Now we have details of the full membership of the Business and Economy Board of the NE Combined Authority – see here: https://www.northeast-ca.gov.uk/business-and-economy-board
It has a Chair from the NE Chamber of Commerce and a Vice Chair from Lloyds Bank, although mostly it seems now engaged as Chair of Gentoo – Sunderland’s operator of what was Council Housing and, although before her time, with a controversial history. There is a NE based banker and venture capitalist, two lawyers, reps from Northumbria Water (not good for our rivers), the Port of Tyne (one that should be there), three business consultants, three lawyers, one rep from a company specializing in private provision of public services, and two from manufacturing – one is Nissan, the other seems to make cheese -, one rep running a storage facility, three reps from education although two seem to be consultants / private providers, and a rep from the Federation of Small Businesses.
Compared with the North East Local Enterprise Partnership, which was folded into the Mayoral Authority, this board is light on reps from manufacturing and heavy on lawyers and consultants. What is missing? There is no elected representative, even from local councillors elected on derisory turnouts and votes like the Mayor herself. AND THERE li IS NO TRADE UNIONIST. Some trade unions leant their support to McGuiness during the Mayoral election and as usual with New New Labour have got nothing for it. In the corporatist era of regional governance in the 60 and 70s it would have been unthinkable for organized labour not to be represented on a body with economic functions.
In the past we had figures in Labour local government who were intelligent, competent and knew what they were doing about our declining economy. The late Pat(ricia) Murray, Chair of Gateshead’s Economic Development of Committee, was an outstanding example. Another was Charlie Slater, Leader of Sunderland Council although he was an arrogant little (insert word of your own choice and it took some restraint on my part not to pick him up and shake him). There were people on Tyne and Wear County Council – both Jim and Anne Cousins for example. Teesside had Maureen Taylor, another clever and able working class woman. Now we have McGuiness.
I had some respect for the Local Enterprise Partnership because it had a significant representation from production industries. This board is a lot worse than that one.
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