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MINUTES OF THE 60th MEETING OF THE
SOUTH EAST ENGLAND DEVELOPMENT AGENCY
HELD ON 27 OCTOBER 2004
SEEDA HEADQUARTERS, GUILDFORD
Present:
James Brathwaite (Chairman),
Rob Anderson,
Clive Booth,
Liz Brighouse,
Poul Christensen,
Rob Douglas,
Sarah Hohler, Peter Jones,
Janis Kong,
Mary McAnally,
Terry Mills,
John Peel,
Peter Read,
Phil Wood (until item 5)
In attendance:
Pam Alexander,
Jeff Alexander,
Charlotte Dixon,
Paul Hudson,
Paul Lovejoy, Marianne Neville-Rolfe,
John Parsonage,
David Rawlins,
Duncan Straughen,
Paul Bevan (SEERA)
Item 1 Welcome and apologies for absence
- The Chairman informed the Board that Janis Kong and Charlotte Dixon were attending their final Board meetings and he and the Board joined in thanking them for their work for SEEDA.
- Apologies had been received from Keith House, Paul Martin (GOSE) and Nick Skellett.
Item 2 Minutes of the last meeting (23 September 2004)
- The minutes were AGREED as a correct record of the meeting.
Actions from previous meetings
- Mary McAnally had received a list of PSA targets and the top 10 corporate risks as she had requested. She suggested that the former should be circulated to all Board Members as it was more detailed than the information they had received previously.
Action: from item 2, Minutes of the previous meeting; paragraph 4
Secretariat to circulate the PSA targets and top 10 corporate risks to all Board members with the next Board pack.
- Pam Alexander commented that item 5 on the Corporate Plan on the agenda contained a strategic framework for projects but that the more detailed look at the fit of projects to the strategic objectives would be done at the next stage in the Corporate Planning process.
- On the review of Board Committees, David Rawlins reported that Business Development Council and Regional Business Advisory Board members had been written to explaining the changes being made. Letters of invitation to prospective members of “Business South East” had been agreed and would be signed by the Chairman shortly. It was agreed that letters of explanation should go to all other members of the Business Development Committee, Regional Business Advisory Board, and Advisory Council. Infrastructure Committee members had been written to informing them of the changes. No action had been taken so far with respect to the Advisory Council or the Major Projects Committee. The Remuneration Committee would be convened next May with Duncan Straughen leading from the Executive. Informal discussions had taken place with the Chairs of the Sustainable Development, Inclusion and Learning and Workforce Committees and proposals would be brought to the next meeting. Finally, a schedule of Committee dates and a proposed timetable for reports to the Board would be brought to the next meeting.
Action: from item 2, Minutes of the previous meeting; paragraph 6
David Rawlins to report on the remaining actions in the restructuring of the Board Committees, and to propose a timetable for reports to the Board.
Item 3 Declarations of interest
- Peter Jones as a member of the Hastings and Bexhill Task Force with respect to item 5 on the Corporate Plan
- John Peel as a member of Sussex Enterprise with respect to item 10, project reports.
- Mary McAnally as Chair of Sport England SE with respect to item 10, project reports.
Item 4 Presentation on the Economic Inclusion and Sustainability (EIS) Division
- Charlotte Dixon gave a presentation on the work of her division and the opportunities and challenges for the future. She stressed that embedding sustainable economic development in SEEDA's activities could not be achieved by one Division but had to be done collectively by all.
- The Chairman commented that the EIS team had tackled many disparate problems and had made a great effort; it should be congratulated for its successes. This sentiment was echoed by the Board Members in their interventions.
- The Chairman also commented that the recent adoption of the Super Output Area (SOA) as the standard statistical unit of population area had rendered impossible the task of assessing progress against some of the measures that had been used previously. For example, progress against poverty had been defined by the reduction in 119 wards in the bottom 20% of Index of Multiple Deprivation but this measure was now superceded by Super Output Areas. Marianne Neville-Rolfe thought that the SOA was potentially a useful population unit as it was reasonably consistent (10-15,000 people) and more fine-grained than wards; the main problem was that data were always out of date.
- Clive Booth noted that EIS had been instrumental in the SE receiving £10m of EU money to rehabilitate prisoners – this would address lots of SEEDA priorities. But the imminent end of SRB had created an expectation in many quarters that SEEDA would pick up the issues that the fund had been used for. This would need careful handling. In response to his question about how the success of the AIFs could be measured, Charlotte Dixon thought that AIF partners needed to own their programmes and measure against success factors that were important to them. She noted that the SE Assembly Select Committee would be looking at SEEDA's work on AIFs in the near future – the voluntary sector would be present for the hearing.
- Liz Brighouse thought that detailed analysis was indeed needed as the data otherwise masked small pockets of very severe deprivation. In these communities, raising ambition through education was key to success.
- Janis Kong agreed that measuring improvements in poverty was important and wondered whether as well as statistical returns, SEEDA could undertake survey analysis to see what the people concerned would regard as an improvement.
- Mary McAnally asked whether all SEEDA developments had sustainability standards built in. In response, Paul Hudson said SEEDA tried very hard on big projects like Chatham to ensure that this was the case and to encourage wider use of such standards with a combination of leadership and demonstration. But it was difficult to balance these standards with the commercial imperative to make money. Pam Alexander agreed and thought SEEDA should focus on providing leadership to try to drive down costs in these developments. The Chairman noted that the economic impact of the planning process would be part of Local Authority Public Service Agreements (PSAs) and might take such standards into account.
- Peter Jones echoed Clive Booth's point about SRB and the difficulty of funding revenue as opposed to capital in its absence – a capacity building fund was needed. He wondered whether the model of AIF funding through a Joint Venture such as Hastings and Bexhill Renaissance Ltd could be extended to a wider area.
- Poul Christensen cautioned that although Charlotte had talked in her presentation about transforming the rural economy through driving up the efficiency of rural businesses, Defra seemed to be withdrawing from business support. Peter Read recommended that the land-based industries be included in the remit of Business South East.
- Phil Wood asked how much the deprivation map had been changed through SEEDA's activities. The Chairman commented that measures to promote inclusion should be focused on economic inclusion, not just promoting a feeling of well-being.
- The Chairman thanked Charlotte Dixon for her presentation and for her contribution to SEEDA's work.
Item 5 Corporate Plan – discussion of initial draft
- Pam Alexander introduced the initial draft by saying that she hoped the Board would give its views on what worked and where SEEDA could add most value. She was also looking for a steer on questions like whether SEEDA should be altering the balance of investment between types of project that had proven success against opportunities to enhance capacity in future. There were three principles that had emerged from the executive's awayday earlier in the month as ones that should drive future investment priorities: innovation, collaboration and brokerage. The document provided was very much an initial draft and she would present more specific choices with numbers attached at the next meeting in December.
- Rob Douglas advised that though leadership in strategy was important, SEEDA should stay very action-oriented, building and maintaining expertise in delivery. He felt that the focus should be on more of what had been successful; examples included Enterprise Hubs and Gateways. He was concerned about the number of groups set up to coordinate activities; they had a tendency to become talking shops. An example where this was a risk was in sector skills – SEEDA's sector work should be aligned with the sector skills councils.
- Clive Booth thought that concentrating on what worked was not a strong theme in the current draft and he asked for a paper specifically on what works and what does not for the next Board Meeting. Neither did he think that social inclusion was currently a clear theme – this should be addressed as should specifically the loss of SRB.
- On the proposed priorities for additional investment, he preferred the latter suggestions in section 2 to the proposal for IIIE. And he strongly supported the proposal for a coastal towns renaissance programme, the need for some investment outside the AIFs and the proposal for more university centres.
- Mary McAnally thought that SEEDA was seen as a delivery vehicle for Government and asked how the benefits of further investment on innovation could be demonstrated. Similarly, she wondered what could be delivered through investment in the cultural agenda.
- John Peel agreed that SEEDA should concentrate its resources because that helped make the outputs very visible. He felt that the rural agenda should receive more investment. He asked what SEEDA was learning from its Global Regions work and how that was being passed on. He thought that Broadband would be less of an issue than sustainable energy. He was supportive of the proposal for University Centres and agreed that sustainability rules should be applied to regeneration developments wherever possible.
- Janis Kong commented that although SEEDA did not spend money on transport, it did influence its provision. She felt that as an organisation, SEEDA should be mature enough to tackle the drivers rather than the symptoms of issues in the SE.
- Sarah Hohler thought it was important not to duplicate the work of others eg on transport. It was important to be innovative but not necessarily to run everything. SEEDA should deliver what others cannot, in partnership where appropriate. On geographic distribution, she thought that getting the purpose of investment right would drive location. Skilling children to be creative and innovative was critical.
- Rob Anderson thought that regeneration and investment in success were not mutually exclusive and he reiterated the point made earlier about raising ambition. He strongly supported targeting funding rather than spreading it thinly.
- Terry Mills thought that sustainability was not well enough resourced in SEEDA. One of the issues he felt needed to be addressed was those in the population who chose to be economically inactive – there was a lot of potential to fill skill gaps by persuading such people to re-enter the labour market. Liz Brighouse agreed that this was an issue but lots of things impacted on whether people wanted to work – for example, their quality of life if they didn't.
- Peter Reed agreed with the three principles – SEEDA would never have the resources to do everything itself. In his view schools should be given a higher profile in the Corporate Plan than at present. He would also like to see a vision of the impact of greater IT connectivity on patterns of working.
- Liz Brighouse commented that BMW had had a much greater impact on Blackbird Leys than had SRB.
- Peter Jones thought that University Centres needed greater resources in terms of managers (rather than money) than had been the case so far. On gaining leverage, he was very supportive of finding new ways to bring sources of funding together. In East Sussex, Local Authorities were coming together with formal agreements to pool resources. He felt this was a model that could be used elsewhere.
- The Chairman thought that strategic influencing was important and needed resources. However, it was important to know at whom this effort was targeted. On efficiency, he thought that a target of 2.5% was unambitious and that it ought to be 4 or 5%. On skills, he thought that the LSCs should take more of the load and now that there was a dual key arrangement and wanted to work with them to agree what was innovative and adding most value. Sustainable development needed top class management skills.
Action: from item 5 Corporate Plan; paragraph 34
Marianne Neville-Rolfe to take the Board’s comments into account in the next version of the Corporate Plan for the December Board Meeting.
Item 6 Presentation on SEEDA's coalfields work
- Paul Hudson gave a presentation on SEEDA's involvement in projects in the Kent coalfields, emphasising in particular the ways in which local people had been involved in making decisions about the re-developments.
- The Board welcomed the report. In response to queries from Poul Christensen and the Chairman about ways in which the lessons learnt were being used in other SEEDA projects, Paul Hudson said that the project director, Chris Moore, was active in bringing groups of SEEDA staff to the projects to see for themselves how they operated.
- The Board AGREED that a visit to the Kent coalfields projects should be arranged for Board Members during 2005.
Action : from item 6, presentation on SEEDA’s coalfields work; paragraph 37
Secretariat to arrange a visit to the Kent Coalfields projects for Board members during 2005
Item 7 Operational and Finance Reviews
- Pam Alexander introduced this item by explaining the organisation changes that were being made following the restructuring of the current Strategy & Corporate Services and Environment, Inclusion & Sustainability Divisions to create a Strategy & Sustainability Division and a Resources Division headed by Paul Lovejoy and Duncan Straughen respectively.
- Responsibilities for the some of the area teams were being reassigned with Liz McSheehy taking over as Area Director for Surrey and Sussex working with John Parsonage. The Area Director post for MKOBB was being advertised internally and Jeff Alexander would assume oversight at Executive Director Level. Duncan Straughen would take over Hampshire and Isle of Wight from Jeff with Kathy Slack remaining as Area Director.
- Paul Lovejoy's division would encompass rural, energy and environmental sustainability and inclusion as well as the strategy, cultural and Europe responsibilities currently in Marianne Neville-Rolfe's division. There would be a strengthened emphasis on managing external relationships and two new posts were being created – an Assistant Director to lead the review of the RES and a Head of Policy and Secretariat to liaise corporately with Government Departments and other RDAs and to manage the SEEDA Board. Both were being externally advertised.
- Duncan Straughen then introduced the finance review and noted that as a result of ongoing improvements to SEEDA's project management systems as well as detailed discussions with each Executive Director, the funds remaining unallocated to projects was now down to 8% of the overall budget, an improvement on last month's 12%.
- The Board NOTED the operational and finance reviews.
Item 8 South East Assembly update
- Paul Bevan reported that, on the Assembly's Select Committee process, the Urban Renaissance Select Committee had been very positive in its support for SEEDA's work, only asking for more clarity between the respective roles of SEEDA and English Partnerships. He expected that there would be a lot of interest at the forthcoming Select Committee on the AIFs about what would happen after Single Regeneration Budget funding came to an end. Lastly, the programme for the 2005 Select Committees had been agreed as manufacturing, poverty and social inclusion and business engagement.
- He then reported that the Assembly was close to having an initial draft of the SE Plan for public consultation and it would be put to the regional planning committee on 8 November. Extensive public consultation was planned and the aim was to distribute material to every household in the region. The consultation would run through to October 2005 in two stages – the proposals for numbers of houses in each area would be in the second stage in July.
- Housing numbers would undoubtedly be the controversial element of the plan – even RPG 9 anticipated 28,000 new houses per year. Population numbers were forecast to grow by a million in the next 20 years, two thirds through demographic change and one third by inward migration. The extent to which housing numbers should be used to accommodate economic growth, versus the environmental pressure that increased housing would create, were major issues for the consultation. Likewise: the distribution of new growth East/West; regeneration/economic growth; and growing existing/creating new settlements.
- The draft plan would look at the costs of the infrastructure needed alongside the increase in housing. The Assembly hoped to use SEEDA expertise in understanding the relationships between jobs, houses and productivity and it looked to SEEDA to express the economic case in the debate and to represent the views of businesses.
- In response to a question from the Chairman about whether the interest of local councils and local planning might be tied more to economic activity in future, Paul Bevan noted that voter pressure was often more concerned with amenities than jobs but that some councils were talking about how they would like a stronger relationship with businesses, as they felt was the case when the Business Rate was in force.
- Board Members had a number of queries about the SE Plan: Peter Jones on the Government's commitment to infrastructure; the Chairman on the accuracy of the housing number forecasts; Peter Read on Crossrail; Rob Douglas on renewables; and Mary McAnally on the sustainability of a particular size of increase in housing. In response, Paul Bevan thought that an informed process of consultation with stakeholders would tackle all of these points. Unfortunately, the political climate around the elections next year would make considered debate difficult. Specifically on renewable energy, he hoped that the Assembly could debate energy supply with SEEDA as national RDA lead on energy.
- Marianne Neville-Rolfe commented that SEEDA would be making a full response to the draft and Paul Lovejoy thought that an economic impact assessment would be needed, drawing on experiences in other countries if possible.
- Pam Alexander thought that although the long consultation period would be unattractive to businesses, it would be essential to engage with them. SEEDA could play a significant role in this.
- The Chairman thanked Paul Bevan for his report and the Board AGREED that its January Awayday should be devoted to the SE Plan and the Corporate Plan.
Action:from item 8, SE Assembly update; paragraph 51
Secretariat to plan the 13 January Awayday around the SE Plan and the Corporate Plan
Item 10 Project reports
- The Board NOTED the project reports.
Item 11 Chairman's report
- The Chairman drew Members' attention to the launch at Kingston University of their HEIF scheme which had achieved total funding of £10.6m for working better with businesses.
- On the Folkestone development, he thought that it would be important to engage with Roger de Haan more strongly than had been the case so far. Mary McAnally wondered whether other big spenders regionally could be identified as potential champions for the economic development agenda.
- The Board NOTED the Chairman's report.
Item 12 Agency Report
- Peter Jones and Rob Douglas both felt that although the rationale for the Joint Europe Committee was sound, its meetings recently had been unfocused. Liz Brighouse explained that the Committee was the only forum for the SE as a whole to engage with the Europe and EU agendas.
- Pam Alexander agreed to talk to Paul Bevan about whether the Joint Europe Committee could be used more effectively for information sharing in future.
Action: from item 13, Agency Report; paragraph 63
Marianne Neville-Rolfe to discuss the agenda and mechanics of the Joint Europe Committee with Paul Bevan and report back to the Board.
Any Other Business
- There was none.
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