ALEX TURNER is the general manager of financial training firm Ambitious Minds
PARTY conferences are all about demonstrating how everything is better this year than last, and explaining how as many people as possible will benefit from the effects.
That isn’t restricted to the politicians, but also the host cities. Birmingham claimed the Liberal Democrat conference would have an economic impact of £12m, while Liverpool estimated Labour’s conference was worth £15m to the city.
Writing last week, Manchester City Council’s chief executive, Sir Howard Bernstein, compared the Conservative conference being held in the city with the party conferences held by Labour in 2008 and 2010 and the Conservatives in 2009, which “yielded an economic impact of more than £45m”.
We now know, thanks to Marketing Manchester, that the expected projected estimate this time is £27.4m. But we already knew that anyone in business who spent too much time being impressed with projected estimates won’t be in business for much longer.
I know this is a favourite sport of the quangocracy – using “standard industry metrics”, in this case a VisitBritain formula, to put pound note values on the often difficult to quantify.
It also isn’t just party conferences that get this treatment. Warrington Council is currently promoting its bid to host matches in the 2013 Rugby League World Cup, and its economic impact assessment shows a best-case scenario of nearly £2.5m from three matches.
However, the report shows that, of that headline figure, £1m is generated by ticket sales – which is money that won’t stay in Warrington.
It also estimates 2,600 people will stay overnight for each of the three games..
It would be only by using standard industry metrics, rather than previous experience or common sense, that such a high figure could be generated. Knock a zero off – and therefore change the accommodation spend from about £400,000 to nearer £40,000 – and then we’ll have a figure worth looking at.
All this achieves very little, with the numbers becoming increasingly divorced from their purpose, which is to show why people should be in favour of the town hosting matches.
As always, the question should be: who benefits? The production and publication of the economic impact of hosting events is only really for the bureaucrats and quangocrats.
