Non-Metropolitan Commission

Interim report

29 November 2014 www.local.gov.uk

About the Commission

• Independent Commission on Economic

Growth and the Future of Public Services in

Non-Metropolitan England

• Met for the first time in April 2014

• Reports to the People and Places Board

• Supported by three chief executive advisors

www.local.gov.uk

Remit

• “…seek ways to stimulate economic growth

regionally, create new jobs and help people

live their lives better.”

• RSA Future Cities Commission

• LGA / CIPFA Commission on Local

Government Finance

Commissioners

• Sir John Peace

(Chair)

• Lady Cobham

• Stephen Gifford

• Sir Tony Hawkhead

• Grainia Long

• Professor Henry

Overman

• Jane Ramsay

• Lord Teverson

Call for evidence

• Over 50 submissions from business, councils,

public sector, Government, voluntary and

community sector, think tanks, LEPs.

• Evidence still being received.

Research

Research

Research

Interim report

• “How the Other Half Grows” published 13

November 2014

• Strong story about local economies in non-

metropolitan areas.

• Eight areas on which the Commission is

inviting further comment.

1. How to develop better, clearer,

arrangements for taking decisions so local

businesses and residents can understand

how their lives are being affected.

2. How public sector organisations can work

better together, and how they can find better

ways to provide services using a holistic

approach to delivery.

3. How to better bring together public land,

buildings, and other social infrastructure.

4. How to better train people in the skills that

local businesses need.

5. How to encourage decisions on transport

investment that join non-metropolitan areas

better to their urban neighbours and global

trade routes.

6. How to understand and plan for the future

digital connectivity needs of non-

metropolitan areas.

7. How to better join up decisions on housing

and infrastructure.

8. How to help non-metropolitan areas become

more fiscally self-sufficient.

Housing and infrastructure

Recommendations might include:

• a formal mechanism for joining up councils’ strategies for

new homes, roads, and other infrastructure across economic

areas, and for ensuring that they are taken in partnership with

business through LEPs

• giving these groupings the power to pool public land and

assets and make decisions about its disposal or use

• planning to be carried out at a similar scale to decisions

taken on transport and infrastructure and integrated with

those decisions, including by bringing utility providers more

closely into the process.

Next steps

• Further comments will be sought on proposals

and initial findings.

• Final report to be published in early 2015.

• Eye to General Election and the first spending

review.

More information and contacts

www.local.gov.uk/non-met-commission

rebecca.cox@local.gov.uk

020 7187 7384

nonmet_commission@local.gov.uk