Inclusive Economic Growth KLOE – Reference Group
Emerging Issues – The Skilled City or the City of a Thousand Skills:
1. A viable inclusive economic strategy must be based on an evidence-based analysis of the
local economy (know your patch and build upon its strengths). An economic development
strategy for Birmingham must not be based on a simple emulation of what happens
elsewhere. The proposition is based on the principle that sustainable economic
competitiveness should be founded upon local distinctiveness.
Recommendation: Polices to address inclusive economic growth must be built upon
an understanding of local circumstances. This requires the development of
collaborations between representatives of the council, education and business.
Policies must support and enhance Birmingham’s economic distinctiveness.
2. To tackle worklessness, deprivation and to enhance inclusive economic growth Birmingham
needs to deliver job growth significantly over and above the expected level of job growth
over the next 10 to 15 years. This is a major challenge.
Recommendation: To tackle this problem requires an inclusive strategy that
includes educational initiatives, initiatives to attract foreign direct investment but
also initiatives to encourage the formation and growth of family firms, social
enterprises and self employment. It also includes initiatives to improve connectivity
within the city and between the city and elsewhere (the UK and overseas).
3. Tackling Birmingham’s skills deficit is critical for enhancing inclusive economic growth. This
requires the development of an integrated approach to skills based on ensuring that local
educational establishments work together to provide the skills required to support local
economic activity.
Recommendation: Every school to develop strategic relationships with local firms.
Birmingham City Council to work closely with schools, FE colleges and universities to
develop an integrated approach that will ensure that Birmingham is transformed
into a ‘skilled city’, the ‘city of a thousand skills’ or Birmingham as the
entrepreneurial city.
4. Every job should be considered as a quality job. The focus of any economic strategy should
not be on quality jobs defined solely as graduate jobs. Encourage the development of a
balanced economy in which all business activities that create employment are considered
important. This also includes enhancing related variety in the local economy. Do not just
focus on ‘quality’ graduate jobs, but on the complete range of skills that are required to
support dynamic, balanced and resilient local economies.
Recommendation: The city’s economic strategy should recognise the importance of
all job types and focus on enhancing skills on the understanding that improvements
in the Birmingham’s skill base will increase employment opportunities and also
salary levels.
5. Every job should have an appropriate level of reward defined as a ‘living wage’.
6. An individual’s career develops or evolves and should be considered to be a journey
involving the acquisition of new skills. Individuals in low waged employment should be able
to enhance their skill sets. Working for social enterprises and undertaking voluntary work
should be considered as important opportunities for individuals to enhance their skills,
including work related social skills. The city’s employment policies must not just focus on the
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under 25s, but also recognise that individuals over 50 increasingly find it difficult to obtain
employment.
Recommendation: The city’s skills and employment strategies and implementation
plans must address diverse needs – from the under 25s to the nearly retired. The
City must understand the various pathways to employment, self-employment and
entrepreneurship that exist within the city’s local labour markets and develop
strategies to enhance economic inclusion.
The deficit of skills across the labour force and limited levels of innovation generally are
major barriers to competitiveness.
Birmingham has a diverse economy that requires many different types of skills. These
include skills related to manufacturing and service activities. It is important that the City
develops a balanced approach to skill development and enhancement that recognises the
diversity of the City’s economy.
Recommendation: A diverse economy must be acknowledged as a strength that is a
source of competitive advantage. This requires a balanced approach to local
economic development that does not over-emphasize one type of economic activity
over other types, for example knowledge-based employment.
Birmingham should celebrate and build upon its associations with manufacturing. Resilient
and inclusive places tend to have diverse economies. Service-dominated economies tend to
exhibit high levels of social polarisation compared to places with more balanced economies.
Recommendation: The city’s economic strategy to be based on the development of
a balanced approach to economic development. Land use planning should support
all viable economic activities.
Birmingham’s multi-culturalism should be considered to be an important economic asset
which adds considerable value to the economy. Birmingham must build on the actual and
potential trading linkages that exist between the city multicultural communities and other
countries.
Recommendation: Birmingham to celebrate the benefits associated with a diverse
population and to encourage its ethnically diverse communities to capitalise on the
benefits that come from their ethnicity.
Self-employment should be understood to be a viable alternative to employment. This has
implications for housing policy. Housing units will need to be able to support selfemployment or micro-businesses. The Internet has enabled the development of new
approaches to undertaking business that do not necessarily require a conventional office,
retail or factory location.
Recommendation: The City’s housing policy to acknowledge the importance of selfemployment. The libraries to be information beacons that support all forms of
entrepreneurship (self-employment, family businesses, all forms of
entrepreneurship).
Innovative approaches to public sector procurement should be used by Birmingham City
Council as a strategic tool to drive process and product innovation in the local economy.
Public procurement should be considered as an economic development tool that can be
deployed to create local jobs for local people and also to encourage local firms to create new
products and services that have export potential.
Recommendation: Public procurement to be used as an economic development
tool across the City Council’s activities and also throughout the public sector.
13. Responding to the challenge of inclusive economic growth requires Birmingham to project a
strong, consistent and coherent identity. This identity must be robust and rigorous and must
be projected by all major stakeholders in the City. This requires leadership to identify,
establish and project this identity. Over a medium time frame Birmingham must develop a
reputation as an extremely desirable place in which to live, work and play.
Recommendation: Birmingham City Council must identify all stakeholders that
would contribute to the projection of a positive identity for the City and ensure that
all stakeholders are projecting a clear and unified message. It is absolutely critical
that all stakeholders work together to advance a shared agenda based around
inclusive economic growth.
14. Birmingham’s economy should be conceptualised as consisting of a mosaic of interwoven
local economies. This is to argue that Birmingham’s economic strategy should operate at
two scales; first, at the level of the city and, second, targeted interventions based around
local areas, or locales, within the city that have distinctive needs, strengths and challenges. A
local in this context does not equate to a district or a ward but to an area that has a
distinctive functioning economic geography (DFEG). A DFEG can span district or ward
boundaries. This concept of a ‘locale’ may be particularly useful as it would provide
Birmingham with a conceptual tool that is strongly related to the localism and devolution
agenda. The locale concept would encourage Birmingham to consider the diversity of locales
or local economies that lie within the city. It is important to appreciate that every local will
have different infrastructural advantages and difficulties and will have distinctive features
within its local economy.
Recommendation: Birmingham’s economic strategy and action plan to take account
of local diversity. The diversity of economies that exist within Birmingham must be
identified and a policy mechanism established that is designed to enhance inclusive
economic growth. Every locale could have a local development board that would
bring local firms (profit and not-for-profit) together with representatives from local
educational establishments and policy makers to develop a strategy to support an
area’s DFEG.
15. Birmingham faces many challenges but also has many successes. Birmingham must build
upon its successes and ensure that the city becomes associated with success rather than
challenges or problems.
Professor John R. Bryson,
University of Birmingham,
31st May 2012
Revised 26th June 2012