Since I last wrote, we know the detail of the Comprehensive Spending Review and the Welsh Assembly Government’s budgetary response. Although slightly better than the most feared scenarios, we nevertheless face a period of extreme austerity and restrictions on public expenditure. For regeneration, the headline was the 41% reduction in capital expenditure in Wales, higher than both Northern Ireland and Scotland. Clearly large scale regeneration is highly dependent on capital expenditure and there will inevitably be a significant impact on projects throughout Wales in the next few years. Of equal concern was the scrapping of the defence training facility at St Athans and the prospect of a Severn Barrage. Continued uncertainty over the electrification of the Swansea to Paddington line also underlines the loss of the employment and economic development potential of such major projects.
Concerns inevitably turn to how we might plug these huge gaps which were seen as of critical importance to the Welsh economy. Perhaps the most encouraging development has been WAG’s launch of its Regeneration Framework by Deputy Minister, Jocelyn Davies, AM at the Regenerating Wales conference on the 20 October 2010, the day that the Comprehensive Spending Review was announced.
Maintaining WAG’s commitment to the seven Regeneration Areas, the Framework sets out a structured response which advocates better connections between different policy streams. CREW will support the sharing of best practice advocated in the Framework by developing its Thematic Networks throughout Wales. You can find descriptions of these cross-policy and inter-professional Networks and join them at www.regenwales.org. Currently in the recruitment stage of membership, we will be launching a programme of activities in early 2011 to support regeneration professionals in Wales. We have also seen increasing confidence in the continuation of the Communities First Programme post 2012, the current period of funding. Whilst no announcements about its future shape and structure have been made, conference contributions by Deputy Minister Carl Sergeant have been encouraging.
Organisations are also looking for innovative financial models to fund future regeneration activities. The launch of the JESSICA programme and its implementation in Wales through the Regeneration Investment Fund Wales (RIFW) points the way to innovative lending models and a more sustainable use of European funding which can be continuously recycled as loan payments return to the fund. One major advantage is that once cycled through the system, funds can be used for areas of spending that are not eligible in the direct grant programmes of ERDF. Interest is also developing in Local Asset-based Vehicles (LABV) and TIFs (Tax Increment Funding), innovative models which bypass some of the current funding difficulties. CREW will be holding a joint seminar with WISERD on the 3 March 2011 which will explore this increasingly complex funding environment.
Perhaps more important than any of these initiatives is how we spend the mainstream budgets of the Welsh public services. With a £14 billion spend, the potential regenerative impact of public expenditure in Wales is vast. The social housing sector has led the way in demonstrating how ‘smart procurement’ can develop local supply chains, create targeted recruitment and training opportunities and contribute significantly to local economies. There is growing interest in the Can Do Toolkit approach throughout the public sector and if similar achievements can be realised as those in the social housing sector, we could see a major boost to economic development in Wales.
As always, keeping an eye on the opportunities during a crisis is the only way forward and adversity can promote innovative solutions to long-standing problems.
CREW news
CREW continues to develop its activities and has been joined by two new research staff. Bethan Lindsay-Gaylard is researching school to work transitions to see how recession impacts on young people’s labour-market entry in Wales. Kyle Burgess is developing a community assessment model which will provide a structured method for measuring the impact of regeneration initiatives at community level. Welcome to both.
If you are in the housing sector, you will also have seen the survey of housing-related regeneration activity supported by the team of Taff Housing secondees to CREW. Hopefully, by the time of publication of this issue of WHQ, we will have received a full response and begun the collation of the information. CREW has also supported the development of a Health Impact Assessment Toolkit by the HIA team at Cardiff University and we are providing four training courses in its use throughout Wales in early 2011.
Details of these and the wider range of CREW activities can be found at www.regenwales.org
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