‘Tomorrow’s cities need to work a lot smarter to grow jobs’

What are the URBACT projects you have looked at in the ‘More Jobs’ workstream?

Alison Partridge: We’ve looked at all the URBACT projects on jobs and growth but the ones we’ve drawn upon the most are ESIMeC, Creative Clusters, Urban N.O.S.E., My Generation and Open Cities. We’ve also been looking at some INTERREG projects, and some of the work that the OECD Local Economic and Employment Development (OECD-LEED) forum  are doing. 

Who is involved in the workstream coordination and how does it work?

I am workstream coordinator and my core group comprises Prof Mike Campbell OBE, independent labour market expert; Norbert Grasselli, a Hungarian practitioner in innovation and the knowledge economy; Daniel Garnier, a local authority officer in the UK, specialising in economic development, so very much working on the ground; Paul Soto, thematic pole manager for jobs and growth for URBACT; Francesca Froy, senior policy analyst, OECD LEED forum. So we’ve got a real range of quite high-level strategic people, and then Norbert and Dan are there as our reality check!

The core group has met three or four times since March. The content has come from a desk review of these projects. Daniel and I are the lead partner and the lead expert of ESIMeC so obviously we’ve drawn very heavily on that project.

We also did an open call for evidence, which we published on the URBACT website, asking cities to tell us what they’re doing to support and grow new jobs. We’ve had two “evidence hearings”, in June and September, where we’ve invited what we call thinkers and doers – so strategic, policy-making, academic type of people, and then city practitioners from across Europe.

What is the result of your work in terms of capitalisation: what have you found out? What are the key lessons you have learnt? How will this be useful for other cities?

We’ve tried to come up with reflections on some of the dilemmas and trade-offs that cities are facing in the context of austerity. Everything’s different now from the way it was before, and there’s very few people in the URBACT world – and particularly in the jobs and growth field – who think we’ll ever return to business as usual. So we’ve been trying to see what cities can do differently to support and grow new jobs.

Then we’re developing a three-part “Framework for City Action on Jobs”. The first part is the economy and jobs, and we’ve looked at what cities can do to grow new jobs, such as economic diversification and smart specialization - the importance of a business-friendly environment in your city. We’ve also looked at living-wage schemes and local procurement initiatives.

The second part is looking at people and skills, at the importance of having a qualified workforce in a city, of brokering links between unemployed people and employers. Thirdly we’ve looked at cross-cutting issues, such as having robust and shared intelligence, collaborative leadership and good governance structures.

The main message is that there are lots of things that cities can do without having to spend huge amounts of money, but generally cities need to work a lot smarter in order to achieve things. It’s about understanding the post-crisis world a little better, and for that we need new policies and new skills. It all needs to be a bit more joined-up. We can’t continue to work within these “policy silos” that traditionally cities have worked within.

How will your findings be presented to the Annual Conference Workshop More Jobs ?

We see the workshop as being a consultation forum, but also an opportunity to gather more evidence from cities. For each of the three bits of our policy framework we’ve got four statements, and we’re going to ask city practitioners and policy-makers to plot themselves on a scale of: “We are doing lots of this” to “We are not doing much of this at all”.  And then once we’ve seen who’s doing what, we’ll then ask them to say a little bit more about what they’re doing, or if they’re not doing something, why not, and what the challenges are in their own city.

What will you publish and when?

We will publish our report in the spring, Framework for City Action on Jobs: What Can Cities Do to Support and Grow New Jobs in the Recovery? We’re trying to keep the reports quite short because we think it’s really important for practitioners and policy-makers that they are readable and concise.