The Institute for Fiscal Studies Report: English Council Funding: What’s Happened and What’s Next?

The article reviews the recent Institute for Fiscal Studies (IfFS) report, English Council Funding: What’s Happened and What’s Next. The article provides an overview of the main themesand findings of the report which examines the consequences of a sustained period of austerity for English local government and the impact of austerity on certain key council services.The article explores what the report has to say about the way councils have responded to reductions in government funding and the strategies they have developed to protect certain frontline services. The article reviews the suggestions made in the IfFS report for changing English local government funding and finds that they reflect a form of centralist thinking which lacks a radical edge when it comes to reform

Could local government govern? Rethinking the role of councillors

What is the meaning of ‘government’ in local government? Colin Copus writes that, although local government understandably clings to its service provision functions, there is a broader role that councillors could assume, and argues that the concept of public accountability would be key in that role

In the post-Brexit world, England deserves its own Parliament

When Scotland has a Parliament - and Wales and Northern Ireland their own assemblies - the lack of an English Parliament represents a serious democratic deficit, writes Colin Copus (De Montfort University). Instead, regionalists have preferred to divide England into EU-delineated regions. The absence of a forum for specifically English concerns and national identity, together with the rejection of the supranational EU, arguably helped to bring about the Leave vote. As Brexit takes shape, the weakness of the arguments against an English Parliament are exposed

The geography of transaction linkages in twelve European case study regions

Small and medium sized enterprises operate within a complex web of links of various kinds. These may be distinguished in terms of their content (transactional, advisory, regulatory, social), "object" (other SMEs, third sector organisations, business services, local and national government), geography (local,regional, global), and durability (transient, permanent, frequent, irregular). A simpler categorisation might be between "hard" linkages involving a recorded transaction of some kind, and "soft" informal interation involving only information. Several schools of thought on local economic development emphasise either or both these types of interaction as important factors in local development dynamics. This is a particularily important group of concepts in relation to peripheral regions, where local opportunities for interaction are constrained, and longer distance relationships are more difficult and expensive. This paper begins with a review of recent research relating to business networks,focusing as far as possible on work relating to rural and peripheral areas, and including relevant aspects of the concepts of social capital, governance and "institutional thickness". This will be drawn together in the form of a number of hypotheses regarding the role of different forms of interaction in determining the degree of economic vitality in peripheral regions. The validity of these hypotheses will then be examined in the light of case-study data relating to twelve regions (six peripheral, six more accessible) in Scotland, Finland, Germany, Spain and Greece. Drawing predominantly on a survey of 600 SMEs, the discussion is structured into the following four themes: The geography of transactional linkages Other aspects of transactional linkages Links with third sector organisactions Links with local, regional and national government agencies. The paper will conclude with a review of the hypotheses and an integrated assessment of the impact of all kinds of networks on regional economic performance. The information presented in this paper has been derived from research funded by the EU Fifth Framework, as part of project QLK5-2000-00783 - Aspatial Peripherality, Innovation and the Rural Economy (AsPIRE).

Una propuesta de tipificación de las regiones no urbanas en la Unión Europea

Este trabajo presenta el proceso metodológico conducente a la elaboración de tipologías de desarrollo regional elaboradas en el marco del proyecto EDORA3 (European Development Opportunities for Rural Areas). Constituyen un importante punto de referencia en el proceso de actualización de los estereotipos que subyacen en el diseño e implementación de la política de desarrollo regional, y pueden convertirse en un instrumento de apoyo a la toma de decisiones mejor adaptado a la realidad regional europea

Innovation and Peripherality: A Comparative Study in Six EU Member Countries

The present work compares rates of innovative activity among firms located in peripheral dynamic and central lagging areas of the European Union. Data on 600 businesses located in twelve areas, in six countries of the EU were collected in the framework of an EU- funded research project (Aspatial Peripherality, Innovation and the Rural Economy- AsPIRE- QLK5-2000-00783). Empirical evidence shows that the regional rate of innovative activity is very well predicted by easily observable firm characteristics. Oaxaca-Blinder like decompositions between the difference in rates of innovative activity in peripheral and more central areas are undertaken. Decompositions show that the major part of the observed differential innovative activity rates is unobservable, i.e., it is due to unobserved characteristics and not due to observable firm characteristics. Unobserved characteristics may be either firm specific (human and entrepreneurial capital, etc.) or region specific (institutional environment, social capital, traditional economic factors, etc.) and constitute an unobserved type of innovation specific 'untraded interdependencies'. This conclusion is important for planning policies to support innovation and especially to the regionalization of innovation policies.

The transaction footprints of Scottish food and drink SMEs

This research is funded by Scottish Government’s Rural and Environmental Science and Analytical Services Division (RESAS) under Theme 8 ‘Vibrant Rural Communities’ of the Food, Land and People Programme (2011 - 2016).This paper presents a survey approach to measuring the “transaction footprints” of rural small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). Combined with a graphical presentation of results, this contributes to the evidence base on the roles of local and global linkages. Findings suggest that the food and drink industry of Scotland is relatively localised in its input and sales interaction pattern, although substantial variations, associated with product specialisms, remoteness/accessibility, input purchasing and marketing strategies, exist. Localised SMEs have weathered the recession slightly better, but more outward-looking in firms tend to have greater optimism about the future. Transaction footprint analysis should be viewed as component of an ongoing process of re-mapping the network infrastructure of the rural economy, alongside analysis of untraded interdependencies, and institutional networks in the realm of governance.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Cohesion Policy for rural areas after 2013. A rationale derived from the EDORA project (European Development Opportunities in Rural Areas) – ESPON 2013 Project 2013/1/2

The starting point of the EDORA project was the recognition that, rather than becoming more uniform in character, rural Europe is, in many ways, becoming increasingly diverse, implying new challenges and opportunities. The project’s overarching aim was to examine the process of differentiation, in order to better understand how EU policy can enable rural areas to build upon their specific potentials to achieve ‘smart, sustainable and inclusive growth’. The first phase of the project consisted of a literature review in order to establish a conceptual framework for subsequent empirical analysis. This identified a very wide range of aspects of contemporary rural change. In order to manage this complexity, and so that it could be communicated simply and clearly, three ‘meta-narratives’ of rural change were devised. In the second phase the evidence base for rural change was explored, both in terms of large scale patterns, based upon regional data, and local processes. The macro-scale patterns were addressed by three typologies. These were complemented at a micro-level by in-depth studies of 12 exemplar regions, reflecting a wide range of types and contexts. The third phase explored policy implications. The project’s findings point towards neo-endogenous approaches, in which a ‘bottom up’ process of regional programme design is fully supported and guided by available information, expert advice and the kind of strategic perspective which is best assembled at a central level. The EDORA findings are thus generally supportive of the ‘place based’ approaches advocated by the Barca Report

The geography of transaction linkages in twelve European case study regions

Small and medium sized enterprises operate within a complex web of links of various kinds. These may be distinguished in terms of their content (transactional, advisory, regulatory, social), "object" (other SMEs, third sector organisations, business services, local and national government), geography (local,regional, global), and durability (transient, permanent, frequent, irregular). A simpler categorisation might be between "hard" linkages involving a recorded transaction of some kind, and "soft" informal interation involving only information. Several schools of thought on local economic development emphasise either or both these types of interaction as important factors in local development dynamics. This is a particularily important group of concepts in relation to peripheral regions, where local opportunities for interaction are constrained, and longer distance relationships are more difficult and expensive. This paper begins with a review of recent research relating to business networks,focusing as far as possible on work relating to rural and peripheral areas, and including relevant aspects of the concepts of social capital, governance and "institutional thickness". This will be drawn together in the form of a number of hypotheses regarding the role of different forms of interaction in determining the degree of economic vitality in peripheral regions. The validity of these hypotheses will then be examined in the light of case-study data relating to twelve regions (six peripheral, six more accessible) in Scotland, Finland, Germany, Spain and Greece. Drawing predominantly on a survey of 600 SMEs, the discussion is structured into the following four themes: The geography of transactional linkages Other aspects of transactional linkages Links with third sector organisactions Links with local, regional and national government agencies. The paper will conclude with a review of the hypotheses and an integrated assessment of the impact of all kinds of networks on regional economic performance. The information presented in this paper has been derived from research funded by the EU Fifth Framework, as part of project QLK5-2000-00783 - Aspatial Peripherality, Innovation and the Rural Economy (AsPIRE)