Alan Townsend

Accountability, motivation and practice: NGOs North and South

The vast cheapening and acceleration of communication between distant strangers has facilitated the formation of a transnational community of development non‐governmental organizations (NGOs) working in poorer countries. These carry funds and specific discourses and practices to most corners of the globe, and bring back information and images that attract more funding and legitimization to donors and NGOs. A managerial revolution through which specific governments sought to control costs and increase governability in the public sector has been extended to NGOs, North and South, so that significant overlaps may be found. In exploring some ethical issues involving NGOs North and South, we find that many arise from this managerial revolution and from very uneven accountability. Problems discussed include negative outcomes of the audit culture, transparency and legitimation. Misrepresentation by donors and NGOs, conceivably on ethical grounds, faces academics with complex choices. What are the risks to the poor of academic exposures of prevalent corruption, or misuses of gatekeeper roles, or NGO actions which may be ‘good’ for the majority in the short term, ‘bad’ in the long run?

Rebalancing England: sub-national development (once again) at the crossroads

Over the last two decades there has been continuous tinkering and wholesale review of the remit, governance and territorial focus of sub-national development in England. There has also been mounting agreement that subsidiarity will produce optimum material outcomes. It is against this background that we provide a critical reading of the UK Coalition governments 2010 ‘White Paper’ on Local Growth. Revealing the peculiarities of an economic transition plan which dismantled a regional (strategic) framework, we explore the opportunities that cross-boundary local enterprise partnerships (LEPs) may provide. After abandoning regions, LEPs have been promoted as the only possible ‘replacements’ for regional development agencies and, thus, a prime example of new ‘techniques of government’. We probe the potentials and pitfalls from the dash to establish new sub-national techniques of government, and crystallize some key implications that apply beyond the shores of England. Our key contention is that LEPs have designed-in just as many issues as they have designed-out.

Rescaling of Planning and Its Interface with Economic Development

Abstract Following the installation of a UK Coalition Government in 2010, ways of governing the spatial organization of development have undergone far-reaching change in England. Within a context of austerity following the abolition of regional policy machinery, and an onerous national target framework, localities are entering a new phase of incentivized development. Consequently, local planning authorities are having to transfer part of their focus from governments ‘top-down’ requirements, as they come to embrace more adequately ‘bottom-up’ neighbourhood scale plans. Analysing the path of change, especially at the interface between planning and economic development, the paper draws attention to the dilemmas arising from these crucial scale shifts, and explores the potential of sub-national governance entities—Local Enterprise Partnerships—to help resolve the strategic co-ordination of planning.

Spatial aspects of the growth of part-time employment in Britain

Townsend A. (1986) Spatial aspects of the growth of part-time employment in Britain, Reg. Studies 20, 313–330. Part-time employment has a large and growing share of total employment in Britain. It is substituting for the growth of full-time jobs and is the principal employment opportunity for women with children. Its distinct spatial pattern of expansion, 1971–81, is notable for including peripheral regions such as Wales and the South West. As most of the growth is in services it proves best analysed in relation to total population growth, supplemented by shift-share analysis of employment. In the public sector a broad relationship to both population and government expenditure trends is evident. Part-time employment must be incorporated in the study of established employment trends, such as urban-rural shift. Demand for part-time workers is sufficient to explain the regional convergence of female activity rates. Demand is for relatively cheap labour.

Integration of economic and spatial planning across scales

Purpose – This paper aims to study a major aspect of the recent Treasury‐led Review of Sub‐national Economic Development and Regeneration in attempting to integrate work currently performed under the separate economic and spatial strategies through the preparation of single regional strategies.Design/methodology/approach – The paper analyses several aspects of the existing work of regional development agencies (RDAs) to illustrate where they could be better informed to undertake their anticipated role in regional spatial planning.Findings – The Labour Government has been forced to change its approach to reforms at the sub‐national level. In November, 2008 it performed a late compromise in response to the consultation on the Review, in giving equal status to the work of local authorities and RDAs in writing single regional strategies. This is welcomed, as is a strengthening of the scope of sub‐regional governance. Nonetheless the reforms do little to address the socio‐economic disparities between regions.P...

Trends in place-based economic strategies: England's fixation with 'fleet-of-foot' partnerships

The form of place-based economic strategy that is the focus of this paper is ‘fleet-of-foot’ partnership arrangements. Contributing to the theorisation of these institutional configurations, which are propounded by some as more flexible and responsive than democratic-administrative alternatives, the paper investigates the empirical situation in England that has unfolded over recent years. Tracing the recent historical evolution of sub-national structures that could be considered ‘fleet-of-foot’, the paper analyses the implications for place-based economic strategies at large. Through an analysis of Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs), the paper examines the extent to which the conceptual principles underpinning the notion of ‘fleet-of-foot’ arrangements have informed the configuration of LEPs, emphasising the importance of the legacy of past political constructions. Drawing attention to some of the primary weaknesses of ‘fleet-of-foot’ arrangements, the paper concludes that there are some inherent limitations to the present configuration of LEPs. These impede such partnerships in opening up space for a richer constellation of actors to participate in governance forums across flexible and functional geographies, or achieve efficient outcomes. More broadly, the paper contributes to the literature on place-based economic strategies and contemporary trends in economic development.

The Fluctuating Record of Economic Regeneration in England's Second- Order City Regions, 1984-2007

Within the context of theoretical and policy debates about the new economic geography and an urban renaissance, this paper examines how far and in what way ‘Our cities are back’, as claimed by England’s Core Cities Group. It focuses on 1984–2007 employment changes for the eight Core Cities and their city-regions: Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham and Sheffield. These provincial city-regions are found to have suffered from the early 1990s recession relatively less than London, but then recovered more slowly. While they continued to gain jobs until 2007, their growth rate relative to the national average peaked in 1998–2002, which was also the only time that Core Cities themselves outpaced the rest of their city-regions.

New Directions in the Growth of Tourism Employment?: Propositions of the 1980s

In a variety of European national contexts, the geography of tourist development turns heavily on relative spending by residents at home, by residents abroad, and by foreign visitors. Unpublished GB data for ‘tourism-related employment’, 1981–89, are employed to test the hypothesis that there has been a spread of activity from coastal resorts to many other types of area, particularly, as per the government emphasis, demonstrating the potential of urban tourism. Traditional coastal resorts are found to be identified with relative decline, but the growth of tourism employment in the cities is somewhat smaller still; analyses of museum and recreation employment show a decline of city employment, which offsets significant job increases in hotels and catering. Otherwise, there are elements of ‘urban-rural’ drift, with the growth of leisure jobs (which are indistinguishable from tourism) reflecting the growth both of resident population and of visitor attractions, which both generate car-based outings to successively less urban types of area.

Great Britain’s second-order city regions in recessions

Although it is now accepted that the 2008–09 recession accentuated regional differences in Britain, it is more difficult to identify the role of major cities—especially over a longer time scale. With the aid of previously established methods focused on employment, this paper assesses the records of nine second-order city regions in the 2008–09 recession and contrasts them with the previous two recessions. The 2008–09 recession is found to have impacted these city regions less than the other two in absolute terms, but not in relative terms compared with the London city region or the rest of Britain. Over the whole period from 1978, the second-order city regions are found to be fairly tightly in the grip of national cyclical and structural trends, but all but two of them showed negative deviation from the growth rate predicted on this basis. In comparison, London showed appreciably more cyclical behaviour between 1989 and 2002 than at other times, with a particularly strong recovery from recession in this period. The public sector helped the performance of second-order city regions over the study period including 2007–10, but employment reductions in this sector will dominate their prospects for several years to come.

Contrasting experience of recession and spatial restructuring: British Shipbuilders, Plessey and Metal Box

Peck F. W. and Townsend A. R. (1984) Contrasting experience of recession and spatial re-structuring: British Shipbuilders, Plessey and Metal Box, Reg. Studies 18, 319–338. Trends in aggregate economic indicators in the recent recession conceal marked variations in the experience of different industrial corporations within the meso-economic sector in the UK. This paper demonstrates such variations by comparing the nature of employment decline in three major UK corporations, British Shipbuilders, Plessey and Metal Box. Despite similar employment profiles since 1977, these three corporations have experienced very different trends in output, productivity and profitability suggesting that their respective job losses have occurred for different reasons. The origins of these job losses are examined in detail concentrating in particular on the regional incidence of major redundancies and closures. The conclusion summarizes the factors which influence job loss and suggests extending the analysis to wider groups of...