How combined authorities can help to build more inclusive local economies
The New Economics Foundation (NEF), the Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES), Co-operatives UK and the Centre for Thriving Places (CTP) have created the Reclaiming Our Regional Economies (RORE) programme. RORE will operate until 2028, alongside three pilot combined authority areas, to bring communities together with political and institutional leaders to test ideas that help to re-wire and reform their economies, so that they deliver good lives now and for generations to come.
In the first year of our work on RORE we have been able to observe first-hand the triumphs and challenges being faced by combined authorities, communities and their partners. You can download here a summary of our observations, and of why devolution is necessary and valuable. We discuss our current devolution model and explain how what we are doing in the West Midlands, North East and South Yorkshire will scale-up the work being done by the Combined Authorities in those areas to create fairer local economies. Finally, we offer some emerging insights as to how national devolution policy could be reformed to facilitate greater progress.
All the projects mentioned in this paper have immense potential to change life on the ground for people in the West Midlands, the North East and South Yorkshire. But, more importantly, the lessons we hope to learn – about how regional policy can be co-created with communities and how this can lead to embedding a more inclusive approach to economic strategy into our regions – could have greater implications for how we do devolution in this country. Those lessons could be the key to unlocking a new way of thinking about how we can embrace the opportunity of local trust and use it to build better lives.
Download the paper here:
RORE is funded by:
National Lottery Community Fund
Power to Change
Friends Provident Foundation
Barrow Cadbury Trust
For more information visit the New Economics Foundation main website.
