Common sense

Matthew Brown believes few available jobs and rising inequality led Preston, like every other district of Lancashire, to vote to leave the EU in June. “People are angry with how the economy is structured. Brexit has happened because of a failure of the current economic model,” says the 44-year-old councillor. But he adds: “What we’re doing now is in response to that, it’s about how we can change local economies to work for people who feel excluded.”

Since 2011, the Lancashire council’s central government grant has been almost halved from £30m to £18m, leading to cuts in everything from community engagement to parks and the leisure centre. “The intention was to devolve cuts and blame it on us,” Brown says. “But you can become more self-sufficient.”

The Preston model he devised involves 12 of the city’s key employers – including the county constabulary, a public sector housing association, colleges and hospitals – buying goods and services locally, to stop 61% of their procurement budget being spent outside of the Lancashire economy. As a result, Brown has been called a visionary thinker for his work to boost the economy in his hometown.

He was appointed cabinet member for community engagement and inclusion almost seven years ago, in a city riven by inequality. “Poverty was entrenched. We were in the bottom 20% of the index of multiple deprivation. In the most prosperous ward you would expect to live to 82, and other wards 66,” he says.

Preston was the first northern city authority to implement the living wage in 2012. A year later, Brown embraced the Public Services (Social Value) Act 2013, which allows public bodies in England to take into account the social, environmental and economic impact of their commissioning. A key step was to redirect lucrative contracts, such as printing services for the police and food for council buildings, towards local businesses.

Brown met with the heads of six so-called anchor institutions. He helped them to reorganise their supply chains and identify where they could buy goods and services locally. By using spend analysis and social value criteria, the city council doubled its procurement spend with Preston companies from 14% in 2012-13 to 28% in 2014-15. Lancashire county council has since introduced a social value framework to inform all aspects of the procurement cycle, while the college, police and housing association that signed up to the programme have all committed to applying this framework to their projects, though there is not yet quantitative analysis of the effect on spending.

But the benefits of this shift for local businesses can already be seen. Conlon Construction, a family-run company, has hired five local staff and three graduate apprentices since it was awarded public sector contracts including one to build a new covered market hall. Local farmers profited when the council divided up its £1.6m food budget for canteen sandwich fillings, yoghurts and fruit and simplified the tender process. A local artist collective called the Birley was given an ex-council building as studio space, saving it from moving to Manchester or Liverpool. “No one wants things to be out of public ownership, but the next best option is to set them up as some kind of co-operative,” Brown says.

Preston had the joint-second biggest improvement in its position on the multiple deprivation index between 2010 and 2015. And in 2016 it was named best city in north-west England in which to live and work. The council leader Peter Rankin attributed the city’s success to its location – just two hours from London – and cheap housing. But Brown believes the Preston model “must have helped”.

He and his colleagues want to build a city where workers are in control of wealth, improving people’s sense of citizenship. “We’ve got the public pension fund to invest in student housing, we’re looking at setting up a local bank to give business loans and for the local authority to become an energy provider,” he says. “You put all that together and you can see how we are developing the infrastructure for a new economy.”

He works closely with the Centre for Local Economic Strategies thinktank to implement his ideas and an EU network of cities that face similar challenges, though Brexit may put an end to that.

Brown was born in Warrington, Cheshire, but raised by adoptive parents in Lancashire. He joined the Labour party at 19 and studied politics at the University of Central Lancashire in Preston. He joined HM Revenue and Customs, where he still works, and became an equal opportunities officer for the Public and Commercial Services Union. In 1997 he canvassed for Labour at the general election and was later persuaded to run for a council seat in what was then his home seat of Tulketh, north-west Preston. He won on his first attempt in 2002, aged 30. when he was just 30

He believes that as a result of the financial crisis and its aftermath people are ready to hear a radically different way of thinking about politics and that Corbyn can win a Labour party victory in 2020. Until then, Preston is backing the northern powerhouse initiative to secure devolution, allowing it to build what Brown believes are the foundations of a new economy away from the City and Westminster. “The days of getting huge inward investments are over, so the sensible way is looking at how you can do that through your local area to make something new,” Brown says. “This is it.”

The model was inspired by cooperatively run communities in Cleveland, Ohio and the world’s largest co-operative group, Mondragón, in the Basque region of Spain, and has been touted in speeches by the shadow chancellor John McDonnell. Judging by the interest he has had from other councils, including Birmingham, Rochdale and Sheffield, plenty of people hope he is right.