Leeds

Why devolution will be more important on May 8th

Downtow Manifesto

We are now less than a month away before the country goes to the polls for a General Election that is heading for a very predictable stalemate.

A hung parliament seems almost inevitable, with opinion poll after opinion poll showing the two major parties neck and neck for months now.

I have long believed that the eventual outcome will see us in virtually the same place we are at now, with the Conservatives as the largest party, and the Liberal Democrats doing better than expected. The surge of support for the SNP in Scotland has done for any slim chance Labour had of forming a majority administration. What happens once all the backroom deals and horse trading have taken place is anyone’s guess, but another period of multi-party co-operation is certain.

Also certain is that the north of England will firmly reject the Tories, as will Scotland and Wales, making the political divide across Britain greater than ever.

As democracies go, the UK is the most centralised of any comparable governance structure in Europe, but the Scottish devolution debate has led to a George Osborne led devolution strategy that, thus far, has only really hit his own backyard of Manchester.

An election result that puts David Cameron back in number 10, but that leaves his party without any significant representation either from the north at Westminster or in the Town Halls of Liverpool, Leeds, Newcastle or Sheffield will simply add to the weight of argument for an acceleration of decentralisation and genuine devolved powers to city regions, and potentially county regions such as Lancashire too.

The price for such a shift in governance structures should be elected leaders, or elected mayors (the title shouldn’t much matter), because, quite rightly, no government should concede the sort of powers that Manchester will benefit from without strengthening the democratic accountability of those who will take those powers. There is also an urgent need to slim down and streamline existing local government structures.

As we argue in Downtown’s ‘Manifesto’ we are currently trying to deliver a 21st Century economy with 19th Century structures, and this has to change.

The discussion and debate as to what that change should be will begin in earnest on 8th May. Downtown is looking forward to being part of that important conversation.

Get on the phone…

Phone

Communication is and always has been one of the most important elements in a successful business, weather that be internally or with customers.

We communicate to our external audience in a variety of fashions, through marketing and advertising campaigns, the company website and in more recent years and in increasing numbers through a range of social media platforms.

On a day-to-day basis, what method do you most use to have a conversation with your team or your customers? My guess is that it is via email.

The email has replaced the telephone as the main communication tool in business- and even in our personal lives we are as likely to get a text message from a friend or loved one, as we are a telephone call.

This change isn’t new, and hasn’t happened overnight; but it is accelerating, and in my view is having a detrimental effect on our ability to communicate effectively.

I went into a meeting in Leeds on Wednesday afternoon for an hour and a half. When we had finished, I looked at my mobile device (it is much more than a phone these days) and I had just one voicemail – but my inbox showed an incredible 129 emails!

Many of them were crap that I was able to delete fairly quickly. I don’t mean ‘junk’ as in invitations from Eastern European women to ‘make friends’ with them. I mean crap as in emails from colleagues who think it necessary to CC me into stuff in order to have a paper trail that covers their own back.

But also buried in this avalanche of correspondence, there was some important stuff too, including invitations to television debates; a request for an introduction from one of our sponsors and information about forthcoming business support programmes and the next round of ERDF funding.

The challenge I have nowadays is to pick out the important stuff from the crap and then try to respond to it in a timely manner – and it is a challenge I am finding increasingly difficult to deal with.

Of the 129 emails that I received in that 90 minutes on Wednesday, over half of them were unnecessary; another chunk of them were at best for information purposes only; and then there were at least a dozen that would have been far better dealt with by a quick telephone call.

We are losing the art of verbal communication. Even when you walk down the street these days you will walk past someone you know without even noticing as your head is bowed reading the latest barrage of content that has been emailed, tweeted or text to you.

As for using your mobile device to actually phone someone, do you do that as often as you should?

My team don’t. In particular my sales team don’t. After Easter they will, so expect to get an actual telephone call from one of the Downtown team – and have a conversation with them ‘voice to voice’ rather than ‘electronically’.

‘Get on the phone’ will be the new mantra I will be using in our office from now on. The bombardment of email has created a wall of noise that is no longer penetrating your customers. Downtown has taken note. You should too.

Happy Easter!

North needs to be united

Reflections Liv

We’re all in this together…

It is a phrase that the chancellor has trotted out regularly during his near five year tenure in number 11 Downing Street, to explain and justify the austerity programme he has embarked upon since taking office, but it is now a mantra that should be adopted by northern cities as the devolution bandwagon continues to gather speed – but with only Manchester in a position to take full advantage of the progressive plans that are being presented.

I have had the opportunity of speaking with both the Leader and the chief executive of Manchester City Council in recent weeks, and they are naturally delighted with a ‘Devo Manc’ package that now gives them budgets, powers and responsibilities over a whole range of services including housing, health, business support and economic development; and following the budget on Thursday the local retention of business rates raised in Greater Manchester too.

But, far from cocking a snoop at their northern neighbours, who have failed miserably in grasping similar offers made to them by central government, Sir Richard Leese and Sir Howard Bernstein are desperate for others to ‘get with the programme.’

For, as Leese pointed out at the Northern Powerhouse dinner hosted by PwC in Manchester on Wednesday night, it will be much more difficult for any future government to dilute the Manchester devolution package if several others are enjoying the same or similar devolved powers.

He and Bernstein are also acutely aware of the need to connect the north far more effectively and efficiently through big infrastructure projects on road, as well as rail, if their city is to meet its full potential. And, they will also know that Manchester is now the undisputed capital of that Northern Powerhouse, meaning that they can be far more generous in supporting and ‘coaching’ other city regions to improve both in economic and governance terms.

To this end, I hope Leese and Bernstein continue to explain to Leeds and Liverpool that it is not only pragmatic to accept the notion of a directly elected leader to oversee and be accountable to the electorate for all the additional powers that are available, but it is, democratically, the right thing to do.

What government in its right mind would hand over billions of pounds in resources to a bunch of largely faceless councillors, who may or may not be in a leadership position in twelve months’ time, depending on the whims of not only the local electorate, but their own political group as well?

The idea that you can ask for radical changes to your power take, without accepting an equally radical change to your governance arrangements is clearly a nonsense.

Politicians in Merseyside and Yorkshire may cry ‘it’s not fair’ – but without any movement on the governance agenda from them, then it is most certainly right.

It’s Hard

Office Move

Downtown recently held a fantastic half day conference in association with the government’s flagship business support initiative Growth Accelerator.

The event was entitled ‘Limitless – developing a hyper-growth Mind-set’ and focussed on how successful business leaders and entrepreneurs from across the UK had ‘done it’.

Inevitably the contributions from the speakers were upbeat and positive, but almost to a person, every keynote speaker and panel member warned would-be growth ambitious businesses that taking your company forward is challenging, at times frustrating, and it’s hard!

Downtown has been evolving and growing, relatively steadily, for just over a decade now. On Monday we are moving offices, so that the team at our Liverpool HQ have a better working environment. It is also a facility that provides us with space and collateral to offer our members a more diverse range of events and business support services.

In 2015, you would think that an office move would be relatively simple. However, we have needed to find additional hours and resource from our existing team, and use some external help too, over a period of a few months, to make it happen. Telephones, internet services, the office fit out and new furniture are among a long list of things that were on the ‘to do’ list, and I can’t say I’m looking forward to the actual physical move next week. I’m sure though that the old adage ‘short term pain for long term gain’ applies here.

This is the latest ‘hard to do’ in my personal business growth journey and it would be nice to say that UK Plc, with its love of an enterprise culture and entrepreneurial spirit, has at least been there to help me through it.

Sadly not. There is no ‘one-stop-shop’ for a small business to seek guidance on who the best suppliers are when you’re moving office. There is no robot within HMRC who will accept that moving office to grow your business and secure, hopefully create, jobs, is deserving of some lee-way in terms of tax returns and VAT payments. There is certainly no business book, manual or course that can take you through the ‘office move’ project – or indeed many of the other issues you will face as an ambitious business owner.

This is why business support initiatives such as Growth Accelerator, and a few others that are genuinely private sector led, are so invaluable. It is also why public sector agencies, quasi-public sector organisations and failed middle managers should not be allowed anywhere near business support – but that is a rant for another day.

For now, I will get on with the latest ‘challenge’, and simply take on the chin the hefty fine imposed on me this week by HMRC for my VAT payment being a day late!

The UK is getting more enterprising – The North must catch up

Uk Enterprise

Britain is getting great at starting business again and rediscovering its entrepreneurial spirit. The latest statistics on start up’s show an all- time record for new company incorporations here – a massive 581,173, which is an increase of almost 10% on the previous year. That bastion of enterprise that is most often held up as the example to us all, the United States, suffered 70,000 more business closures than start- up’s in 2014. Government initiatives such as entrepreneurs’ relief and the Enterprise Investment Scheme, introduced by the last Labour government and continued by the coalition, have also helped small businesses grow. And get this – according to the Centre for Entrepreneurs one reason Britain has become such a hotbed for start-up’s is immigration. A survey it undertook last year showed that one in seven businesses here are run by migrants. A ‘hats off’ to StartUp Britain and the more recently launched GREAT campaigns. Both organisations are doing a damn fine job in promoting all that is good about starting your own business, and growing it!

But it’s still not enough, and in the North of England we are still failing to encourage and support enough people to have a go and setting up on their own.

There has been a massive push over the past five years to provide support to what are commonly known as ‘Gazelle’ type businesses – those companies that have been established for a time, and with the right mentoring and coaching can meet their ambitious growth potential.

This has been a reasonably successful approach, led by initiatives such as the Growth Accelerator, who partnered Downtown last week for the ‘Limitless’ conference that we hosted with 100 plus delegates in Liverpool.

However, just as I would argue that it is a mistake made too often to focus on big business, which make up a tiny percentage of the UK business community, I would equally express concern at the start up agenda being neglected.

The next round of European funding has just landed and negotiations are taking place as to what projects should be going forward and supported. I hope that the objective of creating a more entrepreneurial culture in the North is a big part of the new programmes that are agreed.

We need to start to see the establishment of tomorrow’s Gazelles today.