« Previous | Contents | Next »
Listen
CHAPTER TWO BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT
Introduction
2.1 An important point at which to begin this report is to look back at why the URCs were created in Scotland. This section of our report reviews all of the major contextual information and documentation that sets the policy and strategic context for regeneration in Scotland generally and the rationale for the formation of the URCs more specifically.
The rationale for URCS
2.2 URCs in Scotland were established following the recommendations made in the Cities Review. That review (conducted in 2002 and summarised at 2.4, below) stressed that Scotland must continue to learn from effective approaches to regeneration that were being used elsewhere. It particularly highlighted the fact that URCs have the potential to boost Scotland's regeneration efforts in the major Cities and beyond. In its response to the Cities Review, Building Better Cities: Delivering Growth and Opportunities, the Scottish Executive indicated its support for innovative delivery structures, such as URCs, where these come forward from consultation.
2.3 Such innovative proposals did come forward, following an extensive consultation exercise in 2003. The consultation also sought expressions of interest in Pathfinder URC status from local partnerships. The Scottish Executive has underlined its position in respect of what it wants to see from URCs as:
- To provide a single vision and strategic focus for the regeneration of an area
- To act as a catalyst for private sector investment by raising investor confidence
- To guide investment by the public and private sectors towards an agreed set of objectives and outcomes
- To speed up the pace of delivery
- To maximise the use of public sector assets, including land
- To provide a strategic approach to tackling infrastructure issues such as transport and land assembly
2.4 These underlying principles continue to be valid today and occupy an important point of reference from which the study team has sought to identify examples of best practice. These examples are highlighted in very clear terms in Section 4 of our report. The remaining components of this Section highlight (in chronological order) the detailed policy and strategic documents that form the context for the URCs.
The policy background
2.5 On a UK wide basis, Urban Regeneration Companies were first advocated in the 1999 Urban Task Force Report, chaired by Lord Rogers. The Companies were, at that time, conceived of as 'dedicated arms-length bodies to co-ordinate the delivery of urban regeneration projects'.
2.6 After early evaluation of the URC programme in England and Wales showed strong evidence that the confidence of the private sector to invest in an area increased and the programmes themselves made significant progress in delivering key objectives, the Scottish Executive established three URCs in 2004.
Cities Review
2.7 In 2002, the Cities Review 2 reviewed the English experience of URCs, drawing particularly on the early Amion Report 3. The authors of the Cities Review concluded that:
The URC approach offers little that is particularly new or unique in terms of a model. Indeed many of the success factors identified in the key success factors table can be demonstrated by a number of existing Scottish delivery vehicles. What the URC model does offer, however, is a renewed focus and dynamism for regeneration efforts, improved co-ordination of existing agencies behind a comprehensive strategy and independence from local authorities and other public agencies.
2.8 The Cities Review recommended that key elements of the URC approach should be introduced in Scotland. They considered that:
It would provide a new impetus for regeneration efforts in areas of our cities where existing initiatives are failing to deliver. In particular, we believe there to be benefit in the role that the designation of URCs by central government plays in identifying national priorities and signalling to the private sector the intention of public sector agencies to drive forward regeneration in particular areas.
Building Better Cities
2.9 In its January 2003 response to the Cities Review, the Scottish Executive indicated its support for innovative service delivery vehicles such as URCs, where these come forward from consultation.
Smart Successful Scotland
2.10 First produced in 2001 and later refreshed in 2004, Scotland's strategy for economic development highlights the importance of transforming areas of untapped potential to make them attractive places to do business and to create employment and wealth.
URC Consultation Exercise/Summary Report
2.11 In August 2003, a consultation exercise was launched, which included an invitation to express an interest in URC Pathfinder status. In June 2004, the Executive published a summary of the consultation responses. There were 15 notes of interest in URC pathfinder status and the bids from Craigmillar, Raploch and Clydebank were considered to be furthest ahead in the business planning process and most likely to benefit from funding to kick start their regeneration programmes. The announcement granted Pathfinder URC status to the three areas and was backed by £20 million funding from the Executive.
Closing the Opportunity Gap and Community Regeneration ( ROAs)
2.12 Introduced in 2004, this strategy is about preventing individuals or families from falling into poverty; to provide routes out of poverty for individuals and for families; and to sustain individuals or families in a lifestyle free from poverty. At national level, six objectives were set, underpinned by 10 targets.
2.13 Community Planning Partnerships ( CPPs) were charged with the regeneration of the most deprived neighbourhoods through improvements in employability, health, education, accessibility to local services and quality of the local environment. The objective was to use both mainstream funding and the £318 million Community Regeneration Funding (2005-2008) to improve conditions in Scotland's most deprived communities.
2.14 Regeneration Outcome Agreements have been drawn up by each of Scotland's 32 Community Planning Partnerships. ROAs have a strong focus on social and economic regeneration initiatives addressing issues such as worklessness and ill health, with physical regeneration limited mainly to small scale environmental improvement. ROAs are focused on deprived communities within local authority areas, including the URC areas.
2.15 Because URCs are also charged with increasing economic activity rates, partnership working with the CPPs and those who deliver regeneration outcome agreements is a key issue for good practice.
National Planning Framework
2.16 Scotland's National Planning Framework addresses the spatial and land use dimensions of regeneration. Published in 2004, it identifies West Edinburgh and the Clyde Corridor as areas where co-ordinated action is required to support economic development and area regeneration.
Sustainable Development Strategy
2.17 Choosing our Future - the 2005 Sustainable Development Strategy for Scotland - puts emphasis on Regeneration. The transformation of underperforming places and communities has an important contribution to make towards economic prosperity, tackling poverty and disadvantage, improving health and delivering sustainable development. Regeneration programmes provide an area focus for policy: on places where there is potential to realise economic opportunities and places with the greatest concentrations of deprivation. This is stated to be particularly important in Scotland, which has very high concentrations of poverty and disadvantage in some parts of the country, often near areas of economic opportunity.
People and Place
2.18 The 2006 People and Place: Regeneration Policy Statement draws together the various policies which impact on regeneration. The Statement also designates geographic priority areas where investment will be prioritised to deliver sustainable economic growth while tackling some of the deep-seated problems of poverty and deprivation found in these areas. The Clyde Corridor is the Executive's national regeneration priority, encompassing the Clyde Waterfront - which includes Clydebank Re-built URC - and Gateway projects. Inverclyde and Ayrshire were designated as regional priority areas. URCs were established at Riverside Inverclyde and Irvine Bay to drive forward regeneration in those areas. The Policy Statement identifies URCs as a key measure in supporting infrastructure and investment in regeneration.
Workforce Plus
2.19 Workforce Plus, the Scottish Executive's Employability Strategy for Scotland (June 2006), outlines the range and scale of interventions to address employability. The report provides an estimate of annual funding for employability services in Scotland of £515,000,000.
2.20 This figure does not include the welfare benefits paid to eligible people, nor the substantial funding for Lifelong Learning - over £1.1 billion a year - where it is difficult to separate out the activities which support employability, nor the funding streams provided by the voluntary sector.
2.21 The Workforce Plus report identified the very large number of separate programmes which seek to address employability - including the Community Regeneration Fund - and highlighted the issue of value for money in this context. Its authors concluded that:
In Scotland, we do not have an "employability service". What we appear to have is a competitive free - for- all which although individually can provide a good service, is disjointed and complicated. Funders of these services may therefore receive poor value for money."
Commentary
2.22 The Executive has made it clear that it expects the URC to deliver outcomes across economic, social and environmental as well as physical regeneration. In other words, physical regeneration is not enough. However, the Executive do not see the URC as being responsible for the direct delivery of outcomes related to the ROA themes of worklessness, employability, health, education and quality of life. Rather they see this as the responsibility of the URC's public sector partners and other local agencies
2.23 The Executive expects the URC to act as catalyst to bring partners together to ensure that the opportunities created by physical regeneration are adequately planned for and that local people are linked into them, via existing funding streams or agencies. This is an issue which is at risk of 'falling between the cracks' and we see it as being one which should be addressed early on in the life of the URC. The solution may be different in different places - what is important is that responsibilities should be clear. The Executive expects this to be set out clearly in the business plan to demonstrate that such planning and processes are in place.
2.24 The URC and its partners should take the opportunity to maximise the various funding streams available and use the URC as a vehicle for spreading economic growth. The URC itself does not have to deliver employability support, but its presence in the area should make it essential that partner agencies capitalise on the opportunities that it offers.
2.25 In Craigmillar, there has been an attempt to resolve this issue of the division of responsibilities for what might be termed 'people' and 'place' regeneration issues. A protocol was prepared by the URC which attempted to define which issues were the responsibilities of the Partnership (the body responsible for local delivery of the ROA and the successor of the former Social Inclusion Partnership ( SIP)) and which the responsibilities of the URC. A local business and labour charter has been prepared by the Partnership in conjunction with PARC and the PARC Board has signed up to both the charter and the working protocol with the Partnership.
2.26 New and emerging URCs will wish to be aware of the policy debate about how best to deliver employability services to workless people. This is particularly the case in Glasgow, where the Community Planning Partnership is reviewing the role of Local Development Companies in relation to the delivery of CRF employability services, and also a draft Cities Strategy Bid, a Department of Work & Pensions Initiative ( DWP), which will also be considering the delivery of services to people who are further away from the labour market than the rest of the local community.
2.27 URCs' engagement with employability and construction training initiatives must take into account the crowded stage that is employability policy and the forces which suggest that rationalisation is desirable. Having reviewed the local pattern of supply, some URCs may adopt a partnership approach, with services being provided by others, while others may feel that they should play a more active role in local delivery.
« Previous | Contents | Next »