Low Pay in Older Industrial Britain

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1 Low Pay in Older Industrial Britain

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3 Key points Too many of the new jobs in older industrial Britain pay low wages. Too many jobs are insecure and short-term, and too few offer dignity, training and progression. The weakness of local economies plagued by job shortfalls has made it easier for employers to recruit the workers they need and to pay low wages. Median pre-tax earnings in older industrial Britain are 10 per cent below the national average a gap of 48 a week for men and 34 a week for women but the national average itself is dragged down by low pay in these areas. Comparisons with London provide a starker guide. Median earnings in older industrial Britain are just 73 per cent of the London figure for men, and 63 per cent for women and the comparison is not distorted by high-earning bankers. This equates to gaps of 184 a week for men and 182 a week for women. Median earnings in many local authority districts across older industrial Britain are barely 60 per cent of the level in London. The poorest-paid 10 per cent in older industrial Britain earn less than one-third of median earnings across Britain as a whole, and less than one-quarter of median earnings in London. The government has had to step in to prop up low-wage families with Tax Credits. Across most of older industrial Britain, Tax Credit payments average between 650 and 1,000 a year per adult of working age. Planned welfare reforms will result in big cuts. Measures to outlaw unfair employment practices and increase the minimum wage would be extremely welcome, but for a lasting solution to low pay the need is to rebuild the industrial base of the economy. Manufacturing is a high-value, high-productivity sector that offers the potential to deliver higher wages. 1

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5 LOW PAY IN OLDER INDUSTRIAL BRITAIN Older industrial Britain Older industrial areas make up a substantial part of Britain. There is no hard-and-fast definition but approaching a third of the UK population live in the places once dominated by industries such as coal, steel, shipbuilding, textiles and heavy engineering. Most of the jobs in these industries have gone, but the communities that once depended on them have not disappeared. In most cases, however, they have struggled to find a new role in the modern economy. The numerous regeneration efforts in older industrial Britain have delivered significant successes. New jobs have replaced those that have disappeared, though rarely on the scale that has been needed. Unemployment is down on peak levels, though in just about all of older industrial Britain there continue to be large numbers out-of-work on benefits of one kind or another. In particular, the numbers out-of-work on incapacity benefits (these days Employment and Support Allowance) remain stubbornly high. But as unemployment has receded a little a new and pressing issue has come into view. In older industrial Britain there is now a chronic problem of low pay. Too many of the new jobs in older industrial Britain pay low wages Too many jobs are insecure and short-term Too few jobs offer dignity, training and progression On former pit sites across the country, for example, it is not hard to find new warehouses and distribution centres that employ large numbers of staff on a casual basis, often through agencies and at the national minimum wage. In other places, low-paid jobs in call centres have taken the place of the older industries. And just about everywhere there has been an expansion in poorly-paid work in retailing, catering, elderly care and van driving. We should not glorify the jobs that used to exist in Britain s older industrial areas many of them involved hard work for modest pay but in the early 21 st century it should surely be possible to offer a better alternative for the residents of this large and important part of Britain. This report examines low pay in the older industrial areas of England, Scotland and Wales. It does so primarily by bringing together a range of official statistics on these places from the government s own Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings. 3

6 Of course, older industrial Britain does not have a monopoly on low pay. There are other places across the country some seaside towns and rural areas for example where wage levels are also low, and if you look hard enough just about anywhere it is nearly always possible to find some employees who are badly exploited and under-paid. Furthermore, it is widely accepted that the UK is experiencing an almost unprecedented period of stagnating living standards. The Institute for Fiscal Studies 1, for example, has projected that by 2022 real wages will be no higher than fifteen years earlier, before the 2008 financial crisis. There has apparently not been such wage stagnation since the Napoleonic Wars. However, none of this deflects from the observation that across most of older industrial Britain there is now a new crisis of low pay. The changing world of work The problem of low pay in older industrial Britain has emerged against the backdrop of precarious employment that is a key feature of the contemporary labour market. In recent years there has been an increase in self-employment at the low-earning end of the spectrum, a rise in the number of people working on zero hours contracts, and the proliferation of non-standard forms of temporary work. The TUC 2 has documented the consequences: On average, the self-employed presently earn only 60 per cent of the median annual earnings down from 70 per cent ten years ago For those on zero hours contracts, median hourly pay is only two-thirds of that for all employees Median hourly pay for agency staff is worth just 80 per cent of the employee average Median hourly pay for casual and seasonal work is just 60 per cent of the employee average Low paid employment is found mainly in construction, administration, transport and storage, wholesale and the retail trade. Zero hours contracts are most likely to be found in accommodation and food, health and social work. Those employed on temporary basis are often found in education, health and social work, accommodation and food, wholesale, retail and manufacturing 3. Five sectors of the UK economy account for 64 per cent of the low-paid self-employed. These are construction, administrative and support activities, transport and storage, 1 IFS response to forecasts in Budget TUC (2016) Living on the Edge: the rise of job insecurity in modern Britain, TUC, London. 3 TUC (2016) op.cit. 4

7 professional scientific and technical services and the wholesale and retail trade 4. Selfemployment can be positive for some people but too often the term hides a different reality. Self-employment can be a label used by employers to minimise costs such as national insurance, sick pay and other benefits. The employee has in fact little choice over the matter. Low pay is particularly widespread in occupations that require few formal qualifications. According to the Resolution Foundation 5, those earning less than the Living Wage include 62 per cent in elementary occupations, 59 per cent in sales and customer service and 40 per cent in caring. No part of Britain is immune from the scourge of low pay but in older industrial areas the problems are accentuated by two factors. First, the weakness of local economies plagued by job shortfalls has made it easier for employers to recruit the workers they need and to pay them low wages. High wages do not need to be offered when there are plenty of applicants. This is simple, brutal, market economics at work, and in recent years the weakness of trade unions has made it difficult to impose a brake on dubious employment practices. Furthermore, unscrupulous employers in older industrial areas (and elsewhere) have shown little hesitation in turning to migrant workers from abroad to help hold wages down. The new warehouses in the former coalfields, for example, often employ a high proportion of staff from Eastern Europe. Second, older industrial Britain has an occupational structure that is skewed towards lowerpaid work. In simple terms, the top managerial and professional jobs are concentrated in London and the South East and to a lesser extent in the main regional cities, whereas the bulk of the routine production and service jobs are generally to be found in places like Britain s older industrial towns. This matters when there is a big gap in pay between occupations. The median full-time gross pay for managers, directors and senior officials is almost 800 a week, and for professionals 725 a week, compared to just 350 a week for a full-time employee in sales and customer service, caring or leisure per cent of jobs in London and the South East are in managerial, professional and technical occupations, compared to just 27 per cent in older industrial Britain 7. Average earnings Table 1 presents summary data on the overall pay levels in older industrial Britain. The figures here, and in subsequent tables, are for the median pay of employees that is, the level of pay at which half of all employees are paid less and half are paid more. This differs from the arithmetic average or mean, which is biased upwards by the inflated 4 TUC (2016) op. cit. 5 Resolution Foundation (2016) Low Pay Britain 2016, Resolution Foundation, London 6 Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings Data from the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings 2016 using the definition of older industrial areas in Tables 2 and 4 (see below) 5

8 earnings of a few at the top of the wage spectrum. Median earnings are generally accepted as the best measure for comparing wage levels across different places. The figures here are the most recent available (for 2016) and refer to the gross (i.e. before tax) pay of all employees. The figures are also by place of work, rather than by residence, so they refer to the jobs actually located in older industrial Britain. The definition of older industrial Britain used here and in subsequent tables is taken from an earlier report by the Industrial Communities Alliance 8. It covers 96 local authority districts in all, including a number of non-member authorities 9. It might be argued that a number of other industrial areas, for example in the Midlands, should be added but most people would recognise the list (in Table 2 later) as a reasonable approximation of older industrial Britain. On this working definition, older industrial Britain has a population of 19 million, or 30 per cent of the GB total. Table 1: Median pay* in older industrial Britain, 2016 as % of GB median as % of London median Men Women All employees *Weekly gross earnings of employees, by place of work Source: Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings The first column in Table 1 expresses median pay in older industrial Britain 10 as a percentage of the median for Britain as a whole. This shows that for both men and women, pre-tax pay in older industrial Britain is around 10 per cent below the national average. This equates to a gap of 48 a week for men and 34 a week for women. The problem with comparisons with the GB average, however, is that the national average itself is dragged down by low pay in older industrial areas which, since the definition used here includes 30 per cent of the GB population, weighs heavily on the national figures. Low pay in a number of other areas also drags down the national average. A gap of just 10 per cent doesn t therefore reflect the extent to which earnings in older industrial areas lag behind. The second column in Table 1 therefore compares median pay in older industrial Britain with London, the most prosperous part of the country. 8 Industrial Communities Alliance (2015) Whose Recovery?: how the upturn in economic growth is leaving older industrial Britain behind, ICA, Barnsley. 9 Where county councils are members of the Alliance the list includes the county s older industrial districts rather than the whole county. The list also excludes three large unitary authorities where the older industrial area makes up only a small part of the authority. 10 Unweighted average of median pay in the 96 older industrial districts 6

9 What needs to be kept in mind here is that median earnings in London do not reflect the inflated pay of bankers or a handful of others. The median in London, as elsewhere, is the pay of an employee in the middle of the earnings spectrum, so it is far more likely to reflect the pay of lower-grade office staff or manual workers than elite professionals. Furthermore, even in London the numbers in low-wage sectors such as cleaning and catering more than match the number of bankers. Pay comparisons with London are entirely valid because they show what is possible in the most prosperous part of Britain. The figures in the second part of Table 1 show that the median pre-tax pay in older industrial Britain is just 69 per cent of the level in London. For men the proportion is 73 per cent, and for women 63 per cent. In money terms, these equate to gaps of 184 a week for men and 182 a week for women. The point here is that pay in older industrial Britain is significantly adrift of the national average but far, far behind the level in London. The local picture Table 2 looks below the national data at pay in each of the 96 local authority districts covering older industrial Britain. The figures are once again for median earnings the level at which half of employees earn more and half earn less and they are expressed here as a percentage of median earnings in London. The local data from the government s Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings can be erratic from year to year because of the modest sample size at the district level so the figures here pool three years data (for 2014, 2015 and 2016) which provides a more reliable local picture. This table shows that across the whole of older industrial Britain, with a single exception, earnings are far below the level in London. The sole exception is Copeland in West Cumbria, where high pay in the large Sellafield nuclear complex has created a very unusual two-tier local labour market. But in every other of the 96 districts on this list, median pay is far adrift of the level in London. Copeland apart, the highest earnings across older industrial Britain are generally in the bigger cities, though even here median earnings are well behind the level in London Manchester (82 per cent of the level in London), Glasgow (79 per cent), Leeds (77 per cent), Liverpool (73 per cent), Newcastle upon Tyne (72 per cent) and Sheffield (71 per cent). In well over half the districts making up older industrial Britain, median earnings fail to reach 70 per cent of the level in London. Some notably low levels here include Wigan (63 per cent), Inverclyde (63 per cent), Northumberland (60 per cent), Bolsover (60 per cent) and Mansfield (54 per cent). Again, it is worth stressing that these are not comparisons between high-end professionals in London and factory workers elsewhere. Rather, this yawning disparity between London and older industrial Britain reflects the pay of run-of-the-mill jobs in the middle of the local income distribution. 7

10 Table 2: Median pay* in older industrial districts, (London = 100) County Durham 70 Amber Valley 73 Darlington 75 Ashfield 71 Gateshead 71 Bassetlaw 65 Hartlepool 68 Bolsover 60 Middlesbrough 65 Chesterfield 63 Newcastle upon Tyne 72 Corby 69 North Tyneside 70 Dover 72 Northumberland 60 Erewash 65 Redcar & Cleveland 64 Forest of Dean 59 South Tyneside 67 Gedling 64 Stockton on Tees 71 Mansfield 54 Sunderland 70 Newark & Sherwood 60 Newcastle under Lyme 61 Allerdale 62 NE Derbyshire 61 Barrow in Furness 67 North Warwickshire 70 Blackburn with Darwen 67 Nuneaton & Bedworth 64 Bolton 65 Staffordshire Moorlands 62 Burnley 65 Stoke on Trent 69 Bury 68 Copeland 124 Clackmannanshire 70 Halton 76 Dundee 74 Hyndburn 63 East Ayrshire 66 Knowsley 77 East Dunbartonshire 61 Liverpool 73 East Renfrewshire 57 Manchester 82 Falkirk 75 Oldham 61 Fife 68 Pendle 68 Glasgow 79 Rochdale 63 Inverclyde 63 Rossendale 57 Midlothian 73 Salford 77 North Ayrshire 69 Sefton 63 North Lanarkshire 74 St Helens 65 Renfrewshire 72 Stockport 67 South Ayrshire 67 Tameside 63 South Lanarkshire 73 Trafford 70 West Dunbartonshire 71 Warrington 76 West Lothian 73 Wigan 63 Wirral 65 Blaenau Gwent 65 Bridgend 69 Barnsley 66 Caerphilly 71 Bradford 68 Carmarthenshire 64 Calderdale 71 Flintshire 78 Doncaster 66 Merthyr Tydfil 67 Hull 67 Neath Port Talbot 74 Kirklees 60 Newport 68 Leeds 77 Rhondda Cynon Taff 67 NE Lincolnshire 62 Swansea 65 North Lincolnshire 73 Torfaen 70 Rotherham 66 Wrexham 65 Sheffield 71 Wakefield 70 *Weekly gross earnings of all employees, by place of work Source: Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings 8

11 At the bottom end of the market Averages, of course, can hide a great deal. In the context of the labour market, they don t shed much light on the experience of the poorest paid. Table 3 therefore looks at pay levels at the bottom end of the labour market in older industrial Britain. Two measures of low pay are used here: 10 th percentile of pay. This is the level of pre-tax earnings of employees 10 per cent of the way along the range from low to high earners. Or to put it another way, 10 per cent of the local workforce earn less than this amount. 25 th percentile of pay. This is the level of pre-tax earnings of employees a quarter of the way along the range from low to high earners. Or to put it another way, a quarter of the local workforce earn less than this amount. Once again the figures add together 96 local authority districts across older industrial Britain 11 and are expressed as a percentage of median pay across GB as a whole and in London. The figures include both full and part-time employees. In practice, many of the lowest paid, especially in the lowest 10 per cent, are likely to be part-time workers. However, it worth remembering that in older industrial Britain the dearth of good, full-time jobs has pushed many people into part-time and casual working instead. We should not airbrush part-time workers out of the picture. The figures show that the poorest-paid 10 per cent in older industrial Britain earn less than one-third of median earnings across Britain as a whole and less than one-quarter of median earnings in London. The poorest paid 25 per cent earn less than 60 per cent of the GB median, and less than 45 per cent of the median in London. The data paints a compelling picture of low pay at the bottom end of the labour market in older industrial Britain. Table 3: Pay* at the lower end of the labour market in older industrial Britain, 2016 as % of GB median pay as % of London median pay 10 th percentile of pay th percentile of pay All employees *Weekly gross earnings of employees, by place of work Source: Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings 11 Unweighted average 9

12 Cost to the Exchequer Low wages don t just penalise individuals and families. They hurt the Exchequer too. Obviously, if workers don t earn very much they will not pay very much income tax. If low pay means, for example, that the Treasury receives 1,000 a year less in tax from (say) five million workers one in six of the UK workforce that represents a loss of 5bn a year. Many of these low-paid workers are in older industrial Britain. Importantly, the cost to the Exchequer of low wages also includes welfare payments to men and women in work. In particular these include Housing Benefit, Child Tax Credit and Working Tax Credit, all intended to lessen the incidence of in-work poverty especially for households with children. What has happened in much of older industrial Britain is that the inadequate wages paid by employers have had to be topped up by means-tested welfare benefits of this kind. To illustrate this point, Table 4 shows the annual spending on Tax Credits, per adult of working age, across each of the 96 local authority districts making up the definition of older industrial Britain used in this report. What is striking here is the high value of Tax Credit payments, most of which are going to families in work. Across most of older industrial Britain, Tax Credit payments average between 650 and 1,000 a year per adult of working age. In a handful of districts the payments exceed 1,000 a year. It is worth underlining that these are averages across the whole population of year olds. Many people do not qualify for Tax Credits (for example because their income is too high) so the average for those in receipt is correspondingly higher, and there are of course numerous households with two working-age adults. For many families who do draw on Tax Credits the payments are therefore substantial often well in excess of 2,000 a year. What the data in Table 4 illustrates, therefore, is the huge extent to which the Exchequer has had to step in to offset low pay in older industrial Britain. Elsewhere in the country, in more prosperous areas, Tax Credit payments are far lower. In Cambridge they average just 330 a year per adult of working age, in Kensington and Chelsea 320, and in Richmond upon Thames and in Guildford in Surrey just 290. What the data in Table 4 also illustrates is how badly exposed so much of older industrial Britain is to cuts in in-work benefits. As Tax Credits are gradually replaced by Universal Credit, reductions in work allowances announced in 2015 will cut payments to millions of inwork households. From 2017 onwards, larger families too will find their entitlement reduced. With reduced in-work benefit payments a growing number of households, many in older industrial areas, are set to feel the full effects of low pay. 10

13 Table 4: Annual spending on Tax Credits per working age adult, older industrial districts, County Durham 720 Amber Valley 590 Darlington 800 Ashfield 790 Gateshead 740 Bassetlaw 690 Hartlepool 910 Bolsover 740 Middlesbrough 1,080 Chesterfield 710 Newcastle upon Tyne 700 Corby 880 North Tyneside 680 Dover 730 Northumberland 640 Erewash 640 Redcar & Cleveland 840 Forest of Dean 580 South Tyneside 790 Gedling 640 Stockton on Tees 770 Mansfield 800 Sunderland 800 Newark & Sherwood 640 Newcastle under Lyme 570 Allerdale 620 NE Derbyshire 570 Barrow in Furness 730 North Warwickshire 550 Blackburn with Darwen 1,280 Nuneaton & Bedworth 760 Bolton 1,020 Staffordshire Moorlands 530 Burnley 1,120 Stoke on Trent 990 Bury 870 Copeland 540 Clackmannanshire 660 Halton 810 Dundee 700 Hyndburn 1,100 East Ayrshire 670 Knowsley 980 East Dunbartonshire 410 Liverpool 770 East Renfrewshire 420 Manchester 960 Falkirk 580 Oldham 1,210 Fife 620 Pendle 1,170 Glasgow 730 Rochdale 1,060 Inverclyde 700 Rossendale 810 Midlothian 640 Salford 920 North Ayrshire 750 Sefton 720 North Lanarkshire 690 St Helens 740 Renfrewshire 630 Stockport 640 South Ayrshire 600 Tameside 910 South Lanarkshire 600 Trafford 590 West Dunbartonshire 760 Warrington 590 West Lothian 640 Wigan 710 Wirral 800 Blaenau Gwent 810 Bridgend 730 Barnsley 810 Caerphilly 790 Bradford 1,250 Carmarthenshire 780 Calderdale 850 Flintshire 660 Doncaster 870 Merthyr Tydfil 890 Hull 970 Neath Port Talbot 760 Kirklees 890 Newport 860 Leeds 720 Rhondda Cynon Taff 790 NE Lincolnshire 900 Swansea 690 North Lincolnshire 740 Torfaen 800 Rotherham 870 Wrexham 770 Sheffield 730 Wakefield 770 Sources: HMRC, ONS 11

14 Tackling the problem Measures to outlaw unfair employment practices and increase the minimum wage would be extremely welcome in older industrial Britain, where they can be expected to have a markedly positive impact. For too long, the vast reserve of labour created by the run-down of Britain s older industries has allowed too many employers to abdicate their responsibilities to their employees. Low pay has become rife and the Treasury has had to step in with topup benefits. The National Living Wage, introduced in April 2016, is a step in the right direction but there is a lot more that needs to be done, not least to address the growing casualization of the workforce. As ever, it tends to be a minority of employers that are at fault, but the bad employers should not be allowed to steal a competitive advantage over those that treat their staff properly. But the economic and labour market problems of the cities, towns and communities that make up older industrial Britain also require a more fundamental solution. For a lasting solution to low pay, the need is to rebuild the industrial base of the UK as a whole and of older industrial Britain in particular. Supporting industry and promoting production across the country provides the basis for a higher wage economy. The UK has relied too much on public and private debt to prop up economic growth and there has been a profound failure to sustain incomes by trading with each other and the rest of the world. With household debt among the highest in the world, a public sector deficit that remains large despite the most draconian austerity in modern times, and a vast trade deficit, the UK needs a different model of economic growth. A revival of manufacturing is the key. Manufacturing is a high-value, high-productivity sector that offers the potential to deliver higher wages than so many of the low-productivity service jobs that the UK economy has relied on in recent years. The UK government at last recognises this potential. In its Green Paper on Industrial Strategy 12 it says: The objective of our modern industrial strategy is to improve living standards and economic growth by increasing productivity and driving growth across the whole country. The Green Paper also recognises that areas with weaker local economies have a key role to play: The revival of underperforming areas can spur productivity in areas with lower costs, cheaper land, less congested infrastructure and other underused assets. 12 HM Government (2017) Building our Industrial Strategy, Green Paper, HM Government, London 12

15 The Industrial Communities Alliance has a clear view how a revival in manufacturing, so central to higher productivity and higher wages, can be delivered. In 2016, ahead of the government, the Alliance published proposals for an Industrial Strategy 13. In summary, the Alliance calls on the UK government to: Provide an economic context in which industry can prosper That means a low exchange rate to enable British businesses to compete effectively, low interest rates to help foster investment and a measured approach to deficit reduction. Hold the line here: Britain should not abandon any more sectors of manufacturing production It is time for government to say enough is enough. That doesn t mean keeping every factory but it does mean that the capability to produce in any major sector should not be lost. Welcome free trade but only on the basis of fair competition Access to the European single market must remain a priority as the UK leaves the EU but there also need to be firm limits to free trade. British industry should not suffer as a result of unfair competition from countries that dump products at below cost or fail to respect workers rights, health and safety or environmental obligations. Use public procurement as a tool to support British industry Plenty of UK firms have the capacity to supply UK needs. Sometimes potential suppliers are right on the doorstep. But too often the contracts seem to go elsewhere for little obvious reason. Make sure the banks provide long-term finance to British industry Manufacturing needs long-term financial support at reasonable rates of interest. The big banks, however, prefer to invest for short-term financial gain. Money that should be used to finance investment in plant, machinery and working capital is instead used to support ever more household borrowing and speculation on world markets. Exploit the scope to provide aid to industry A key tool in rebuilding Britain s industrial base is the ability to offer public sector financial support to help deliver investments that wouldn t otherwise go ahead. The UK doesn t have a good track record of exploiting the scope, even within EU rules, to deliver support to industry in the regions. Target resources at the high-level technical skills that industry needs On skills, Britain needs to become more like Germany. This will not be achieved without government intervention employers can t just do this for themselves because the unscrupulous will always poach those trained elsewhere. 13 Industrial Communities Alliance (2016) Industrial Strategy for a more prosperous fairer Britain, ICA, Barnsley. 13

16 Invest more in the infrastructure schemes that really matter to industry Britain risks going down a blind-alley in prioritising a handful of expensive prestige projects rather than the more numerous, more incremental, infrastructure investments that industry needs. Support energy-intensive industries by reducing their bills Carbon taxes are a useful tool to incentivise the move towards a greener economy but their application to energy-intensive industries doesn t make sense. There is no point if the effect is merely to shut down UK plants and transfer production to other countries. Harness Britain s innovative strengths through effective research and development Britain is actually very good at primary research. Where Britain too often falls down is in transferring knowledge and innovation from the laboratory to the shop-floor. The problem is not new, but the challenge is to bridge the gap. Concluding remarks Low pay in Britain s older industrial areas is damaging too many people s lives. It is also costing the Exchequer vast sums in top-up benefits such as Tax Credits to help keep millions out of the worst poverty. We have been replacing too many of the jobs that have disappeared with new jobs that offer low pay, precarious employment and subsistence self-employment. The result is that for too many people in Britain s older industrial areas, being in work is often barely any better than being unemployed. Yet there is an alternative. It is to address exploitative employment practices and to raise the minimum wage. But in older industrial Britain it is also to rebuild the economic and industrial base of the economy. There is a new awareness in government of the places and people left behind. At this point in time, however, the jury is still out as to whether the UK government can rise to the challenge and deliver the policies that are really needed. 14

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18 The Industrial Communities Alliance is the all-party association representing some 60 local authorities in the industrial areas of England, Scotland and Wales. The Alliance was formed in 2007 by the merger of the longer-standing associations covering coal and steel areas and also includes a wide range of other industrial areas. The aim of the Alliance is to promote the economic, social and environmental renewal of the areas covered by its member authorities. The Alliance works with the governments and parliaments in London, Edinburgh and Cardiff, with development agencies and with its own member authorities. Alliance Secretariat, 1 Regent Street, Barnsley, S Yorkshire S70 2EG Tel: natsec@ccc-alliance.org.uk 16

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20 National Secretariat 1 Regent Street, Barnsley, S Yorkshire S70 2EG Tel: natsec@ccc-alliance.org.uk