>Content-Description: cc:Mail note part >Date: Fri, 29 Jun 2001 11:13:36 +0000 >Reply-To: unemployment-research <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Sender: unemployment-research <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >From: David Webster <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Subject: Failure of Scottish Business Birthrate Strategy >To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by vcn.bc.ca id DAA07825 >X-UIDL: /!&!!`4c"!](f!!IW3"! > > FAILURE OF THE SCOTTISH BUSINESS BIRTHRATE STRATEGY > > The Scottish press today reports the almost total failure of the > Business Birthrate Strategy run by the development agency Scottish > Enterprise since 1993. Details can be found in three stories on the > Glasgow Herald website at www.theherald.co.uk, two in the business > section and one in the news section. > > �140m has been spent on this programme, achieving an estimated 2,124 > additional businesses (�65,900 per business), only 10% of the target > of 25,000 businesses. This new evaluation is actually considerably > more favourable than that by A.Dow and C.Kirk in Vol.24 No.4 of the > Fraser of Allander Quarterly Economic Commentary last year. They said > the strategy had made no discernible difference. > > This failure was entirely predictable and indeed I predicted it from > the outset. The paper "New Firm Formation in the British Counties > with Special Reference to Scotland" by B.Ashcroft et al., Regional > Studies Vol.25.5 (1991) showed that the factors affecting > entrepreneurship are primarily structural. They concluded "Scotland > performs poorly compared with much of the rest of Britain because it > has low levels of wealth as proxied by home ownership, a socioeconomic > structure which is under-represented in education and in managerial > and professional skills, and a plant structure which to some extent > militates against workers gaining experience of small firms......Above > all, the findings of this research suggest that if the government is > serious about raising firm formation rates in Scotland and in other > peripheral regions of the UK, it would do better to focus on certain > aspects of the region's economic structure than on repeated > exhortations to local residents to embrace the 'enterprise culture'". > > The government went on to do the exact opposite of what was > recommended, insisting that the issue is about "enterprise culture". > This approach to "evidence-based policy" continues, with the present > UK government having dismantled most of conventional regional policy > in favour of.....efforts to raise the business birthrate in > disadvantaged areas. > > The current SE chief executive confesses that the �140m could have been > better spent. In my view what it could have been better spent on is the > activities which were scaled down to finance it - in particular the > physical reclamation of the derelict sites left by Britain's over-rapid > deindustrialisation and by urban-rural manufacturing shift. Glasgow > currently has 8.5% of its total land area vacant or derelict, twice the > proportion in the next worst Scottish area. Reclaiming this land > remains a low official priority. �140m spent on this supremely > important task would have made an immense difference to levels of > unemployment and poverty in Glasgow. > > This episode has been an economic disaster, and, more important, a > human tragedy. But will the lessons be learned by the official > decision makers? > > > David Webster > Glasgow City Housing 29 June 2001 > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tom Walker Bowen Island, BC 604 947 2213
