Jill Colbert
North East Regional Chair
Chief Executive, Together for Children and Director of Children's Services, Sunderland City Council
As Spring elections approach, in the North East region we prepare for the birth of our next combined authority, the North East Mayoral Combined Authority (NEMCA) which will snuggle up to the established Tees Valley CA (now 8 years old). Two distinctly different authorities, but united by a view that the region knows best how to make life better for its people.
NEMCA will cover the geography of Northumberland, North Tyneside, Newcastle, Durham, South Tyneside, Gateshead and Sunderland, with an elected Mayor, two Police and Crime Commissioners and an Integrated Care Board that also has a foot, or two probably, in Cumberland. The deal brings £1.4bn of investment (some existing, some new) for landmark projects like the Crownworks Film Studios and advanced automotive manufacturing.
As many of us know, though, additional governance and bureaucracy in public service can frustrate our efforts to make a difference for our families; it can mean more meetings and more jargon-filled highlight reports that offer little insight into the down-the-line intended benefit for our kids and families.
At a time when more children are living in poverty in the region than ever, with 35% living below the poverty line in 2021, an increase of 9% since 2014 and the steepest rise anywhere in the country, and whose needs are plain to see in our data, it’s never been more important to make the de-centralisation of government a thing that makes their lives better.
So, what does devolution offer children? If every Childhood Matters, then every family should be able to touch and feel the ambitions in the deal. We know we have to connect our place-based investments to our families, and our families to opportunities, be that public transport that gets them to a decent job in a new film studio or an affordable home with digital capability for the children to do their homework. A failure to do that does not level up; it leaves behind.
The benefits of devolution will not manifest quickly or easily though, but what we can do from the off is elevate the ambition for children by asking ‘what’s in it for our families’ and hope the question endures.
