Giles Roca

1
Banking on EssexThe ECC response to the downturn

• Giles Roca
• Head of Media and Marketing
• Essex County Council

2
National Picture

• In last 12 months
• FTSE100 down 32.4
• House prices down 12.4
• Mortgage approvals down 64
• Car sales down 21.2
• Energy costs up 9.8 (domestic) 14.3
  (industrial)
• Fuel costs up 20
• Food costs up 12 and
• Unemployment up to1.72 million

3
Impact on Residents - Jobs

• Essex workers over-represented in construction,
  and financial service those sectors most at
  risk during the current economic downturn
  estimated 25,000 job losses in Essex over
  2009/10.

4
How Vulnerable is Essex?
5
Pressures on Services
6
Any Upside?
7
How to Respond
8
The Essex Response - for Business

• Bank of Essex a special delivery vehicle to act
  as an intermediary and release European
  Investment Bank (EIB) funds for local SMEs
• 'Essex Apprentice' scheme - build upon the
  existing programme run and funded by the public
  sector in the county but, crucially, would make
  available apprentices to small businesses
• Small business rate relief take-up campaign - 60
  of eligible Essex small businesses do not claim
  losing out on 50m    
•    
• ECC to review its procurement processes to
  support local SMEs including 3 quoting businesses
  to have Essex postcodes, encourage bids from
  consortia of local SMEs, speeding up payment
  systems
• ECC to expand its current investor development
  programme, increasing number of development
  visits to investing firms
• ECC to enter partnership with University of
  Cambridge's Institute for Manufacturing (IfM).
  This would support up to 150 Essex advanced
  manufacturing companies over three years.
•                                                   
                               

9
The Essex Response - for People

• Council Tax relief of 100 to the 30,000 most
  vulnerable households targeted especially at over
  80s. Look to include other low income groups next
  year.
• Development of Essex's credit union - 'Essex
  Savers' - to grow into a sustainable 2million
  business.
• Benefits take up campaigns and additional
  signposting to existing grant pots (eg household
  insulation) 30,000 households in Essex nearly
  6 of the total do not claim help for CT
• Essex Post Office Initiative assisting local
  communities

10
The Role of Effective Comms

• Strong Community Leadership - not acceptable to
  throw hands up in despair - fair-weather
  community leadership is not community leadership.
  Be seen, be vocal
• Decisive - recession is here and biting we need
  to be fast and focused in our response
• Different communities will be hit in different
  ways targeted messages
• Practical assistance run benefits take-up
  campaigns
• Work together Essex Management Board - public
  sector as a whole
• Existing legislation gives LAs the power to
  implement many local policies to assist citizens
  and communities as a sector we need to be
  better at using these in an innovative way
• Have the courage to think outside the box and
  implement radical change quickly our communities
  will not thank us for dithering at this time.

11
Improving the Reputation

• By far the most interesting is the pioneering
  idea from Essex County Council, which is setting
  up a US-style community "Bank of Essex" to help
  businesses which are being snubbed or
  over-charged by the big banks. There's clearly
  something in the Essex waters that promotes
  innovation because the council is also setting up
  a credit union, as well as new apprentice and
  savings schemes.
• Margareta Pagano, Independent on Sunday, 7th
  December 2008
• The Essex Management Board has agreed a number
  of initiatives which demonstrate that the public
  sector in Essex is entrepreneurial and innovative
  in the way it is aiming to support the Essex
  economy during the current downturn.
• Chairman of Essex FSB, Iain Wicks, 1st December
  2008

12
Potential Legacy

• Last week, the Peoples Republic of Essex took
  another step forward with the council announcing
  its own bank to lend money to businesses in
  difficulties. These moves, though small, are of
  great potential importance to the way we run
  Britain.
• What the Essex initiative reminds us is that
  there could be other ways to secure the public
  goods and services which most of us value
  without the horrors of the central state.
• Just as the future of our public services may
  lie outside Whitehalls grip, so may the future
  of our economy lie outside the stranglehold of
  the giant banks.
• Andrew Gilligan, Evening Standard, 8th December
  2008