SCOTLAND needs to "catch up" with England on the devolution of power to metropolitan areas, a business leader has said.

 

Ross Martin, chief executive of the SCDI which runs the Scottish Cities Alliance, said of the latest government moves to hand health and rates spending powers to Manchester: "They are miles ahead, and we have got to take some pretty big steps to catch them up."

He was commenting after Manchester's civic leader Sir Richard Leese said in Edinburgh that businesses generally want to see more local control over skills and industry policies and more financial autonomy for cities.

In the wake of a Budget which talked up the 'northern powerhouse' and granted new spending powers to Manchester, Sir Richard told the SCDI annual forum: "All the evidence from other parts of Europe is that the metropolitan areas and city regions that do have more control of these things perform better economically."

Sir Richard, leader of Labour-run Manchester City Council since 1996 and chair of the Core Cities Cabinet, claimed Scotland had "an even more centralised system than England, which is holding back the major cities".

He said the government's latest moves to devolve powers to Manchester were "unprecedented in England and certainly not happening in Scotland", adding: "If it's good for Greater Manchester, it would be good for Greater Glasgow".

The government, and particularly English local authorities, were now realising that "one size fits all isn't the right approach" and they had to move at the pace of the quickest, not the slowest, Sir Richard said.

"We need to have trailblazers. When we (announced) health and social care, the reaction from London, Leeds, Liverpool, Newcastle was absolutely supportive. The functional economic area has to be the building block."

The SCDI advises the Scottish Cities Alliance and facilitates it on behalf of the seven cities and tthe Scottish Government.

A Scottish Government spokesman said: "Scotland's cities are already leading the UK on devolution and are in possession of powers their English counterparts are fighting for.

"Our approach is one of partnership with local government - it is one that varies substantially from that taken in some other parts of the UK and is based on a shared vision of strengthened community planning, engagement and empowerment."

"The forum then heard from economist Robert Kerr, the founding head of the Australian Productivity Commission, who said the independent APC originally seen as a right-wing think tank had become an influential and positive force in the country's economy.

The APC had reported on issues as diverse as childcare, the environment, broadcasting, and infrastructure, and reforms to the latter were estimated to have boosted economic output by 2.5 per cent. Reforms to regulation had the potential to boost output by 10 per cent, Mr Kerr said, and the APC model had been recommended to other countries by the OECD and the IMF.

He said the state of Victoria, with exactly the same population as Scotland, had its own smaller-scale commission on competition and productivity, and played a key role in defending and advancing the boundaries with the federal government in Canberra.

"Scotland could develop reform options, manage the boundaries with the federal system, seek out efficiencies across manufacturing, primary industries, and services, and manage the adjustment at least cost."

Hugh Mitchell, chief human resources and corporate officer for Shell Global, and a board member of the Edinburgh Business School, said collaboration was the key to maintaining the oil and gas industry as a key force in the Scottish economy. He cited Shell's partnership with the North East Scotland College aimed at attracting more female graduates into the industry, and with SSE on a carbon capture and storage plant at Peterhead.

Mr Mitchell said the North Sea economy took for granted the partnerships and collaborations that had enabled its development.

"Some 470 offshore installations will need to be decommissioned over the next decade. That is not a gloomy picture; it presents opportunities to create a world-class centre for expertise and thousands of highly-skilled jobs, with up to £50 billion of expenditure."

Mr Mitchell said technologies such as those being developed for decommissioning needed collaboration with a future vision, adding: "One of the most critical partnerships we have is between the present and the future."