Liverpool’s Labour council wants to improve the city’s global competitiveness. Bill Gleeson reports

LIVERPOOL City Council has set up a scrutiny panel to examine how to make the city more business-friendly.

Chaired by Cllr Beatrice Fraenkel, the initiative is seen as vital in an era when the local economy, with its high dependency on public sector jobs, could suffer more than many other places as a result of government spending cuts announced last week.

The Government believes that the private sector can pick up the slack caused by the cuts and associated public sector job losses. But, with a relatively weak private sector locally, it will be all the more important that Liverpool council signals the city is open for business when it comes to inward investment.

Nevertheless, it could face a tall order. Liverpool has struggled for years to improve the business world’s impression of how welcoming it is. Back in 2005, the then chief executive of Mersey Docks and Harbour Company, Peter Jones, described Liverpool as the least business-friendly place they dealt with.

Liverpool has enjoyed the recent notable success of attracting B&M Bargains to Speke, resulting in the creation of 600 new jobs. While B&M’s arrival in town proves that inward investment can make a major contribution to job creation, the city now needs to replicate this success in the future.

The panel will be looking at how effectively Liverpool competes with cities around the world, not just places like Manchester, Leeds and Birmingham.

Cllr Fraenkel said: “We have to get back to the basics and to understand what would make a difference.

“We need to find out who our customers are and match up what we do with what they want.

“That conversation has not been had.

“I am determined that we are not going to waste anybody’s time going along a track that does not make a practical difference. It’s got to make an effective change.

“It’s about the competitive nature of the world in which we live. It’s beyond the city and the region. It’s the whole world that we operate in. The potential investors have a worldwide choice, so how do we know and understand what is required unless we ask?”

The cross-party scrutiny panel, which began work earlier this week, operates a bit like a parliamentary select committee.

Cllr Fraenkel added: “We expect to be taking evidence from a range of business sectors and to ask them what they feel makes one place of more interest to investors in comparison to another.”

Arguably, it’s all the more important that the city tackles this issue now, due to the big changes under way in the economic development landscape. Previously responsible for inward investment in the region, the Northwest Development Agency (NWDA) is being scrapped. Its duties will be assumed by UKTI. The Government’s proposed local enterprise partnerships, which will replace some existing sub-regional economic development agencies, won’t be responsible for inward investment. The panel’s terms of reference state that the aim will be to achieve a better understanding of business and align council policies to the needs of businesses and identify best practice and areas where council services can be improved.

The panel will also review arrangements for Liverpool Means Business: an event for property developers and investors scheduled for next year. It will look at economic development programmes and report to the council’s regeneration and transport select committee by February, 2011.

The scale of the task facing the council when it comes to improving perceptions of Liverpool as a good place to do business can be seen by the findings contained in international property agency Cushman & Wakefield’s annual survey of European business leaders that ranks 500 cities throughout the Continent, according to how they are perceived as places to do business.

In Cushman & Wakefield’s European Cities Monitor, London was named as Europe’s best city to do business in, while Manchester is listed as Europe’s 12th most business friendly city, Birmingham 18th, Leeds 23rd and Glasgow 29th. Sadly, Liverpool doesn’t appear at all.

Matters identified as important by business leaders include easy access to markets, which is singled out as the most essential factor, availability of quality staff, quality of telecommunications, broadband and transport links.

Warsaw is the top place for cost of staff, while Leeds offers the best value for office space, though Manchester came second highest in the survey for stock of office space currently available.

Dublin comes top for climate created by government. Barcelona and Berlin rank best for quality of life and Stockholm for environmental factors such as low levels of pollution.

Looking to the future, the factor seen as most crucial is a city’s links to emerging sectors for products and services, such as the knowledge economy and green business activities. In terms of future demographics, a city needs to have enough young people available for work.

Cushman & Wakefield’s senior research analyst Barrie David explained: “The representatives of the companies surveyed have not mentioned Liverpool.

“It’s all down to their perceptions. It’s not necessarily that those perceptions are negative, the companies just don’t have a perception of it in the first place. It’s not that widely known.

“It’s got to raise its profile among major European companies.”

Liverpool council has already made a start. Last month, it published a proposal to make its planning department more business friendly. The idea is to ensure that those who want to invest in the city have clear advice and quick access to council services.

The proposals include a newly introduced, free, pre-application service, designed to streamline the planning process. It will save businesses time and money if they are told at an early stage whether their applications will be supported or whether they need revising. The planning department now has staff designated as business champions to act as a point of contact, together with a dedicated case officer.

The planning department’s website has also been revamped.

There will be further initiatives unveiled in the New Year, including a service charter. Jack Stopforth, chief executive of Liverpool Chamber of Commerce, said: “We do many of the headline things quite well already.

“We give a lot of support to technology transfer from our universities.

“The city has funded Liverpool Vision and addressed planning issues.

“We still await a business leader on the council’s cabinet. That will be a big help.

“It will provide a business perspective on planning applications.

“But most important is to run the city as well as it can be run.”

Mr Stopforth added that the recent improvement in the exam performance of the city’s schools must be continued.

Other areas that the panel is likely to look at include whether the city is too opaque and bureaucratic when it comes to putting hundreds of millions of pounds worth of contracts out to tender to small and medium-sized firms.

The panel is also likely to look at what can be done to improve the supply of appropriately skilled labour to the private sector.