Regional economic development, inclusive growth and child poverty in Scotland
Research on how local and regional economic development policies can contribute to reducing child poverty in Scotland.
I think this time next year, we might be able to start to highlight a lot more as to what impacts these projects are likely to have in terms of the inclusive growth constraints and how they will deliver, and how that will be measured.
Regional Economic Partnership lead
4.1 Introduction
The objectives of this report extend beyond documenting the extent to which child poverty features in local and regional economic development activity in Scotland. This Chapter outlines the different ways in which reference is made to child poverty in this work. We consider four issues: understanding what is shaping concern over child poverty (section 4.2), opinions and experiences of measuring impact on child poverty (section 4.3), considering what could strengthen the focus on child poverty (section 4.4) and highlighting examples of promising or interesting practice (section 4.5).
4.2 Understanding the drivers for concern over child poverty
The drivers shaping the concerns of stakeholders and their interest in tackling child poverty were reported for different scales - from the national (extract 102), through the regional (103) to the local (104). Different scales of influence were acknowledged within the same local authority area (102-104). The drivers were sometimes reported to be multi-scalar, with some stakeholders in each area suggesting that local concerns were infusing regional priorities (105-107). There was evidence of agendas being shaped by local/regional intelligence on challenges faced (103-105), while others noted the importance of local champions promoting a focus on child poverty among others who were less aware of it (108).
102 At the moment, our strategic approach to what we do is driven by… what the Scottish government tell us. (Third sector lead, rural authority)
103 So the regional economic strategy is based on… rewarding work. So not just the Scottish Government’s… policy objective but… recognising the kind of issues we have about poverty, low income, and everything that comes with that. (Economic lead officer, rural authority)
104 Our Community Planning Partnership… wasn’t really resulting in the sort of combined actions which we wanted to see on the issues which are problematic in [local authority area] (Council lead, rural authority)
105 So, the regional economic strategy… starts… from looking at community wealth building as an approach to economic development… It’s fundamentally about changing the economy over the last four decades… post-industrial communities… absolutely withering on the vine… [We could] continue to try and do traditional economic development - look for inward investment, hope that it lands, hope that the benefits of it can trickle down into your people et cetera - and that [it] will start to change the economic and social position of the residents. It hasn’t happened for four decades so why would it be different now? … It’s fundamentally about taking a different approach to economic development so that that four decades long, economic and social challenge that we’ve had with child poverty, with a weak labour market, with low job density… so that we can start to turn the tide on some of that (Council lead, largely urban local authority with rural areas)
106 [Our approach to tackling poverty has] informed how we’ve looked at regional economic strategy (Economic lead officer, rural authority)
107 [local authority area] is effectively… economically half of the city region… the city is very good at making sure its things align with the regional strategy and vice versa. (Third sector lead, large city)
108 To his credit, all through the development of the regional economic strategy, he [member of staff] kept going on about children. There needs to be something in here about children and [he] made all the arguments that you would expect, which I supported. Did we… make much progress? Not really… probably because, the professionals that sit round those tables are by and large not working in that area or haven’t worked in that area. They’ve come from, possibly teaching, but more likely they’ve come from planning, economic development, administration… They’re not bringing that deep understanding and those deep intellectual linkages that you need to make to those ideas, to the way the world is - they’re not bringing that. (Third sector lead, rural authority)
4.3 Measuring impact
There was a sense that regular reporting on child poverty was becoming more commonplace (extracts 109, 111). This is not to under-estimate the challenges in estimating the impact of economic development activity on child poverty (111, 112, 115). Impact assessment was welcomed (113, 114) and valued as a means to evidence the ‘higher order’ goal of ensuring the broader social impact of public spend (114).
109 Some of the statistics that we look at regularly are around poverty and specifically, child poverty. (Council lead, rural authority)
110 We’ve… revised [our] monitoring and evaluation framework and child poverty is also one of the indicators in that economic strategy. (Council lead, large city)
111 Is everything [that] we’re doing on… investment and… growth and all those interventions - making a difference on child poverty?... I’m not sure of the answer to that. (Economic lead officer, largely urban local authority with rural areas)
112 How do we get really good at understanding the interventions that have the biggest impact? Because I’m not sure that folks know that. (Third sector lead, large city)
113 There was a report at the end of the first pilot… to the Social Work Committee on the success of the project… A lot of the way in which it was analysed was on the individual youngsters… You could actually see that sort of experience and the fact you had particular individual families had been assisted and had been able to cope better. (Council lead, rural authority)
114 The council was spending £10 million a year on Council contracts… but … why [has] that £10 million never ever changed any of the poverty and economic statistics that that Ward is absolutely plagued with? (Council lead, largely urban local authority with rural areas)
There was some divergence of opinion on the value of child poverty targets, with concern expressed that strengthening the focus on targets would constrain practice (extract 115), or that stakeholders may be held to account for matters beyond their control (116, 117). On the other hand, it was suggested that targeting could sharpen thinking on desirable outcomes (118), and that as measurement indicated what was understood to be important, explicit child poverty targets would encourage action on tackling child poverty (119).
115 Targets immediately makes me think, ‘Oh, that would tie us down, that would pull us in’… In any case… as an intermediary… [it is] very difficult for us to say, ‘See that improvement over there, we did that’. It’s very difficult. I like to think we do… but there’s a difficult line of accountability there. (Third sector lead, rural authority)
116 I’m not averse to being monitored… But when I’m looking at things and thinking about is what am I going to be accountable for? [You’re only] accountable for things you can control. (Economic lead officer, largely urban local authority with rural areas)
117 I’m always struck by how difficult it is to match changes in outcomes against interventions… [We] try and shift the figures on child poverty, but events outside of our control have significantly greater [influence]. (Third sector lead, large city)
118 I have an interesting relationship with targets. I find them incredibly helpful. So, the way we think about our targets is we really think about outcomes. So, our social enterprise strategy is set up as an outcomes model… What are the outcomes we are trying to achieve and therefore what are the indicators and the measures that we need in place in order to know whether we’re reaching those outcomes? (Social enterprise lead, rural authority)
119 Measurement is part of it, because you do focus on what you have to deliver and what you’re being measured by… I wonder if we need more explicit targets? (Economic lead officer, largely urban local authority with rural areas)
Most concerns regarding measurement were pragmatic. Interviewees felt that existing metrics were not best placed to convey the impact of activity from their sector (extracts 120-122). Others looked to anecdotal evidence (123) and information beyond the large-scale quantification that tends to characterise annual reports to convey impact (124). Caution was also urged over developing data from the ‘bottom-up’ - specifically, there was a concern to make data requests routine and not add to workloads (or distract from the focus) of small organisations delivering services on the ground (125). Extract 97 quoted above illustrated how the aspiration of the 20 minute neighbourhood was regarded as ill-suited to a particular area. The same comment also provides an example of where the appropriateness of a particular indicator was contested (extract 126)
120 There probably is a bit more [required on] … the measurable outcomes that third sector organisations are delivering. (Third sector lead, largely urban local authority with rural areas)
121 I think it depends on how targets and things are pitched… We looked at the regional economic strategy we… picked out the bits that made sense for us and said ‘Yeah, we can help this bit here, we can help this bit there, social enterprise can be part of this solution’. (Social enterprise lead, rural authority)
122 It was really difficult because some of the measures are not really attributable to anything you’re doing. (Economic lead officer, rural authority)
123 I think what’s more interesting is… anecdotal stories of just what they see and what they deal with in the field every day. (Skills development, local officer outside large city)
124 There might be other ways in which we can showcase what’s happening. But not necessarily… that hard and fast annual data that the Council, the Health and Social Care Partnership, and the NHS are… reporting on. (Third sector lead, largely urban local authority with rural areas)
125 We need to make sure that it’s measurable. That the sector… can say, ‘Well, actually, we’re capturing that data anyway’. If we start asking them for things that’s over and above, then that’s where the difficulty [arises]. (Third sector lead, largely urban local authority with rural areas)
126 We’ve got lots of local communities that don’t have a supermarket. You know, the twenty-minute approach to communities, to neighbourhoods, is all well and good. But you know… lot of folk in [local authority area] are twenty minutes from their nearest bus stop, never mind twenty minutes from their nearest affordable shop. (Council lead, rural authority)
Despite many not being averse to measuring impact (extracts 115-126), stakeholders were not able to point to indicators currently in use to measure their impact on child poverty (127-129). There was awareness of metrics and measures currently available, but the view that these did not deliver the intelligence that was required (129,130) and that ‘poverty shame’ among people experiencing poverty may lead to an under-representation of the scale of the problem (131, 132).
127 We don’t have a specific measurement in place just now - a performance measurement or data that we could draw on that would say how [the] interventions that we support, have a positive or not, impact on child poverty. (Council lead, rural authority)
128 I’m desperately trying to… see if I can find… whether there’s any meaningful measurement of child poverty. (Third sector lead, large city)
129 As you know, the SIMD is updated every four years and other robust, more timely measures are certainly of interest to us. So, any information around suitable measures… would really prove useful to us in the development of that [Region] growth deal benefits realisation plan. (City Deal lead, largely urban local authority with rural areas)
130 The argument I think that we’ve tried to make with Government is that the Index of Multiple Deprivation doesn’t really work in places like [local authority area] … So, any funding which is aimed at [deprived areas] just doesn’t touch us particularly. (Council lead, rural authority)
131 For smaller communities, there’s quite often a sense of being ashamed because other people are okay - ‘You’re the people who don’t have money, you’re the kid who doesn’t have the money to go on the school trip’, or whatever. (Council lead, rural authority)
132 If you’re two parents working… hard but both on minimum wage and struggling to pay the bills, that young person is living in poverty. But you might be embarrassed to admit that. I don’t know there’s much any of us can do, you know, if they won’t come forward. (Skills development, local officer outside large city)
The challenges measurement presented were not viewed as insurmountable, or at least did not dissuade many from aspiring to measure child poverty (extracts 133-137). Interviewees expressed the desire both to disentangle local impact from national data (133) and for bespoke metrics that provided insight into local priorities (134). Some progress in developing more ‘granular’ metrics was reported for the large city, with a sharper focus on specific disadvantaged neighbourhoods (135) and the child poverty priority groups (136,137). There was also a sense that it was possible to ‘retrofit’ metrics to ascertain the impact of emergent priorities on earlier interventions (137).
133 A number of… PIs [performance indicators] … just plug in… national stuff and… it doesn’t tell you whether your project has really been of benefit because it’s in there in the mix of a number of factors… We’re really keen to have local measurements that we can use. (City Deal lead, largely urban local authority with rural areas)
134 We wanted to make sure that… as many contracts as possible would be … with the local small business communities… we have been monitoring how much [has] been spent with the local businesses and… that kind of stuff. (Small business lead, across authorities)
135 Being a bit more granular, drilling down… We know that there are neighbourhoods in the in the city region that have multiple deprivations through the general intelligence hub that we’ve established, which has been an incredible resource, actually absolutely fantastic. We’ve got much, much better understanding... of who they affect, how they function, how they function within our economy… their impact on the economy. (Council lead, large city)
136 We’ve identified priority clients and that includes lone parents, and parents with three children or more, and women who whose youngest child is less than one year old, women who are aged under 25, women returners to the workplace and people with a disability… There are other priority groups in there as well, but though those are probably the ones that are most directly connected to… child poverty. (Council lead, large city)
137 We’ve… embedded the idea of inclusive growth… throughout the City Deal. So, everything now is measured and monitored on that basis and… it’s built in… We’ve built a community benefits programme which is much more clearly focused on outcomes and targets rather than just X number of jobs or apprenticeships. It’s much more focused on… particularly marginalized groups, whether… that might be women, for example, minority ethnic groups, disabled people (Council lead, large city)
There was an awareness of how their locality compared to others (extracts 138-142). In the large city, benchmarking against other ‘UK core cities’ was familiar to a wide range of stakeholders, while in the rural area, comparisons were drawn to highlight ‘headline’ priorities. Although this was viewed as valuable knowledge (139) and was described in ways that suggest that data intelligence informs actions (140, 141), there was also a recognition that wider awareness of the availability of such data created pressures on officer holders from local politicians for evidence of positive impact (142).
138 We measure ourselves a lot against the other UK core cities. (Council lead, large city)
139 So we get a report to each meeting which looks at the city region and some key indicators and compares them against other city region areas, which is helpful. (Third sector lead, large city)
140 [Region] has [a] really high level of start-up activities, but the survival rate is quite low… If you look at other regions in England like Manchester, they have both. (Business lead, large city authority)
141 There [are] some measurements, we don’t actually score all that well on… I have to say on child poverty, but it isn’t all that surprising because… we’re still a low wage economy… I mean we’re not the worst - I think Glasgow has the worst child poverty rates - but we’re not that great… We’re not doing that well. So, I think a focus on that is important. I suppose it’s knowing what actually works. (Council lead, rural authority)
142 Members of the council were clear with us that they want evidence that this is working, that those things are happening. (Economic lead officer, rural authority)
It was reported that progress was being made on improving performance metrics, often working with partners (extracts 143-145), to broaden measurement to focus on social impact and goals closer to child poverty (144-146). This work was evident in all case study areas, mainly as work-in-progress (143-146), although others reported that interventions were already yielding insight and informing action (147).
143 I’m not sure that… the monitoring and evaluation structures [were] in place... So, I suppose my first couple of years was very focused on that. So, we worked a lot with [external partners]. (Council lead, large city)
144 We are working on… a new performance measurement framework… that will have wellbeing as one of the performance criteria. Now, as you can imagine, that is not an easy thing to quantify and measure. We’re doing some work with [external partner] just now… We think it’s going to take us at least a year to try and bottom out and capture and build some of these metrics. But I am hopeful in the next… two, three years, we will be able to measure some of those interventions more directly. At the moment, what we do is work with partners to look at the overall picture and to try and track any specific interventions. (Council lead, rural authority)
145 One of the challenges we’ve had… is that… GDP and things like that… don’t measure enough. They’re not good enough for us to measure success and the ambition that we’ve set here. So, we’ve been doing a lot of work, we’ve brought in some help around this because it’s really important for us to be able to measure [on] at least a proxy basis, if not on an actual basis. (Economic lead officer, rural authority)
146 We are spending a lot of time on [measurement]. I’ve worked nationally across all of the Deals. I’ve been leading on benefits realisation and suitable robust indicators that we can use for a consistent approach. That was where the conversation was really interesting and it was great to be part of that, but… these indicators… caused a lot of discussion… We’re seeing some of our projects now starting to look at how they’re going to articulate outputs and outcomes and impacts and they’re talking about deprivation. But the stumbling block is - so how are we going to measure it? … We don’t want to make this overly complex either… What we also don’t want it to be doing is to be a tick box exercise as well. (City Deal lead, largely urban local authority with rural areas)
147 [Through measurement we have a] much better understanding [of how] physical regeneration translates into impacts on inequality and poverty and… specifically child poverty. (Council lead, large city)
Above all, the challenges of measurement and interpretation of evidence were not under-estimated. There was awareness that child poverty is a complex issue comprising many determining factors (extracts 148, 149). There was an understanding that this complexity had to be negotiated, rather than over-simplified if measurement was to be useful.
148 It’s the interconnectedness of all of these things. That’s the challenge. If we want to tackle child poverty, then we have to tackle housing. We have to tackle infrastructure. We have to tackle transport. We have to tackle… the challenges that are impacting on their parents. We have to look at the social care that’s being provided, the schooling that’s being provided, the support networks and the community piece as well… But it’s also got to be taken into account as part of… the national interventions. At a national level, the recognition is given to the way these things intersect and interrelate. (Council lead, rural authority)
149 I think we know at individual level what actually works but it’s very difficult to be able to say that taking a particular action or a particular project is gonna solve the problem for people, because it’s made up of so many other technical problems or smaller problems that need to be addressed. So, it’s some youngsters who have families who have addiction problems and… they end up in poverty because of it. And there’s kids who, because their family lives in poverty, end up in a sort of criminal world because they’re trying to help out. They know that their families have no money. They’re actually trying to do their bit, maybe selling stuff they shouldn’t be selling because it’s bringing in a bit of money. [Tackling child poverty is] difficult… because it’s made up of so any different complex issues. (Council lead, rural authority)
4.4 Facilitating a stronger focus on child poverty
There was belief, and some evidence, that regional economic strategies were facilitating closer partnerships (extract 150) and informing the development of other strategies (151), both of which in turn could lead to a strengthening of focus on tackling child poverty (152, 153).
150 We… publish[ed] that regional economic strategy at the end of last year… there is a really close partnership approach to working across [Region] with the councils but also with other bodies like Third-Sector Interface in [local authority area]. (Council lead, rural authority)
151 We reflected very much on the Scottish social enterprise strategy. We also reflected on our local regional economic strategy: it’s been developed over the past few months and is relatively new but it’s sitting in this space for [Region]. (Social enterprise lead, rural authority)
152 So, in terms of child poverty issues, we have a new regional economic strategy. (Economic lead officer, rural authority)
153 The [Region] regional economic strategy… is currently being developed over the next few months with… community wealth building principles… the strategy will be aligned to the [Regional] growth deal. So, perhaps the strategy is where we’ll start to see the smart objective goals around child poverty (City Deal lead, largely urban local authority with rural areas)
4.4.1 Local action and economic context
There was some strong support for co-operative approaches to address local issues and to support local people. There was a sense that effective interventions were more likely to be localised (extracts 154, 155), although the importance of situating these local interventions ‘in the context of wider economic opportunity’ (155) hinted that these are conceived as local expressions of a wider regional (or national) strategy. There was also support for national projects that allowed for local variation (156) and for the loosening of national frameworks to facilitate more localized actions (157). Others were more concerned over who loses out when control is ceded to local areas (158). When there is localisation of responsibility - or devolution of responsibility - there can also emerge a blame game in which no one takes complete responsibility for less effective interventions (159), or a lack of support at one level given the ‘risk’ of that credit being assumed elsewhere (160).
154 We recognize and understand the impacts that different bits of the system have on each other… One of my eternal bugbears is that we always plan. We always look at things [for] very big geographic areas. And then divide them. [We] silo them by theme. I’m a little bit more of a fan… wouldn’t it be good if you actually looked at area? It’s a finite community geographic area and you brought the resources together to address the issues [in] that area, but that’s not a change that’s on the cards from anybody. (Third sector lead, large city)
155 I’ll go back to my old riffs… I do like when I see quite localized interventions that are done in the context of the wider economic opportunity. So… the team at [local area regeneration] … have been getting their mind around the notion of interventions to help particular groups in their community to access skills. I think they did a deal with the NHS to help promote… [They found] solutions to the specific challenges of households wanting to grab those opportunities… [for example] funding bus transport around the … district in order to make it… to access certain opportunities… Quite often, it just seems to take… too long… through a national or regional level… you can do things that are sub-regional level or a local level to try and get early intervention. (Business lead, large city authority)
156 We want to collaborate and engage with those national projects, national interventions. But we need to be able to tailor them regionally. Because what will work, you know, for Falkirk will not necessarily work for Hawick or for, you know, [local authority area] and [town within] and some of the more deprived areas around [town within] that are really suffering at the moment… It’s that ability to tailor regionally. (Council lead, rural authority)
157 I think the biggest barriers that we will face in terms of the wider community wealth building agenda are stuff like the NHS being… tied into national frameworks for procurement… Another opportunity like that would be on renewable energy. So, we are doing council renewable energy projects, we’re going to generate 277% of your energy needs, so we’re going to be an exporter of renewable energy and I’m really keen to then sell that energy into the NHS or sell it to [local] college. But that will require them to be allowed to come out of some of their tied energy frameworks… If you think about community wealth building, as a concept, it’s much better to be spending that money with [local authority] than to be spending it with EDF, for example. The other anchor institutions which are a big problem are obviously [the] centralised, national agencies, like police and fire… they have a national procurement committee, they have a national committee looking at their assets. (Council lead, largely urban local authority with rural areas)
158 At the moment… we’re potentially falling over initiatives. But the other thing they’ve done is… to give more control to the local area, who best know the local needs. But now what you’ve potentially got is 32 versions of what employability provision should look like. So… what a young person gets in Inverclyde might not be the same as what they get in Glasgow or Aberdeen or wherever. (Skills development, local officer outside large city)
159 Everyone is also very quick to blame... You know, it’s not local authorities’ fault they can’t commission faster. It’s the Scottish Government interpretation of the… public sector finance manual… It’s not a Scottish Government’s problem that they give year-to-year funding - it’s the UK Government’s fault, and local authorities should have more confidence that funding will continue on an annual basis. (Third sector lead, large city)
160 Scottish Government has to get its mind around the fact that UK Government funding is coming into city and city regions… and work with it because again there’s opportunities for business to help shape… the Shared Prosperity funding, Levelling Up funding and Innovation Accelerator funding… that is coming through. There’s a real opportunity to… help shape that from a private [sector] perspective and get more… business investment behind it. (Business lead, large city authority)
4.4.2 Growth / City Deals
In one case study area, the Growth Deal was presented as an opportunity to extend the reach of local priorities to the wider region (extract 161). The opportunities that Growth Deals afforded were welcomed (161-163), for example, to stimulate the private investment that would be required to regenerate the local economy (162). However, stakeholders stressed that City Deal activity was not the sum of their work (163), that Growth Deals could be better aligned with wider work (164), and that Growth Deal investment would need to work in new ways to new ends in their region if it were to deliver the social outcomes that were desired (165).
161 We spent the eight months or so turning that report into [an] action orientated strategy and then because of the Growth Deal we expanded it towards the whole of [region]. (Council lead, largely urban local authority with rural areas)
162 We’re not going to solve the problems of our local economy without private investment. We just warm enough public investment to make it happen. We’re going to need private investment. (Business lead, large city authority)
163 The Chief Exec. felt we’d put such a big, ambitious, programme together - not only the Growth Deal but our big, key, strategic areas. He wanted me to lead and drive all of that forward. So, the Growth Deal is a component of what we do and it’s an important catalytic component of what we do. But it’s not by any means the only thing we do. (Economic lead officer, largely urban local authority with rural areas)
164 I think it [the Growth Deal] definitely could tie in better (Council lead, large city)
165 It’s not £3 million for community wealth building. It’s a two £250 million community wealth building opportunity. If we just use the Growth Deal as a traditional inward investment model then we are not going to change the economic position of the country, everybody’s got Growth Deals and City Deals, we need to be different by taking a community wealth building approach. (Council lead, largely urban local authority with rural areas)
A range of opinion was expressed in relation to different sectors working together toward shared outcomes. Some described an iterative process which resulted in effective ways of engaging the private sector (extracts 166, 167), although in the same area concern was expressed that small businesses were not involved and their talents not being utilised (168, 169). There was also some concern that social enterprise was not yet fully understood (171, 172), although some signs of better understanding were evident (170) and that greater involvement in regional activity was being facilitated (172, 173). In the rural case study area, there was also acknowledgement that structures and ways of working have to change to capitalise on the opportunities that closer co-operation affords (174, 175).
166 In the early days, a private sector panel [was] established which… hadn’t really ever engaged by the time I took on… the chair… We tried to… find a place for it and… it didn’t quite work… Now… it’s just ongoing relationships with investors… trying to have that collaborative approach rather than have the private sector embedded in decision making… to focus on developing shared aspirations and outcomes… where we collectively understand and the private sector understands as much as the public sector does, [that] civil society does that tackling child poverty and… getting women into work and lifting families out of poverty and [that] creating economic opportunities is good for the whole economy and it benefits the private sector as much as it benefits [everyone else]. (Council lead, large city)
167 We are well consulted, [and] embedded inside the City Region structures and Regional Economic Partnership… The closeness we have to… the City Council means that that we are pretty strong in the debates about how the city and city regions strategies should develop… We certainly feel as if we’re heavily involved in that, and I know that’s increasing because we’ve been debating about the extent to which further members… should be involved in the City Region Economic Partnership… [We aim to] spread that around a bit [as] I know that the criticism from the private sector[at] the beginning [of the] City Deal was it was all done hush, hush. (Business lead, large city authority)
168 There was no involvement [in the first City Deal] … No kind of consultation or engagement work undertook prior to the announcement [or] prior to… all the projects being announced. So, we felt like everything is decided. And that that was political… I don’t think we are officially kind of part of any city [Regional] Deal Partnership or forum… engagement is mainly through Project Management Office. We know a… few people well, quite a lot of people there. And… they occasionally contacted me for catch-up… particularly on issues around procurement and engagement communications. (Small business lead, across authorities)
169 It really kind of depends on each… partnership or… the Growth Deal forums. We didn’t really understand why we are not involved in the [local authority area] and why we were involved in in others. (Small business lead, across authorities)
170 Within the local authority… I think they’re now starting to see the importance of social enterprise… but there’s still work to be done there around helping them truly understand the benefit and the focus… I think there’s still further work to be done with health and social care partners, with… the executive team and middle managers… really helping them understand the possibilities of working more and more with the social enterprise sector. (Social enterprise lead, rural authority)
172 I think the third sector and social enterprise in particular showed that they are… flexible, dynamic. They can move quickly… [Regional economic strategists] are still clinging on to the notion that the private sector is the sector to help drive this forward. I think they’re part of it. Obviously a big, big part of it, but I think there’s a lot that the private sector can learn from us as a sector as well. (Social enterprise official, large city)
173 We’re mostly at the table through the Third Sector Interface… It’s more difficult for me capacity-wise to be sitting on all these tables, so I’m kind of relying on [the TSI representative] who does sit on those tables to then feeds information back to me. (Social enterprise official, large city)
174 When I came in… we did some restructuring [and] one of the things that we did was strengthen that communities’ team… Because the work that they do, again, across the [Region] but in [local authority area], with community groups is really, really important and they get first-hand insight and knowledge and understanding through that work as well… We’ve got boots on the ground, I suppose. (Council lead, rural authority)
175 I think… it’s still a bit disconnected… I’m not just talking within the council. The system’s quite complicated. And getting that kind of system more aligned and more joined up, would be a really big wish that I wish we could do. I think that there’s so many bodies and agencies and, you know, different perspectives, different time frames. (Economic lead officer, largely urban local authority with rural areas)
4.4.3 Cross sectorial co-operation
Although closer co-operation across sectors has intuitive appeal, those representing the Third Sector identified limitations and opportunity costs (extracts 176-178). Criticisms included statutory organisations being too distant to communities to understand the challenges they face (176), acknowledging that voices representing the sector were not a substitute for direct engagement (177) and that regional structures necessitated energy to be invested in facilitating co-operation among local authorities, which it was perceived was at the expense of energy that could (and should) be devoted to engaging communities (178).
176 The hardest bit for any statutory services [is] to actually understand what’s happening in our communities. We know that… during Covid, communities just responded to the needs that were there and they continue to do that, regardless of what the need is. (Third sector lead, largely urban local authority with rural areas)
177 I am unique, and I get a voice at the [region] and Quality Partnership, but I don’t think that is in any way… a replacement for good engagement… We would always say, you know communities and the third sector are not the same thing, but third sector [organisations] are [a] really good way to reach communities and… that is often the mechanism through which communities… have their voice heard. Particularly for groups who may not necessarily feel able to be engaged directly. (Third sector lead, large city)
178 (On regional strategy) It says the right things, but the engagement with communities has been rubbish. I think a lot of that is driven by the fact that they’re so busy focusing on what keeps [different]… authorities happy. That they lose sight of who else needs to be engaged in the process. (Third sector lead, large city)
Several challenges to effective collaboration in regional partnerships were identified, including the use of specialist language (extract 179). Related to this was the more fundamental issue of encouraging new ways of working and new ways of thinking for those who have had a more traditional background in economic development work (180). Representatives of the third sector noted the pressures that they faced in finding time for collaboration (181), and for assisting organisations to better understand the wider impact of their work (182).
179 People tend to go off on their own specialty areas and… the language is different. You know, I talk in very hard - quite hard economic investment returns, you know, it’s quite economic, quite technical… When you’re talking about child poverty… they’ll have their own language] … [We’ve] just gotta find… that way that we all collaborate. (Economic lead officer, largely urban local authority with rural areas)
180 I’ll be honest with you… you go and talk to council officers and economic development partners, that’s not their bag, they’re not experts in the cooperative economy. They’re not experts in worker ownership or anything. They’re fundamentally traditional economic development officers. They’ve done their job for the last three or four decades, got to where they’re at, where they are because they’re good at that. But it’s very much a traditional economic development approach… Then Preston comes into the mix, you read the stuff in The Guardian, and you send it on to our officers. You have a meeting with them, and they say ‘Right, that’s great, wee bit of procurement spend. Start spending it with the local business base, tick boxes of community wealth building, you’ve added five percent onto your local spend’. And then I said, ‘Well, not really, I’m not sure that’s exactly what community wealth building is about … So, let’s get Matthew Brown up from Preston’… to have a conversation with the economic development officers about what it is he’s doing in Preston. So, Matthew comes up and talks about anchor institutions, local spend, local supply chains, et cetera. But then very quickly moves on to the community bank idea, divestment and pension fund and locally investing that in the regional economy, looking at worker owned cooperatives et cetera, and it’s like, Bingo! (Council lead, largely urban local authority with rural areas)
181 I think the hardest thing is that, unfortunately, we’re so stretched at times within the sector, that we don’t have an opportunity… to lift your head from the parapet… It’s just like head down, just deliver. That element of reflection and actually looking at… the difference that you’re making is sometimes the bit that just makes all of the difference. (Third sector lead, largely urban local authority with rural areas)
182 The hardest bit is… having that conversation with a third sector organisation to say, ‘do you know that actually you are alleviating poverty by delivering what you’re doing?’ And because it’s potentially secondary to what they’re delivering, they don’t necessarily see that… Trying to get that bigger picture is very difficult. (Third sector lead, largely urban local authority with rural areas)
4.4.4 Regional structures
Regional structures were understood to provide opportunities to advance bespoke agendas, which in some areas was facilitated by the flexibility that agencies had to set their own agenda (extract 183). Regional co-operation was valued for the enhanced bargaining power that comes with aggregation (184). The ability to embed wider social goals into everyday practice was deemed particularly significant (185, 186) - with the regional agenda offering a framework through which these goals could be pursued. This is not to imply that activities previously to the fore in economic development would not be pursued; rather, that the outcomes focus of ‘traditional’ activity would be calibrated to reflect wider social goals (187). This was encouraging an outcomes focus on metrics, such as women moving into ‘decent’ employment (188), and targeted measures on specific groups which have traditionally been disadvantaged in the labour market (189).
183 We are fortunate because we have… flexibility… I always say that what we do is basically well-being but it’s the well-being of our economy, our environment, and our communities. So, that gives us a lot of flexibility in how we can approach things. (Council lead, rural authority)
184 There’s opportunities… to drive something bigger across the region, [such as] something to do with purchasing power… but equally there’s further work to be done (Social enterprise lead, rural authority)
185 We spent time with every single service manager within the council. It wasn’t just about economic development and… the community wealth building team… sit[ting] in their wee part of the… building and… talk[ing] to each other about [how] great is community wealth building [while] the other managers on every single other floor are sitting their doing their traditional day-to-day work… We’ve spent a lot of time trying to distil what we were trying to achieve across the whole council, and the point of that was that every time we had departments to come forward with a policy, or looking at contracts or whatever else that they’re doing in their day-to-day business, they should be thinking about it through the lens of community wealth building, and what we’re trying to achieve with community wealth building. (Council lead, largely urban local authority with rural areas)
186 Any new projects or decisions around funding are now tested against a Local Outcome Improvement Plan and… that’s got inclusive growth absolutely embedded in it. (Council lead, large city)
187 There would be a lot in there still about reclaiming vacant and derelict land and about physical regeneration, about building homes and creating jobs. Ultimately that that is what [the Deal] would be… But from the outset it would be immediately informed and… shaped by our now much, much better understanding of how we use interventions and investments to deliver inclusive growth to tackle inequality (Council lead, large city)
188 I think [assisting] women into employment, into decent good employment is… the key to tackle child poverty (Council lead, large city)
189 So in the case of [new employer] that is two and a half thousand… new jobs that are being created. 340 of those jobs have been ring fenced either for people from disadvantaged background specifically or people with disabilities and long-term illness. (Council lead, large city)
4.4.5 Funding
New ways of working and new social goals were welcomed. However, some familiar problems were acknowledged, which it was perceived could compromise impact. Concerns were expressed - from both within local government and outside it - of the challenges that short-term funding settlements presented for addressing generational and long-term challenges (extracts 190, 191). There was also scepticism over the prospects of mainstreaming following short-term funding (192) and an immediate concern over the condensed timeframe that was anticipated to position projects for the UK funding that was replacing European funds (190,193).
190 Short-termism and initiative driven funding is not a way to… tackle things like child poverty, health, and social care. Those things that need consistency and longevity. [You] need to stick with the plan, you need to work your way through it and see the difference… We’re talking decades here to try and help make a difference and I think probably one of the challenges is that kind of short-termism and consistency. I understand… political process and cycles, but it’s not helpful…. two years funding is not good enough… You know we’ve got the Shared Prosperity Fund just coming out but again, you’ve got three months to work it out and where to spend the money. Short-termism, and lack of time to use the money effectively is a real barrier for us to tackle child poverty. (Economic lead officer, rural authority)
191 Part of the tension… at the moment is the year-to-year funding… what we’ve seen is there’s a recognition that the third sector’s significantly better placed… to respond to some of the groups that you’re talking about… And the year-to-year nature [of funding] has meant that there has not been any meaningful commissioning… because the commission cycle takes seven months and if you only know that you’ve got funding for 12, that doesn’t do anybody any favours… It would almost be manageable if you knew what funding was coming from Scottish Government for the next five years. (Third sector lead, large city)
192 It’s just about always sort of short term. So, even if you do get something cracking in place, it’ll then be ‘well you’ve gotta mainstream it’. Well, to be honest, if we could’ve mainstreamed it, we’d have done it in the first place. (Skills development, local officer outside large city)
193 It replaces European funding, which is of concern to us because there’s organisations that are still being funded with it... So, it’s important that that money continues to reach third sector organisations, but in particular the types of things that have been funded by it, which is a lot of the employability stuff... What we do know is it will be allocated… by the UK government to local authorities and an allocation given to each local authority with the option for each local authority to either operate independently or engage as part of our region. The intention in [local authority area] is… probably that it will be a region… information will come out in the next month. There’s then a twelve-week window for developing an investment plan, which is a reasonable amount of time to develop a plan. If you’ve done… really good quality engagement so that you’re sitting with good ideas that have been informed by their community. But we haven’t. (Third sector lead, large city)
Funding concerns extended beyond funding cycles. There was a sense that a balance remained to be struck from financial oversight being too lax or too overbearing (extract 194). One local area was criticised for being overly bureaucratic (195), with another lauded for its flexible interpretation of the rules (196). Concern was also raised that funding was not responsive to new needs that were emerging, and the budgets were being stretched to finance this vital work (197).
194 [It] was wonderful because we just got money quickly and easily… I’m not entirely sure [the money] was all well used… we went from over bureaucratized to laissez faire and now we need to… find somewhere in the middle that is about responsible use of public money. But recognizing that responsible use of public money doesn’t have to be measured in the way that we’ve measured it in the past… The default for public bodies is that… getting best value comes from competition… there’s some really fundamental flaws in that when you’re talking about the commissioning services to vulnerable people. (Third sector lead, large city)
195 There is the public finance manual which says certain things. And then in [local authority area] they have… their own sort of standing orders. If you like, the rules that they follow. And those rules are tighter than they possibly have to be in terms of the legislation. And then you’ve got individual people who interpret the [local authority area] rules and they [make] them tighter (Third sector lead, large city)
196 I’m gonna be blunt and I’d rather you didn’t name the local authority, but you know that I think sometimes the rules were bent a little bit in the interests are doing the right thing, which I think is really positive, something that [local authority area] can’t get away with. (Third sector lead, large city)
197 Local government budgets contracting all the time does make it more difficult… we’ve been able to use some non-recurrent funding for anti-poverty work… Even the intensive family support was actually funded through… some of the Covid funding because that’s actually how we found many of the families… But it’s not part of our core budget and [there is a] real concern [that] some of these things could be lost if the core budget contracts so much... That really is a concern every year. But we always… put a million pounds in terms of anti-poverty work every year. That is always from non-recurrent funding. (Council lead, rural authority)
4.4.6 Joint working
There was mutual appreciation of the contribution that partners were making to shared regional goals (extract 198-201). This was facilitated by working together (198-200) and building mutual trust; for example, through information sharing (201) and being comfortable recognising the most appropriate agency (201) or scale of intervention (202) to progress actions.
198 We do spend quite a lot of time with the councils. So, we’re not duplicating, we’re not displacing and we’re understanding how the best fit comes about. So, we’ve got some really good regular meetings now with the chief execs, interim chief execs and their senior teams to talk about how we make that work, how we add that best value, collaborating together… cementing the role of enterprise agencies as a partner, a collaborative partner to the local authorities… We bring them [partners] together to look at solutions… How we can accelerate solutions and how we can learn from each other to make this happen faster? I think, that’s quite unusual (Enterprise lead, rural authority)
199 That aspiration in the regional economic strategy is about bringing everybody with us, a strategy for all and we’re hoping a bit of prosperity and a shared prosperity across the region. (Economic lead officer, rural authority)
200 We really need to make sure this is embedded in every aspect of delivery… That was really useful, and it certainly gave me an opportunity to… start to see things… that link into some of the strategic responsibilities that I have… That was facilitated and hosted by [local authority area] and NHS… they have got a rigorous action plan. You know, I did say it would be good to see a bit more third sector involvement within that. But they absolutely recognise the role of the third sector, you know, the role of the partnership, the council, the NHS - they’re all the key players that are involved. So, it is a … collaborative effort… We feel involved. I think… that’s not always the case with the third sector. (Third sector lead, largely urban local authority with rural areas)
201 We’re actually pretty open and transparent, I would say, at local level. And I’m always saying that. We’re not precious. If another agency can do something that we can’t… like, please, [do it]. But you’ve gotta talk to us and share a bit of information. For example, like I would come across - I got this a lot in [local authority area], social work just saying ‘no, we can’t tell you that - it’s confidential’ And… I understand. Of course, we all get confidentiality. But you actually can tell us because we’re governed by it as well. We’re not gonna go blabbing about this young person. So, actually, I think we’re quite open with other agencies. And personally, as I say, if they can do something we can’t, I’ve got no issue with it… And every report that has came out has said they need to join services up, be more coherent, and cohesive and blah blah blah. And I feel… with every initiative that comes along, we get less in that place (Skills development, local officer outside large city)
202 You’re gonna get my rants that everyone gets… employability sits very much at a city level rather than a region level. In terms of the delivery each local area plans its own delivery within the city region [which is ineffective and unnecessary in the shared labour market] (Third sector lead, large city)
4.5 Promising practice
Despite the fact that a child poverty focus is emergent rather than established focus in regional regeneration policy, stakeholders described several promising interventions (extracts 203-208). There was praise in particular for some private sector initiatives, including supporting a ‘circular economy’ (203, 208). Some larger companies were facilitating parents to sustain work (203). Business leads reported that ‘making a contribution’ was now expected of contract winners in construction (204) and claimed that companies were motivated by a desire not to pay ‘poverty-level wages’ (205,206) and prioritising the payment of workers (207). And some businesses were described as contributing more substantially to the local economy (208).
203 There is… an awful lot of the private sector commercial organisations that are part of their communities. And it’s important that they are part of that… Nowadays it’s the circular economy… When the local nursery was going to close [Company] looked for ways of supporting and putting some funding into the local nursery because, as their Chief Exec. said to me, ‘I suppose some people might have thought it was a bit odd, but you know, I’ve got team members, I’ve got staff that use that nursery and if they can’t use the nursery, they can’t come to work. So, it’s a no-brainer’. (Council lead, rural authority)
204 Community benefits clauses and public contracts… [have] been around for a long time. If… you look at construction, they do it, they engage with communities to provide opportunities [for] training because it fits with the contract, but also because… it’s the right thing to do and its now what people expect to see. (Business lead, large city authority)
205 We make sure that they pay well. Do you actually pay well above the living wage standard? But they don’t… talk about these things. It’s just what they do. So, if you speak to some… electrical engineering companies… they just pay well, well, well above the living wage standard. But they just don’t get this accreditation... So, I think that from their point of view, they want to make sure that they pay well so that their employees are not in poverty. (Small business lead, across authorities)
206 Most social enterprises are striving to be a living wage employer. They think a lot about… employee welfare, for example. I think we’re probably a good example. The sector as a whole is a good example of… how to adopt fair work in practice and make it work. (Social enterprise official, large city)
207 In many cases business owners, you know, they’re the last one to be paid because they want to make sure their employees are paid first. So, they are very different from people like myself or yourself. You know their thinking is very, very different, particularly for small businesses, that that team is very, very small. So, they know… they really have to look after them [their employees]. But in some cases, they can’t, so it’s very tough for them. (Small business lead, across authorities)
208 Local companies… tends to generate more value to the local economies rather than spending the money with… the international corporates... the difference is quite staggering - nearly 50% more local [spend]. (Small business lead, across authorities)
References were made to the impact - emerging or expected - of a range of tools that were being promoted more widely across Scotland. This included local procurement (extracts 209, 208) and fair work (210, also 206). There were also several references to community benefits clauses (211-215, and 204), with benefits noted to include the provision of training opportunities (211-212) and development opportunities for small enterprises (212-213). On the other hand, some concerns were expressed that companies were not held to account if they did not deliver on their community benefit clauses (214). There was also concern that community benefits clauses and community wealth building were not necessarily placing development in the most appropriate place (215).
209 About 14% of the spending was with local businesses about three years ago. But now they are spending nearly 24%. That happened because they published their local procurement strategy and then they changed the way they go about it. They set the target and then changed the way they engage with the local business committees. I spoke to the local procurement manager, and he explained all the changes that they made… that led to really good results. (Small business lead, across authorities)
210 We’ve got a fair work officer who’s working with the local business base carrying out fair work audits and looking at what local businesses can do to actually deliver on the principle of fair work… It’s great to have some of that resource there. (Council lead, largely urban local authority with rural areas)
211 I’m conscious [that] community benefits causes have been around for years… they’ve usually been very helpful in getting apprenticeships, for example, to be to be embedded into large scale projects. (Business lead, large city authority)
212 [Company] had appointed a community benefits manager. We… persuaded him that the best way for them to achieve their community benefit requirements was to subcontract them to social enterprise or local social enterprise. And luckily, they went for that… That social enterprise created our [training academy] on site. I think there was some 400 local young people went through that programme. (Social enterprise official, large city)
213 I think there’s good opportunities for our sector to be taken more seriously… we’ve… found it difficult … to bid for bigger contracts. But if you get experience through being subcontracted to do the Community benefits stuff, then that starts to build your experience. It builds a portfolio of work for you. You know it gives you that bit of a foothold to actually think or gives you a bit of more confidence. You know, we could actually go for this or on our own. (Social enterprise official, large city)
214 They don’t seem to be penalized for not achieving their community benefit requirements… You know, hold them to account. Don’t let them tick a box. (Social enterprise official, large city)
215 An awful lot of chat about community benefits clause is being applied… that and community wealth building, interests me and worries me at the same time... There’s an extent to which it’s about trying to get that recycling of wealth through the… local community. But the bit that worries me is that… the more you push… activity to those… community organisations with less capacity - let’s transfer assets to local third sector groups, for example - that’s quite challenging for those third sector groups to get the kind of leverage to bring in the external finance that quite often will come from a private investor or a private company… There’s a prejudice built into some of the discussions around community wealth building against private sector organisations, and I just think that might be cutting off one’s nose to spite one's face. (Business lead, large city authority)
Some successful examples were identified of extending reach, for example, into schools (extracts 216-217) and to engage parents through new pathways (217-218).
216 Trying to [promote] those opportunities into our school settings as well so, any investment is really about trying to create pathways for young people and children into future employment opportunities and not just their parents now (Economic lead officer, rural authority)
217 Sometimes they’ll [parents] come in with their young person saying, ‘God please gonna do something with him, you know, he’s lying in his bed, he needs a job’. And, you know, you’ll sometimes get parents coming in then and even saying that ‘look we can’t afford for him not to be working’... But parents remain a challenge… [local authority area] had put all their parents’ evenings online. But as part of that they put in a slot for a careers advisor. So, you could opt to see a careers advisor, and actually that’s had one of the biggest uptakes of parents. (Skills development, local officer outside large city)
218 That’s one of the biggest opportunities as… you are persuading their parents that that the labour market has changed and there’s opportunities for then that there weren’t [before]. (Business lead, large city authority)
Some successful examples of providing focused support were identified, consistent with a ‘no wrong door’ and bespoke support packages to tackle child poverty. In community wealth building, this involved pro-active work and direct engagement (219-221), building on local intelligence (220), changing thinking among stakeholders (220, 221), and offering opportunity where it least exists (220-224), and where it has been overlooked (225).
219 So, if the Health and Social Care Partnership are planning for procurement over the next two or three years and it’s a specific sort of contract that they’re looking for, we can go to the business development team and the business development team will go away and say ‘Well actually, there’s four local suppliers in the [Region], three of them actually are on the framework but one of them is not, let’s work with the one that isn’t to try get them on the framework so that they can bid for the contract’. And then if the four of them are actually willing to bid for it, we need to make sure that their competitive in the process, because we’re not circumventing the legal process obviously, but that’s kind of the role of the community wealth building team - it’s not to deliver… it’s to… provide the support. (Council lead, largely urban local authority with rural areas)
220 We went and met with the businesses who had the contracts, and their attitude … was - why would we recruit locally? They’ve not got the skills that we require as a business. They don’t have the work ethic that we would need et cetera, et cetera... So [we] work[ed] with those businesses to change their mindset. [We] looked at them as a pilot and test of change - if we support them to offer some job placements to local people, then those local people can actually deliver for those businesses… And as you know, as soon as you get the people through the door and you give them the pen and give them the opportunity, they’ll grasp it, they’ll be able to do it. (Council lead, largely urban local authority with rural areas)
221 We’re just about to launch our new project called [name of project]. All targets are at getting young folks into early-stage employment opportunities with their employer… That could be work experience for six months for a year. It’s relatively a light touch, I suppose, from an employer’s perspective, but it gives them an opportunity to get a sense of young talent that they might not otherwise not have thought to use. (Business lead, large city authority)
222 We’re going to have to do quite a lot of work as an authority and a region in terms of creating local supply chains. And if we’re looking to set up cooperative businesses then we’re going to have to spend a lot of time trying to bring in some expertise around cooperative development, because we don’t really have the sort of thriving network of cooperative that you can start to build from as a starting block. So, there’s stuff like that we will see as barriers (Council lead, largely urban local authority with rural areas)
223 It’s that type of mindset change, not just as a public spender, but as a public employer that I think, even if you start to target some of that in areas of deprivation then you’ll maybe give people a wee bit of a chance to get into the labour market, get learning new skills and go on and get themselves out of poverty. (Council lead, largely urban local authority with rural areas)
224 As employers… we can target our recruitment to people who are in poverty, so we are very keen to have employability and work placements available to groups like single parents. And we’ve done stuff with the Skills for Life programme. We’re very clear about trying to close the disability employment gap. We’ve invested money in a tree planting programme. But again, it’s not just about trees - we’ve set up street scene training academy for unemployed people to get a job placement in environmental works and they’ll be part of that programme. (Council lead, largely urban local authority with rural areas)
225 The number of that young offenders and the scale of young offending… affects the ability of that group to get into work… We weren’t short of examples of public sector employers being incredibly reluctant to take on young people with offending [histories]. (Business lead, large city authority)
Much of the focus is on strengthening return on public investment (extract 226).
226 What do we get for our £20 million? … We should be looking at joint ownership vehicles. So, in terms of the £20 million, we should be putting that into a pot of money with [company] and saying, ‘You own X percentage of the project we own X percentage and that means that we get a return on the £20 million and we can then regenerate and reinvest within the [regional] economy … Give us some of the land to put in our renewable energy projects. You’ve already got the good connections there and so just give us a bit of land and we’ll put in a wind turbine, we’ll put in a solar panel or whatever’. And we’ll take the income from that and there’s the financial return from us. (Council lead, largely urban local authority with rural areas)
4.6 Conclusions
A variety of factors are encouraging a focus on child poverty among REPs - some local, some national, and these vary for different organisations within the same region. There was interest among those interviewed in improving evidence to measure impact on child poverty (and related issues), although some concerns were expressed about the practical challenges involved. There was also belief that some regions could be a focus for measures to tackle child poverty. However, long-standing challenges of short-term funding and marrying local and regional priorities would have to be negotiated for these to re fully realised. Similarly, several examples of interesting and promising practice were referred to, but stakeholders felt that progress on some of these was in its early stages and more could be expected of these initiatives in the future.
Contact
Email: Elizabeth.fraser@gov.scot
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