The UK’s City Deals represented a break from the previous approach to regional development, involving direct negotiation by the central government with cities on a range of powers and funding. The advent of deal-making set a precedent across the UK and informed English devolution in the 2010s. The first deals were agreed over ten years ago and the fundamental imbalance in regional economic performance has not been solved.
In the last decade there have been multiple reviews of the City Deals by the UK and Scottish parliaments, which have identified limitations in what is known of the deals and called for lessons to be learned.
This study examines the instrument through interviews with expert participants and uses a six capitals framework to understand how five case study cities from the first round of deals fared in the negotiations. The case study selection of Newcastle, Birmingham, Sheffield, Glasgow and Aberdeen used a variation in financial capital and institutional capital as regional contexts to understand how these crucial circumstances in the four regions may have impacted what was agreed. Much of the differences between the cities, both in scale and what was prioritised, is explicable in reference to the contextual capital presence.
The findings suggest that the City Deal approach was a powerful and useful one, that may be beneficial in the future, but that adapting any future policy on regional economic development to the contextual financial and institutional capital presence of the region may end in better and more even outcomes.
Author Ian Taylor