New chief gets to grips with inward investment funding

Dec 12 2007 by Aaron Boland, Liverpool Daily Post

Bill Gleeson meets LORRAINE ROGERS, new chief executive of The Mersey Partnership

LORRAINE ROGERS has given up her hands-on role as executive chairman of Tranmere Rovers Football Club to take up a new job as chief executive of The Mersey Partnership.

She succeeds former chief executive Robert Crawford, whose parting shot before he returned to his native Scotland was to state his view that TMP was failing to win its fair share of inward investment for the region compared to rival city regions such as Glasgow and Manchester.

Mr Crawford attributed the failure to thin resources. He said TMP did not have the funding to recruit the staff needed to go out and sell the region to investors.

As a result, Rogers has spent the first three months of her tenure attempting to tackle the resource issue.

She said: “It’s not about fair share. Liverpool city region does not have a God given right to a fair share. It’s intensely competitive out there.

“The resource issue is the fundamental one.”

More inward investment, though, is crucial, because it makes a significant contribution to the region’s economic performance.

Rogers points to output statistics known as gross value added (GVA).

“We still have a long way to go to match the UK average. Inward investment is part of how we get there if we are to accelerate the growth to get to a level of GVA we are happy with,” she said.

Rogers accepts that this much is obvious. The real challenges she faces are persuading Merseyside’s local authorities to fund the necessary sales and marketing effort and how TMP carves up the inward investment role with other agencies that have an interest in it.

She says: “Manchester’s inward investment team has a budget of £3.5m a year, whereas we have circa £1m.

“We are working with the six local authorities to make funding of TMP’s inward investment team a priority.

“There seems to be an acknowledgement across the region that this should be a priority and that we are under-resourced at present.”

The talks with the six local authorities of Liverpool, Wirral, Knowsley, Sefton, St Helens and Halton, are continuing, but Rogers hopes she will secure a three-year commitment to fund her plans.

“That would allow us to increase our sales team,” she said.

“We have a £17bn economy. If we were managing a £17bn company, what sort of sales team would we have?

“Until recently, we did not have any sales team. But we have had some funding for this year.

“We have to go out there and sell. We can’t do it from behind a desk here in Liverpool.”

Rogers is seeking £50,000 from each of the six authorities to cover salaries, travel and accommodation expenses and the cost of staging events such as the recent breakfast at the head office of the Financial Times, in London, attended by the chief executives of major companies, including Tesco’s Sir Terry Leahy, and other investment decision makers. She adds that staff need to be available to follow up the leads generated by such events.

“We have had some good follow-ups since then. We have had a couple of presentations, show-arounds and dinners,” says Rogers.

As well as new funding for a sales push, Rogers’s time has been spent seeking agreement about which organisation does what when it comes to inward investment, and TMP’s other big area of responsibility – promoting Merseyside’s tourism industry.

This is all the more important because for the past year Liverpool City Council politicians have been suggesting that its new business support agency, Liverpool PLC, should take on the lead role for handling inward investment enquiries for the city.

Rogers said: “We need to have clear terms of reference about our responsibilities.”

As well as the local authorities, TMP has regular dealings with the Northwest Development Agency, UK Trade and Investment, and, when it comes to tourism, Visit Britain and the Liverpool Culture Company. It will also have regular dealings with Liverpool PLC when it opens for business next year.

“All of these relationships are the subject of protocols that are being drafted. We have been working on them for the last couple of months,” said Rogers.

“Our aim is to have something signed off sooner rather than later.”

Once these preliminary issues have been sorted out, Rogers believes the region stands a great chance of winning new investments. Liverpool’s brand is “world famous” and that is a “huge advantage”.

The recent large-scale physical regeneration of the city centre, including Grosvenor’s Liverpool One shopping scheme, new Grade A office developments and the new city centre apartment buildings have made a huge difference to Liverpool’s appearance.

“Visitors will see the public and private sector investment and that will give them confidence we really are making progress,” she argues.

As well as the investment, Rogers says her job will be made easier by the area’s other assets such as 90 miles of coastline, 10 museums and sports facilities such as golf courses and football clubs.

Originally, Rogers wanted to combine her new role at TMP with her existing job as executive chairman of Tranmere Rovers, but after some adverse press reaction, this plan was dropped and she has since trimmed back her commitment to the football club. Nevertheless, Rogers retains a hefty list of other directorships, including posts at Radio City, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and the Football League, as well as the non-executive role at Tranmere.

Yet, despite the numerous demands on her time, Rogers insists she can cope with the workload. She says: “This (TMP) is my full-time executive role. I have other roles, but they are not executive. For example I go to four meetings a year at Radio City.

“What is busy for one person is not busy for another.”

Rogers says she works for the football club and the orchestra in the evenings and at weekends.

“I have a really full diary, but I love it all,” she says.

Her diary was particularly congested 10 days ago when both the Turner Prize and the Royal Variety Performance were staged in Liverpool on the same night.

“I was at the Turner Prize in the evening and then I went to the after-show party (for the Royal Variety Performance) at St George’s Hall later.

“I felt very proud for Merseyside that night,” she says.

Rogers sees the success of that Monday night as a forerunner of things to come during the 2008 Capital of Culture year and she dismisses concerns that the year could be marred by management turmoil at the Liverpool Culture Company following the cancellation of August’s Mathew Street festival.

“The proof will be in the pudding. I got a real sense things are coming together,” she said.

“It (last week) was a very good week for Merseyside.

“Next year we have the MTV awards. We should not be too tough on ourselves when you think of all that has been achieved,” she says.

billgleeson