between procurers and VCS organisations; many of the latter were never likely on their own to acquire the contacts or expertise to bid effectively. She hoped that SEEDA and major businesses like BAA could work with the Home Office on this.
On the impact assessment tool, an advisory group had been set up; the LDA were already involved and she would welcome SEEDA's participation.
Pam Alexander reiterated that SEEDA regarded the VCS as central to its business and community cohesion was a key part of its major projects in Chatham and Ashford, for example. She was keen to discuss the potential impact assessment pilot and noted that others, like Investors in Communities were also developing such tools. Finally, she urged the Home Office to engage with ODPM on the issue of community and social cohesion as a central issue for those providing housing.
Action: from Ministerial Discussion: paragraph 20
Charlotte Dixon to consider the SEEDA involvement in the impact assessment pilot in discussion with the Home Office.
Concluding, the Chairman thanked the Minister for a very useful discussion.
Item 5 Milton Keynes, Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Buckinghamshire (MKOBB) area report
Liz McSheehy, SEEDA MKOBB Area Director, gave a presentation on current initiatives and on progress on RES objectives. The sub-region was characterised by overall strength but disparities between the administrative areas as well as pockets of quite extreme deprivation.
In response to a query from Peter Read she commented that development of nano- and micro-technologies was clearly a potential business opportunity for the sub-region given the concentration of high-tech industries.
Clive Booth queried the low GVA figures from Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire compared to Milton Keynes and Berkshire which seemed at odds with the perception on the ground. Marianne Neville-Rolfe responded that despite the hot-spots of Thames Valley and Milton Keynes , the overall economic base of the sub-region was not that strong, in particular due to the rural character of West Oxfordshire .
Pam Alexander thought that there were synergies with the previous discussion and issues about how to address the disparity between the West and East of the sub-region in the absence of an Area Investment Framework. In Milton Keynes, where English Partnerships controlled most of the land needed for growth, it was important that lessons were learnt from what had worked well in other parts of the SE, notably Chatham and Ashford, rather than relying on less appropriate tools and mechanisms from other parts of the country.
Mary McAnally asked Liz McSheehy about the arrangements for bringing together her geographically dispersed team. There were quarterly meetings of the whole team and much more frequent meetings of smaller groups.
Item 6 Nigel Walmsley and Bob Collier, Tourism South East (TSE)
Nigel Walmsley (Chairman, TSE) introduced Bob Collier's presentation on TSE's activities and the priorities for tourism in the SE by noting TSE's main functions: marketing, particularly business to business; trading; setting and monitoring standards; sponsor and collaborator for new initiatives; providing a central purchasing function for Local Authorities (LAs); and championing and lobbying for tourism in the SE.
In his presentation, Bob Collier outlined TSE's "big idea" which was to concentrate on developing thematic brands (e.g. heritage, sport, education) and iconic destinations, putting much more emphasis on a dialogue with the customer and promoting a dialogue between sectors.
Paul Martin thought the presentation was excellent but queried whether LAs were bought into the concept. Bob Collier responded that it was a major departure from the long-standing focus on promoting administrative areas and although there was intellectual buy-in at some levels to the fact that these areas meant little or nothing to many potential tourists, when it came to investment decisions, there could be resistance to collaboration across boundaries. So one of TSE's tasks to was to help manage these sensitivities. Terry Mills asked what leverage TSE had as its resources were limited. Bob Collier. This was indeed an issue with LA budgets being squeezed and the difficulty of demonstrating to a particular LA the value to its constituencies of tourism outside its area.
Janis Kong queried the role of the two major SE airports in the strategy. She also noted that many of her customers purchased all elements of their holidays on-line and asked how e-commerce was being developed. Bob Collier commented that a regional e-commerce site was in preparation but TSE was taking time to get it right rather than launch something quickly which didn't work. Nigel Walmsley noted that Tourist Information Centres still attracted very large numbers of visitors and wanted to explore whether they could be sited within airports.
Mary McAnally asked whether TSE thought its role was to detect and plug gaps eg in luxury hotel provision. On the same theme, Sarah Hohler asked about quality B&B provision and Peter Jones about medium sized conference provision. Nigel Walmsley wanted TSE to do less, well and felt that plugging gaps was not a top priority. He noted that 4* hotel provision was increasing but was not sure there was much of a market for conference provision in the 500-1000 seat bracket.
Nigel Walmsley agreed with Pam Alexander who commented that heritage had been out of fashion for a while in the 1990s but was now back in. The SE had lots of iconic heritage sites and we should make the most of them.
The Chairman thanked TSE for their excellent presentation and for the discussion.
Item 7 Regional Assembly update
The Chairman welcomed Nick Skellet (Chairman) and Paul Bevan (Chief Executive) from SEERA who gave a presentation on the development of the South East Plan. A major survey had been conducted, primarily to test ideas rather than inform the drafting of the Plan though a first draft would be needed this Autumn with final agreement scheduled for 2006. Nick Skellet hoped that SEEDA would lend its support to this process.
Paul Martin thought that the Assembly's work would greatly help to gain wide ownership of the SE Plan among stakeholders. He encouraged the Assembly to start the drafting process early to give SEEDA and other partners as much time as possible to help with this process.
Paul Bevan commented that one of the key messages from the survey was a need for affordable housing in the SE. However, 53% of respondents had concerns about the levels of increase in housing numbers proposed by the Barker report and this included concerns about the available infrastructure to support such increases. Paul Martin noted that although total numbers of houses was important, the location of these new developments was equally so. It was not always the case that those areas where there was pressure from Government to provide extra houses matched those where there was greatest demand from potential house-buyers. It was also clear that there was a current trend for investment in social housing to be diverted towards affordable housing for key workers. Phil Wood felt that availability for good quality rented accommodation was a priority across the region, not just in social housing.
Clive Booth asked about the coherence between the emerging messages and the RES priorities. Paul Hudson thought there was a good fit, and noted one of the other messages from the SEERA survey was for a strong focus on implementation; the RES made a similar point.
Summing up, the Chairman agreed with the suggestion to start the drafting early and noted that it was for SEEDA and the Regional Assembly to make sure that the SE Plan and the RES fitted well.
Item 8 Regional Skills for Productivity Alliance (RSPA)
Paul Lovejoy introduced this paper on behalf of John Parsonage, commenting that the RSPA was an important step in bringing together the priorities and processes if the LSC, Business Link and Jobcentre plus organisations better to meet employer demands and regional and local economic needs.
Phil Wood and Peter Read were concerned about establishing a further bureaucratic layer but Clive Booth commented that it was likely that with the establishment of the RSPA, other structures would become unnecessary and would wither away. In MKOBB, stakeholders were pleased with how the RSPA was operating. Gilly Bartrip noted that there was considerable support from businesses for the concept of an organisation to broker a business-oriented solution to skills in order to drive up productivity. The CBI had put forward five of its member companies to sit on the Alliance .
Item 9 SEEDA Annual Report 2004
Marianne Neville-Rolfe introduced the business review sections of the annual report and invited the Board's comments on the presentation of SEEDA's influencing versus operational roles.
Pam Alexander commented that as well as this formal document for Government and Parliament, she was considering how best to present SEEDA's work to a wider audience. SEEDA had very significant achievements and had greatly exceeded many targets in the last year and she wanted to make sure that this was widely known.
Peter Jones agreed that key achievements such as the 5500 jobs created or safeguarded needed to be highlighted and suggest that greater mention be made of the role of SEEDA's partners. Sarah Hohler thought the business review was clear and covered SEEDA's work well. Phil Wood noted that partners liked to see projects they had contributed funding to described. The Chairman agreed that the review was an excellent record of SEEDA's work.
The Board AGREED the business review for inclusion in the Annual Report.
Item 10 Major Project Update: Chatham Maritime
Jonathan Sadler introduced this paper and reported the very welcome decision the previous day by Medway Council to grant planning permission for the ING scheme comprising two tall residential towers. He also drew the Board's attention to several awards won by the existing housing developments on St Mary's Island .
In response to a query from Peter Read, Jonathan Sadler said that 12% of the St Mary's Island housing was affordable housing – this was comparatively low due to the exceptional costs of developing that site. The ongoing review of SEEDA's investments in St Mary's Island would consider whether that proportion could be increased.
Mary McAnally asked about the sustainability of the development. A survey had shown that 65% of people living on the Island were from, or had strong links to, Medway towns. There was a range of housing from £140,000 to £500,000. The Chatham Maritime team were monitoring house prices very carefully in order to be able to respond to changes in the market.
The Board NOTED the Chatham Maritime report.
Item 11 Project reports
The Board NOTED the project reports
Item 12 Operational Review: 4th Quarter Report
Marianne Neville-Rolfe introduced this paper and reported that although, in the previous quarter, she had alerted the Board to a possible under-performance against target C1A (jobs created and safeguarded) of 10%, recent progress had reduced this deficit to only 3%, within the agreed margin of error. Other performance was as expected; for example the under-performance on target C5 (private sector leverage) was due mainly to the definitions of what could be counted. [To be updated under Matters Arising]
In response to a query from the Chairman, Jeff Alexander said that the low turnover of companies in SEEDA's supported incubator units was being monitored and where possible alleviated, for example by providing move-on space.
Mary McAnally asked about the apparent lack of success in meeting the target for individuals receiving broadband access. In fact, the outcome of SEEDA's involvement in broadband aggregation had been that BT had now increased access to broadband in the SE so SEEDA's direct involvement was not necessary. Pam Alexander suggested that future reports on broadband include an estimate of the benefit to the private sector.
On brownfield land remediation, the Chairman noted that there would be a lot of MoD land coming onto the market in the next few years.
The Board NOTED the progress report on performance.
Item 13 Operational Review: Finance Report
Marianne Neville-Rolfe explained that start-to-spend time had been very slow this year although 40% of the budget had been formally contracted and a great deal more committed.
Action: from Operational Review; paragraph 65
Marianne Neville-Rolfe to provide a report on expenditure levels for the July Board
The Board NOTED the report and AGREED that a further report be made at the next meeting on levels of spend.
Item 14 Agency report
The Board NOTED the report and felt it was a very helpful summary of SEEDA's activities.
Item 15 Any Other Business
Pam Alexander reported that at his visit to a Computer Club for Girls in Slough , Charles Clarke had been very enthusiastic about DfES funding for a national roll-out. If this transpired, it would allow SEEDA to go ahead with a regional roll-out and develop new initiatives e.g. reading clubs for boys.
Jeff Alexander reported that Congressman Davis would be visiting the region in September, following the Chairman's successful visit to America , and would take part in a conference about doing business with the US Federal Government.
Date of the next meeting
Thursday 22 July 2004 starting at the Carlton Hotel, Guildford at 8.00 am with a presentation from the H. M. Treasury and reconvening at SEEDA headquarters at 11.00.
www.homeoffice.gov.uk/docs3/strengthindiversity.html
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