City drive for better business links

A TASK force led by a Yorkshire council will attempt to battle spending cuts by revolutionising work between local government and business.

Leeds City Council, in partnership with Glasgow, has formed a commission to investigate ways to boost partnerships between town halls and the private and voluntary sector.

Amid fears the economy in the North, particularly in Yorkshire, could be slipping back into recession, the inquiry aims to find solutions beyond cuts and charges.

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Many councils are looking at outsourcing service provision while others, such as Barnet in London, are considering becoming so called “no-frills Easycouncils”, where only basic services are funded with extra charges for others.

Leeds City Council’s chief executive, Tom Riordan, said: “We think a lot of the models they have developed down south, such as outsourcing or the Easycouncil, are missing the point.

“It is not ‘private sector good – public sector bad’ or vice versa. We have to become more efficient and focused like the private sector, but we do not have to ditch public sector values.”

The commission features academics such as Lord Laming, Prof Tim Brighouse, the London Schools commissioner, Tony Travers, of the London School of Economics, as well as Will Hutton, executive vice chair of The Work Foundation and Dame Jo Williams, who chairs the Care Quality Commission.

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Their brief is to produce a report that “reassesses the role of local government, suggesting practical actions that could revitalise local democracy and public service, and enable greater civic responsibility from businesses, public agencies and the third sector”.

It states: “Many of the recent new models of local government - “Easy-council”, “The Outsourced Council”, “Shared Services Council”, “The Co-operative Council” – have focused on the structure of councils rather than all sectors.

“Councils cannot deliver any of their services and objectives alone, and the reality is that the best cities and towns will need to combine the best values of all sectors.

“Councils will need to change to become much more enterprising, entrepreneurial and responsive to their local communities, whilst retaining their role as major employers, service providers and democratically-mandated leaders.”

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Mr Riordan – who has warned inflation could double the size of the 20 per cent cuts many northern councils face having to implement over the next four years – said authorities could use their assets better and turn liabilities into assets by working with businesses.

He said Leeds is planning to use the food waste it collects to create energy, providing a cheap source of fuel to private providers.

“Even after the cuts, we will probably still be the biggest employer and the biggest landowner in Leeds,” he said.

“We shouldn’t be an island in the economy.”

Fears about the future for the Yorkshire economy were raised this month after yet more research suggested the private sector will not be able to make up for the cuts to public sector staff.

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Research from recruitment firm Manpower claimed that when it comes to hiring intentions the UK is being sliced in half by a line running from East Yorkshire to the Bristol Channel – north of the line, businesses are not hiring, but to the south firms were broadly positive about taking on staff.

The Yorkshire Post’s Fair Deal for Yorkshire campaign is fighting for fairer public funding after a number of reports revealed the region was losing out in key economic drivers such as transport and housing.