Arguments are raging about what constitutes the strongest brand for the West Midlands, but how much of an impact will a change have on local companies and residents? Ian Halstead finds out what the fuss is about.
There has long been a perception, fuelled by public debate and private opinion, that a sense of political and economic unity is somewhat lacking in the West Midlands.
Arguments about whether the strongest brand would be Birmingham, Greater Birmingham, or even if it should include Coventry, the Black Country or Telford, leave most onlookers bemused.
Two years ago, after an eternity of navel-gazing, the region’s eight local authorities produced the bizarre concept of ‘Birmingham, Coventry and the Black Country City Region’. Outside the hot-house atmosphere of local politics and fragile egos though, some would claim the debate, once regarded as a major issue, has since lost its momentum.
Even one of the city region board’s own members, Glyn Pitchford, will admit that “city regions, regional development agencies, government offices for the regions, regional inisters – after a time all becomes a bit of a blur for businesses that are paying the taxes for this cornucopia of quangos”.
But Pitchford, head of his own consultancy and former chairman of Midlands radio group BRMB, adds: “It would be wrong to shrug our shoulders and move on because decisions made by the board will have an impact on businesses and on a population of about two million people. Gordon Brown, in one of his first acts as Prime Minister, decided to phase out one set of quangos – the regional assemblies – by 2010. But he also decided to give the city region a new role – delivering on investment in areas such as skills and transport, and as a vehicle to co-ordinate action and bid for funds to deliver change over a wide geographical area.”
Does this still have an impact in practical terms, though, and does the debate about a sense of unity reflect purely superficial issues or deeper disagreements?
The first place to start must be Advantage West Midlands (AWM) given that it has been tasked with evolving regional economic strategies since it was formed in 1999. With the pending disappearance of regional assembles, it will also soon take on responsibility for regional transport, planning and housing matters.
AWM chairman Nick Paul is well-placed to judge, having been on board since December 2002.
“There has been a massive difference in approach since then. Five years ago, people did doubt the value of partnerships and our original Regional Economic Strategy (RES) wasn’t well received,” he recalls.
“When our latest RES was issued in December 2007 though, it was not only supported by all the region’s local authorities and our other partners. It was seen as not just AWM’s strategy, but as the West Midlands’.”
The critical shift – as even its previous critics concede – has been one from public-sector waffle to genuine economic analysis, underpinned by evidence and accumulated data.
“We now have meaningful targets, for core issues such as GDP, employment, research and development and investment, and our regional skills action plan is regarded as the most sophisticated in the UK,” says Paul.
He also cites progress on AWM’s major strategic developments, including Fort Dunlop, Coventry’s Ansty business park, Birmingham’s Icknield Port Loop scheme, and New Street Station’s £550m revamp.
“It takes time to achieve physical delivery, and to bring people together,” he says. “However, none of these schemes, and others, could have come forward without a large number of parties sharing a vision.
”Look at Fort Dunlop. For 20 years it was the biggest advert for degeneration in the region. It was a landmark, but for all the wrong reasons. Now it is a real beacon of partnership by the public and private sector working.”
Paul is equally emphatic that the region’s success will be built on practicalities rather than arcane debates about brands.
“I’m not too bothered about how people come together, or how they deliver their brand. We have to focus on pragmatic issues and delivery,” says Paul. “Of course, the wider world recognises Birmingham is the leading city in the region, but we shouldn’t be fixated on brands. If something works at regional level, fine. If we sometimes need to use a sub-regional approach, why not?” Paul is evidently confident that branding is not an issue, but what is the feeling further down the regional pyramid? At Locate in Birmingham, manager Mike Loftus is tasked with attracting inward investment to the city, and after five years in the post, his views merit close attention. Although, in theory, Loftus has a narrower brief than his counterparts at AWM, in practice his efforts take place against a backdrop of international perceptions about Birmingham and the wider West Midlands. “You are regularly hundreds, if not thousands, of miles away when trying to sell the city and you need some sort of intellectual purchase when you first meet people,” he says. “Cities in general have their own identification and brand, and Birmingham has a very powerful image, both historic and contemporary.”
Of course, Birmingham’s major long-term rival for inward investment in England is Manchester, which also has a powerful brand, not least as the local authorities in its area appear perfectly willing to subsume their images into its for the greater good.
“I suspect, that in private, towns such as Bury and Stockport do concern themselves about their own image, but in public there appears to be more of a united brand than in the West Midlands,” says Loftus. “I think it might be easier for the various local authorities in Greater Manchester to stand behind the Manchester brand though, because they are all roughly of a similar size.
“In the West Midlands, Birmingham is far larger than cities such as Wolverhampton and Coventry and there is a feeling that they, and other local authorities, don’t want to be seen as dominated by Birmingham.”
One of Birmingham’s longest overseas relationships is with Lyon in France, whose international brand takes in the neighbouring cities of Grenoble and St Etienne.
As with Manchester, the other partners are willing to sacrifice their image on the global stage.
“There are definitely tensions, and internal complications, but in public all three accept Lyon has the strongest brand, and the major resonance of all three cities, so the others live with it,” says Loftus. “Unfortunately, in the West Midlands the other big urban areas still remain unwilling to accept that Birmingham is by far the biggest international brand.”
Research commissioned by AWM several years ago indicated – very clearly – that the refusal of the region’s local authorities to buy in to the Birmingham brand was confusing, both for potential overseas investors and to the region’s business community.
“They were used to building their own corporate brands and were bemused that councils would ignore such an established brand as Birmingham to create a rather artificial regional brand,” says a former AWM manager.
However, Loftus and his peers in AWM’s inward investment teams have established a rapport that dilutes the negative impact of such a disjointed approach.
“We don’t have a formal protocol between LiB and AWM and wouldn’t want one, but we do talk to each other regularly about inward investment inquiries,” says Loftus. “Because we know and trust each other, we have a relationship that works well. AWM has been particularly helpful to us in the professional services sector and we also pass on inquiries to Solihull and the Black Country.”
It is a pragmatic and rational approach, which serves Birmingham well, without seeking to ignore the merits of neighbouring locations.
“The fundamental point is that wherever a company or organisation is based, it will recruit from a wider area, and the benefits of its investment will be felt across that area,” says Loftus. “It would do no-one any good if we met a firm that wanted to be based in Telford, but didn’t pass their details on to AWM because they wouldn’t consider Birmingham.”
At Marketing Birmingham, its ebullient chief executive Neil Rami shares the belief of AWM’s Paul that significant progress has been made towards partnership working, both through the RES and at the project-specific level.
“We regularly work alongside our regional partners to promote both Birmingham, and the wider region,” he says. “We’ll be with AWM in Chicago in June 2008 for its Birmingham Week and we’ll be with them in Los Angeles in June promoting the 100th Rotarian International conference, which is coming here in 2009. When we were in Frankfurt recently we had Coventry and Warwickshire, and the Black Country sharing our stand.”
So does the public wrangling between local authorities about brands affect his efforts?
“Politics can be cumbersome, and a distraction, so we try to just get on with the job,” admits Rami. “The reality is that you can always do more to drive a joined-up approach, but I think we’ve all come a long way in the past few years and the days are long gone when there was no join-up between Birmingham and the rest of the West Midlands.
“People should defer to the brand they know, but to be honest, it is something of an artificial debate. It is incumbent on us all to look at what the customer wants and focus on delivering their needs and satisfying their requirements.”
Of course, if the efforts of Loftus and Rami succeed in raising the city‘s profile and attracting inward investment, Birmingham’s professional services sector will be a main beneficiary.
Intriguingly, one of its best-known practitioners, Ernst & Young’s senior partner Ronnie Bowker, does not believe a joined-up approach has fully evolved.
“My view is that there is still some way to go to get us all working as a city region. I don‘t think that emotionally we have yet got ourselves ‘over the bridge‘,” he suggests. “We often compare ourselves with Manchester, but it is called simply Manchester. Why are we called ’Coventry, Birmingham and the Black Country City Region’?”
South Africa-born Bowker is as puzzled as many outside observers about the unwillingness to accept Birmingham as the strongest brand.
“Inward investors need something they can understand and we do appear to be less joined up than other regions. The brand is confusing at best. Do people overseas really know what the Black Country is?” he asks.
Bowker believes the region’s politicians should accept a single Birmingham-based brand as best for all.
“I don’t know if it’s pride, or a sense of history, but we need them to take a lead, because the absence of a joined-up approach is costing us significant business opportunities,” he says.
“We missed out on the chance to have the new Wembley built here because Solihull council didn’t want the stadium and then changed its mind. The same thing happened in the debate about a regional casino.”
Bowker also suggests there needs to be genuine substance behind a city region brand. “It can’t just be a name. It has to do what it says on the can. We could call ourselves the Heart of England, but what would it mean?”
Coincidentally, that is precisely the name one of the region’s most experienced politicians once considered as the brand for the West Midlands.
David Smith, leader of Lichfield District Council, chairs the regional assembly and is vice-chairman of the West Midlands Local Government Association. He says: “My objection to the West Midlands as a brand is that it doesn’t really exist. Does anyone say they live or work there? No, they say they are from Birmingham, or Walsall, or that they live in Staffordshire.
“Should we just call everything Greater Birmingham? There would be a great squeal if that was tried. I’d have fancifully preferred us to be known as the Heart of England, then we could say Birmingham in the Heart of England, or Lichfield in the Heart of England, as appropriate,” he adds.
Smith’s bigger gripe, though, is the government’s decision to give AWM new powers as the regional assembly structure is abolished.
“I’m not anti-RDAs in principle, but I do not understand why we are devolving responsibility for housing, transport and planning to bodies that have neither the required expertise nor organisational structure,” he says.
“My concern is that by asking AWM to create region-wide policies we lose democratic input, and I don‘t see how the new structure will improve matters. AWM is supposed to be oiling the wheels, not driving the engine.”
Smith is also unhappy that AWM is seen as the region’s fount of economic regeneration. “Lichfield has a population of just 100,000, but we will attract £400m of inward investment over the next four years, and that is nothing to do with the RDA,” he says. “We can debate brands all day, but investors need certainty and clarity. People know what Lichfield’s merits are as a location to live and work. They don‘t know what a city region is.”
However, Pitchford counters: “I accept this can all sound like a mish-mash of policy talk with no follow through. That’s why we need actions that have been agreed at the business community’s instigation. These are that transport quick wins, ensuring simple changes, such as the phasing of traffic lights and other straightforward measures, are taken to improve traffic flow.
“We must not forget that the West Midlands is the only city region structure in Britain that has the business community directly represented on its board. We have also tackled, head on, the issue of planning, which impacts on all businesses, large and small.
“This is an opportunity we should not throw away, but embrace. It is time we had the where-withal to make this area an even greater place to do business.”