The contribution of rural community businesses to integrated rural development: “Local services for local people”

Policy responses to the problems facing rural areas across Europe have involved the replacement of “productivist” measures that subsidise agriculture to strategies promoting “integrated rural development”, emphasising the interconnections between various facets of the rural economy. Thus farm modernisation and product processing and marketing are linked with the promotion of a more diversified economic base centred on tourism and recreation and the maintenance of services for local residents. An essential element of this model is its reliance on collaborative actions involving a range of community or civil society actors. This paper examines the extent to which the operation of community-owned businesses in rural parts of the Yorkshire and Humber region in the UK corresponds to these ideals of integrated rural development. Evidence is presented on their geographical footprint with respect to both direct economic impacts and linkages with social and institutional networks. This allows an assessment to be made of the contribution that such enterprises make to rural economic development as a whole. The conclusion is that they do have the potential to assist integrated rural development, but only as a small part of a much wider series of economic, social and environmental actions.integrated rural development, rural community businesses, economic impacts, geographical footprint, volunteering

Families and work: revisiting barriers to employment

"In recent years, considerable effort has been put into supporting parents to make the transition into work. This study was commissioned by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to explore whether these incentives were helping parents to overcome the barriers known to impede their engagement in the formal labour market. The report is based on fieldwork conducted in 2009. However, the concluding chapter considers the significance of the findings in light of proposals for the introduction of the Universal Credit and other reforms of the tax and benefit systems proposed by the Coalition Government." - Page 1

Rethinking the impact of regeneration on poverty: a (partial) defence of a 'failed' policy

For decades regeneration programmes in England targeted areas where spatial concentrations of poverty exist. These 'area-based initiatives' (ABIs) came under sustained attack, however, from the previous coalition government for being expensive and ineffective. This paper assesses this claim by re-evaluating past evidence on the impact of regeneration on poverty. It finds regeneration did relatively little to transform households' material circumstances but significantly ameliorated negative experiences of living in poverty in relation to housing, community safety and the physical environment. This partially undermines the rationale for the policy shift away from neighbourhood renewal interventions toward the current focus on 'local growth' as the sole remedy for spatial inequalities. It also suggests a need for more nuance in wider critical accounts of regeneration as a deepening form of neoliberalism

Addressing transport barriers to work in low income neighbourhoods: A review of evidence and practice

This evidence review explores the links between poverty and transport to support a wider study into how the transport barriers to work for residents in low income neighbourhoods can be addressed. It argues that transport issues faced by households in poverty are not just a matter of physical infrastructure but are shaped by the nature and location of both housing and employment. For this reason, the review includes discussion of how poverty interacts with these domains in ways that often reinforce transport barriers for low income households. It also considers how these barriers are not just practical or material but also shaped by a range of social, cultural and psychological factors in terms of attachment to place and 'spatial horizons'

Industrial Strategy and the Regions : the shortcomings of a narrow sectoral focus

Key points - The new money that the UK government has allocated to support its industrial strategy is targeted at R&D in an exceptionally narrow range of sectors – healthcare & medicine, robotics & artificial intelligence, batteries, self-driving vehicles, materials for the future and satellites & space technology. - Even on a generous definition of the industries that might benefit from the new Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund, these sectors account for little more than 1 per cent of the whole economy (by employment) and 10 per cent of UK manufacturing. - The jobs in the sectors targeted by the Fund are highly unevenly spread across the country. The pattern is more complex than a simple North-South divide but a number of places in southern England have substantially more jobs in these sectors than industrial cities such as Bradford, Leicester, Manchester, Middlesbrough, Nottingham, Stoke and Swansea. - The distribution across the country of research and development establishments – along with universities and R&D labs in large companies likely to be first in line for the new R&D funding – is particularly skewed in favour of an arc to the immediate north, west and south of London. - Even excluding its famous university, the Cambridge area (population just 285,000) has twice as many jobs in scientific research and development establishments as the whole of the Midlands, more than Scotland and Wales combined, and only 2,000 fewer than the whole of the North of England (population 15.2 million). - The report concludes that the government’s sectoral focus is exceptionally narrow – too narrow alone to provide a base on which to build a revival of British industry. - The report also concludes that the government’s narrow sectoral focus threatens to widen regional divides. It is Cambridge, Oxfordshire, the Thames Valley, Hertfordshire and London itself that may gain most in the first instance

The real level of unemployment 2017

Key Points - This report challenges the view that the UK economy is operating at or close to full employment. It presents alternative estimates of the level of unemployment, based on a re-working of official statistics, for every local authority district in England, Scotland and Wales. - The report estimates that in 2017 the ‘real level of unemployment’ across Britain as a whole is nearly 2.3 million. This compares with just under 800,000 on the claimant count and 1.5 million on the wider ILO measure of unemployment preferred by the government. - The report estimates that there are some 760,000 ‘hidden unemployed’ on incapacity-related benefits (these days primarily Employment and Support Allowance). These are men and women who might have been expected to be in work in a genuinely fully employed economy. They do not represent fraudulent claims. - The real level of unemployment and the scale of hidden unemployment have both fallen since 2012. However, there remain almost as many unemployed ‘hidden’ on incapacity benefits as ‘visible’ on the unemployment claimant count. - Hidden unemployment is disproportionately concentrated in the weakest local economies, particularly Britain’s older industrial areas and a number of seaside towns. The effect is to mask the true scale of labour market disparities between the best and worst parts of the country. - In a number of local economies, including much of North East England, East Lancashire, Merseyside, the Welsh Valleys and the Birmingham and Glasgow areas, the real level of unemployment remains at or just below 10 per cent of the working age population. Much of southern and eastern England outside London, with real unemployment in the 2-3 per cent range, could however lay claim to operating near full employment