This project will map the regional governance structures, investigate the policy enabling structures and levers that are embedded within those structures and then analyse the resulting effect on inclusive growth outcomes.
Since its initial inception this project has been incorporated in the research on Devolution conducted by the Industrial Strategy. The Industrial Strategy Council provides impartial and expert evaluation of the government’s progress in delivering the aims of the Industrial Strategy. It is an independent advisory group led by Andy Haldane, the Chief Economist at the Bank of England, and comprised of leading men and women from business, academia and civil society.
The Council is particularly interested in the “levelling up” agenda and broader place policy. The Places Steering Group is led by Christine Gaskell, Kate Barker, Rotha Johnson and Emma Bridgewater. The research conducted by the Council have showed the extent of regional differences in productivity across the UK, identifying the need for better central-local collaboration, and showed how current funding cycles limit LEPs ability to drive economic growth.
Thus WMREDI at the University of Birmingham on research into devolution and governance structures in England.
The aim will be: to better understand how local institutions work together to drive policy implementation, which structures seem to work best and what LEPs and MCAs think about greater devolution.
The first phase will be the publication of a survey. Findings from this survey will be used for research purposes and will be published as an Industrial Strategy Council report and will be submitted to the Secretary of State for BEIS.
WMREDI
Research Theme 6
Governance and Institutional Arrangements
Whilst inclusive growth is an increasingly important policy strategy, the current Government is pursuing a ‘levelling-up’ agenda to address intra-regional inequalities, so this project will also consider intra-regional inequality in line with inclusive growth outcomes.The project is divided into three Work Packages (WPs):
- WP1: to investigate and map regional governance structures through a mapping exercise, building upon existing literature and existing projects such as LIPSIT.
- WP2: to investigate institutional frameworks and delivery for inclusive growth and levelling-up outcomes.
- WP3: to assess the effect of the relationship between governance structures and place-based effects on effective or ineffective delivery of inclusive growth and levelling-up outcomes.