Advantage West Midlands (AWM), the Regional Development Agency, published their draft Economic Strategy for consultation in July 1999. The Strategy was formally launched at the West Midlands Regional Chamber's Annual Conference on 14 July. A few days later, the Chair of the West Midlands Regional Sustainability Forum wrote to AWM's Chief Executive, Tony Cassidy, to propose that a 'sustainability audit' of the draft Strategy should be carried out. The proposal was accepted and this report sets out the results of the Audit. We hope it will make an important contribution not only to the finalisation of the Economic Strategy in October this year, but also to the preparation of Action Plans and AWM's Corporate Plan which are expected to follow.
The following organisations are represented on the West Midlands Regional Sustainability Forum: Council for the Protection of Rural England West Midlands; Cyclists Touring Club West Midlands; Friends of the Earth West Midlands; Midland Amenity Societies Association; Pedestrians Association in the West Midlands; Pushbikes; Royal Society for the Protection of Birds West Midlands; Railway Development Society in the West Midlands; Transport 2000 West Midlands; Urban Wildlife Trust and County Wildlife Trusts from the West Midlands; West Midlands Environment Network; West Midlands National Society of Allotments and Leisure Gardeners; West Midlands New Economics; World Wide Fund for Nature West Midlands. The Forum advises the environmental representative on the West Midlands Regional Chamber.
There have been numerous definitions of Sustainable Development, ranging from the theoretical to the practical and the brief to the verbose. Given the duties of Regional Development Agencies in relation to sustainable development it seemed appropriate for us to use the definition encapsulated in the Government's four sustainable development objectives, namely:
However we are not convinced that the maintenance of high and stable levels of economic growth will necessarily be compatible with the other objectives.
The four objectives have been explored in some depth in the Government's White Paper on Sustainable Development, 'A Better Quality of Life'. They are closely interconnected, and it is often possible for a single policy or proposal to meet more than one objective. On the other hand, a policy or proposal designed to meet one objective may, directly or indirectly, reduce the prospects of meeting one or more of the others. Thus it is important to recognise the inter-relationships between objectives, and to look at the Strategy as a whole rather than auditing particular parts of it individually.
Section 4 of the Regional Development Agencies Act 1998 requires a Regional Development Agency to:
Thus contributing to sustainable development is one of the five main purposes of Regional Development Agencies. The wording of this final purpose ('where it is relevant to its area to do so') might be thought to weaken it somewhat in comparison with the other four, but the Guidance given to Regional Development Agencies by the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (March 1999) sets out very clearly the significance which is attached to Sustainable Development.
The Guidance asks RDAs to indicate in their strategies how they will foster the Government's sustainable development objectives and how they will integrate economic, social and environmental objectives. They will need to identify the areas or communities where there are significant deprivation, inequalities or social exclusion, and the main social, environmental and economic factors which underlie these issues.
Supplementary Guidance to RDAs (also March 1999) enlarges on these issues in a specific chapter on Sustainable Development. This explains that some past economic development has led to environmental and social problems because it was pursued without reference to wider objectives. Society is beginning to find ways of combining the pursuit of economic, social and environmental objectives in a single process, and some examples are given. The UK Strategy for Sustainable Development (the Government's White Paper) should provide the context and starting point for the RDA in its contribution to sustainable development. The RDA should give a lead on sustainable development, for example by demonstrating its commitment to full appraisal of the environmental, social and economic impacts of its policies, programmes and projects. The RDA should also work with other organisations such as the Government Office and the Regional Planning Body in furthering sustainable development. It should take into account other regional and local plans which contribute to sustainable development, such as Biodiversity Action Plans, the Environment Agency's Local Environmental Action Plans and Local Agenda 21 Strategies.
The Supplementary Guidance places strong emphasis on the appraisal of the RDA's policies, programmes and projects in terms of their impact on society, the economy and the environment. Purposes should be defined in terms of outcomes, not mechanisms; long-term as well as short-term effects should be considered; and indirect as well as direct effects identified. RDAs are asked to draw up a set of regional targets and indicators, which should take account of the national sustainable development indicators and targets published as part of the Government's Sustainable Development Strategy.
We decided that the best way of auditing AWM's draft Economic Strategy was to draw up a set of detailed sustainable development principles and audit the whole strategy against each principle. It is important to look at the Strategy as a whole because of the likelihood of strong inter-relationships between different elements of it. Auditing different sections separately would have been the wrong way to go about it.
We selected 50 sustainability principles which we considered gave good coverage of the Government's four sustainable development objectives. They were derived from sustainable development appraisals and audits in other parts of the country, and from other relevant literature on the subject of sustainable development. There are a number of overlaps and interdependencies between the principles and we have tried to bring these out in our comments.
Auditing the Economic Strategy against each principle is inevitably a subjective exercise: there is no way of avoiding that. We have used our experience, and that of the others who kindly contributed to this work, to reach as balanced a judgement as we can on three issues for each sustainability principle:
How the draft Strategy measures up to the principle. Does it address the issue at all? If so, does it work in favour of the principle or against it, and to what degree? Have the likely indirect and long-term effects of the Strategy been considered? How are different elements of the Strategy likely to inter-relate in the way it addresses the principle?
How could the Strategy be developed or otherwise improved to tackle the principle more positively? We have tried wherever possible to make specific suggestions which fall not far short of actual wording changes, and where possible we suggest which part of the Strategy should be changed. Some of our suggestions may of course be as relevant to the process of implementing the Strategy as to the content of the document itself, but there is only a handful of principles against which we consider the Strategy could not be significantly improved;
What indicators should be used to monitor the success or otherwise of the Strategy, and are there any specific targets which should be included in the Strategy? None of us is an expert on data availability, but we have taken into account what we know of other monitoring work in the region, such as the West Midlands Local Government Association's regional monitoring work. We make comments in our Conclusions about the relationship between regional indicators and targets for AWM's Economic Strategy and for other regional strategies and documents.
For the first issue, we have additionally scored the Strategy according to how it measures up to each principle. There are obvious risks in doing this. The scores are subjective and cannot hope to convey as much information as the text. It would be misleading to add up all the scores and give the Strategy an overall score based on them, because some principles are more important than others but there is no consensus about their relative importance. On balance, however, we felt that it was worth including scores. They are a convenient and effective way of drawing attention to the main strengths and weaknesses of the Strategy, and a lead-in to the text which accompanies them.
We used the following scoring system:
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means that the Strategy meets the principle very well, both by setting a clear objective and by giving some indication of how that objective is to be met. This score also means that there are no "hidden" elements of the Strategy which will work against the meeting of the objective. |
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means that the principle is met fairly well. In some cases a clear objective may be set with little indication of how it is to be met. In others, the Strategy as a whole may score well but there may be significant concern about a part of it which could threaten the meeting of the principle. |
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means that the Strategy does not address the principle directly. We have only given this score if it appears to us that the overall effect of the Strategy is likely to be neutral. Where we believe that, despite not addressing the principle explicitly, the Strategy will have a positive or negative effect on meeting the principle we have given it another score accordingly. |
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x |
means that the Strategy works against meeting the principle, either explicitly or by inference. This score may also reflect a balance between different parts of the Strategy, with positive elements outweighed by negative. |
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xx |
means that the Strategy works strongly against meeting the principle. This is usually because the principle has been ignored and the Strategy as a whole will seriously damage the prospects of meeting it, rather than through any deliberate intent. |
The table in Section 2 sets out our assessment of the Strategy against each of the 50 principles. Numbers in the text refer to paragraphs in the Strategy.
Section 3 sets out our general conclusions about the draft Strategy in relation to sustainable development.
We would like to emphasise that this Sustainability Audit is simply a modest first step in what must become a long-term process of placing sustainable development objectives at the heart of Advantage West Midlands' activities. Sustainable development is not a subject which can be dealt with in a few paragraphs in the strategy and then put to one side. It is a thread which needs to run throughout the Strategy and the work which follows it, and which should influence AWM's approach to every subject with which it concerns itself. It follows that AWM will need to make sufficient resources available to do justice to Sustainable Development on an on-going basis.