Question 3: To what extent do you agree or disagree that working across the proposed geography through the Mayoral Combined Authority will support the economy of the area?
Answer: Strongly agree
Please explain your answer.
An MCA, with the right governance and functional arrangements to meet the needs of Cumbria, provides a huge opportunity to drive inclusive economic growth in the county.
Devolved powers and funding in relation to strategic spatial planning and housing, transport planning, economic development and regeneration, environmental improvements and skills and employment support will give local decision-makers in Cumbria more control over some of the critical levers for unlocking growth.
A directly elected Mayor of a Cumbria MCA has the potential to raise the profile of Cumbria as a good place to invest, to run a business, to learn, and to live and work. 5 One voice for Cumbria on a regional, national and global platform - setting out shared Cumbrian economic and environmental ambitions - could be hugely impactful. A Mayor providing a single voice for Cumbria alongside Ministers and other Mayors at the Mayoral Council for England means Cumbria will have the opportunity to contribute to national decision-making and future devolution policy that the county hasn’t had before.
An MCA, focused on achieving shared ambitions, could provide leadership to tackling the county’s long-term policy challenges.
Cumbria’s declining working age population is an increasingly challenging constraint on the county’s economic success. Attracting people into the local workforce to meet the needs of local businesses is a critical issue. Working through an MCA on joining up strategic planning and housing, transport infrastructure, skills and employment support and a coherent marketing offer could help attract people to come and live and work in the county.
We would build on our existing local skills improvement board, working with skills providers and our local further education sector, to ensure we have the skills and capacity in the local workforce to enable the local economy to grow. Also providing good, well-paid job opportunities for all our residents.
The opportunity, through the proposed Mayoral Combined Authority, to ensure that locally designed skills provision leads to positive impacts for local businesses and attracts investment is a critical factor in supporting local growth in a way that addresses long-term structural issues, including attracting a larger working-age population to Cumbria, and addressing inequalities.
It is also important to recognise the important role that the health and care sectors play in the county’s economy and working through an MCA provides an opportunity to better integrate the economic contribution of those sectors into strategic public policymaking within Cumbria.
Our productivity challenge is associated with transport issues, the absence of a large city to drive growth, and the rural and sparsely populated nature of the county as well as the population challenges described above. Through the recent work carried out through Enterprising Cumbria and the Local Economic Growth Board on developing Cumbria’s new long-term economic strategy, this productivity gap has been quantified as being £3 billion.
An MCA brings opportunities to use the devolved powers and funding as levers to make an impact in improving productivity. The productivity challenge is historic and structural. Long-term and integrated funding settlements, secured through the MCA, will be vital if we are to make a significant impact on productivity over the next 10 to 20 years.
Long-term and integrated funding settlements secured by an MCA will address one of the other major challenges faced by the local economy – and that is the funding challenge. Increased local control over funding will enable smarter and more effective investment decisions to be made that are most likely to result in growth in Cumberland and in Cumbria. We have established a comprehensive evidence-base, which informed our new Cumbria economic strategy, as a foundation for planning investment that will unlock growth in our local economy.
Long-term integrated funding settlements from the Government will allow Cumbria to address these long-term challenges over time. Long-standing structural economic challenges don’t have quick fixes. Short-term funding and numerous bidding process work against long-term planning. We welcome the Government’s commitment to rationalising funding streams and moving away from the bidding culture that has established itself over time.
It is vital however, that long-term consolidated funding, and eventually fully integrated settlements, are allocated to a Cumbria MCA on the needs of the economy and the county’s contribution to the UK’s economic growth. Per capita funding allocations are disadvantageous to sparsely populated large areas like Cumbria and don’t enable us to invest in the things that will deliver economic growth, environmental improvements and better outcomes for our residents.
We await the outcome of the Government’s Spending Review later this year and further information on the funding approach for MCAs. We ask the Government to ensure that rurality and deprivation are taken into account in the calculation of MCA funding settlements.