JOE Anderson’s plan to merge The Mersey Partnership with Liverpool Vision may sound to some as a bit of aggrandisement by the newly elected council leader.
Others though will welcome such a move. Indeed Cllr Anderson is not the first to attempt such a measure. Former council leader Warren Bradley made similar noises in the past.
There is an obvious issue about whether TMP duplicates the work of other agencies. Certainly both Liverpool Vision and TMP carry out inward investment marketing and both Liverpool council and TMP carry out tourism marketing.
Surely, in these straightened times, we can do without such overlap of work.
The snag is that TMP covers a different geographical patch to Liverpool Vision. Will the region’s other local authorities take kindly to Cllr Anderson’s plan to have Liverpool Vision market the whole area. He will need their support and their money. While I wholly sympathise with the ambition to streamline the world of economic development quangos, I can’t see Sefton, Wirral and the other boroughs letting go of the influence they currently have over TMP.
This decision should not come down to politics and empires. It should be about what works best. But where do you turn for an example of what works best. There are no objective rules about these things. Indeed what works best for one borough might not be so good for another. I would guess that Halton and Sefton may be happy to be a part of a sub-regional effort on both tourism and inward investment because they hardly have much brand presence in their own right. Liverpool, on the other hand, may feel it could win a larger slices of the jobs and tourism cakes if it wasn’t sharing them with smaller boroughs.
If the merger negotiations prove too complicated, then Cllr Anderson might be tempted to slice through the Gordian knot by simply withdrawing Liverpool from TMP and passing all of the responsibility over to Liverpool Vision. At which point TMP would cease to be credible.
Cllr Anderson has also been in the news for his plan to have a business representative join his cabinet.
Frank McKenna, chairman of Downtown Liverpool in Business, has put his finger firmly on the big issue. He is not one of those jockeying to put his name forward for the job. He wants to keep his distance from the city council so he can feel free to criticise from the outside rather than take cabinet responsibility for the actions of the council.
It is important that whoever takes the role is a credible private sector operator rather than somebody who might have too cosy a relationship with the council.
Such a person should also be capable of not just discussing economic and business development issues, but also take part in provide street wise advice about all cabinet decisions.
AND on the subject of who might be available to do the council cabinet job, what about Sir Terry Leahy?
The idea isn’t so daft. He is already a board member of Liverpool Vision and has acted as a consultant to Everton Football Club. Clearly the soon-to-retire Tesco boss cares about his home town.
He has of course had a terrific career, with some hailing him as the best CEO in Europe. Certainly, under Sir Terry’s leadership, Tesco became the undisputed dominant UK supermarket and began its expansion overseas. He also managed to please investors, overseeing a four-fold increase Tesco’s market value.
