The business magazine, Financial Director, asked us to look at the implications for local businesses and economies if politicians actually follow up on their promises to devolve more powers to the countries, regions and cities of the UK in the wake of the Scottish referendum vote.
We spoke to a range of people including Jim O’Neill, who carried out a review for the RSA, Paul Swinney at the Centre for Cities, Steve Gilroy at the small business consultancy Vistage, Noel Tagoe at CIMA, James Nicholson-Smith at TheFDCentre and individual finance directors.
The overall feeling was that this had the potential to deliver major benefits to smaller regional economic areas as long as the process of devolution was well organised and carried out with key objectives in mind. This is likely to be a major area for debate whichever party/ies wins the next General Election.
The article is here (split over three pages).
Clarity Economics 