OPINION
EDITOR’S VIEW
BY JOHN LAMB
Freeing the chains of Whitehall
new jobs and 37,000 new apprentices across Bristol, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool, Newcastle, Nottingham, and Sheffield. Life Sciences are a broad cathedral, from affective
B
neuroscience and anatomy, through cognitive neuroscience and evolutionary genetics to wildlife biology and zoology. The deal Birmingham has struck is designed to set the
city free to be “innovative and unique”. The Government wants nearly 11,000 jobs to be created
by making Birmingham the City of Life Sciences and expanding the Green Deal scheme to make homes more environmentally friendly. “Birmingham will be free of the ties that once bound you
to decisions made by politicians in Whitehall,” announced Deputy Prime Minster Nick Clegg. He added: “We want powerful, innovative cities that are able to shape their economic destinies, boost entire regions and get the national economy growing. These deals provide a suite of new freedoms, powers and tools to help cities embark on new and innovate ways to drive local economic growth.”
‘The move will give the city new powers to build infrastructure, create jobs and train local people’
The scheme would apparently sign over huge chunks of
freedom to Birmingham and other great cities. Each of those eight core cities has come up with ambitious plans to help them grow and prosper, marking a dramatic shift of powers from Whitehall to our cities. And much of the credit for the Birmingham end of this deal can be taken by GBSLEP, which is how the Greater Birmingham and Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership is more succinctly known these days. The move will give the city new powers to build
infrastructure, create jobs and train local people with the right skills to fill them. GBSLEP will also look to commit employers, colleges and schools to invest in skills and guarantee work opportunities for learners. This approach is aimed at encouraging a quarter of the city’s businesses to take part the creation of 3,560 apprenticeships. The City Deal will also create GBS Finance, an investment fund of £1.5bn that will manage, invest, recycle and leverage a number of public and private sector funding streams to deliver local infrastructure projects while becoming a model for sustainable funding and growth. It is anticipated that, as a result of the new financial
powers, in excess of £15bn of private sector investment over 25 years could be secured. Andy Street, who chairs the GBSLEP, says that that City Deal will not only support immediate job creation but also improve the region’s skills base and invest in our infrastructure to meet the economic needs of the future. This first step towards a new way of working with the
Government will throw up many challenges. But if, as a result, the high unemployment levels and low skills base in the region are tackled everyone will benefit.
4 CHAMBERLINK OCTOBER 2012
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CHAMBERLINK
FRONT COVER Steve Brittan, new Chamber president and managing director of BSA Machine Tools - page 6
EDITOR John Lamb 0121 202 5156, 0121 450 4228, 0797 1144064
j.lamb@
birmingham-chamber.com
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birmingham-chamber.com
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irmingham is to become the City of Life Sciences under the Government’s City Deal, which is designed to create up to 175,000
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Connecting you to opportunity
BIRMINGHAM CHAMBER PATRONS 2012
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