There are some weeks when it’s hard to focus the attention and decide on which bit of bedtime reading is most important. Things vying for my attention this week include:
- Convention of the North 23 and following the commentary, mostly on twitter (a bubble I know - #ConventionOfTheNorth)
- IPPR North’s publication ‘State of the North 2023 – Looking out to level up: How the North and the UK measure up'
- All Party Parliamentary Group Child of the North Report
The launch of the Health Equity Network also caught my eye this week and watching the recording of the event has been added to my ‘to do’ list.
Much of the reading is sobering and underlines the inequalities between our region and elsewhere. Child poverty in the North East is the highest it has been since 2000 and the impact of the cost of living crisis on some of our most vulnerable children is simply brutal and can lead to lifelong harm.
- They’re more likely to live in poor quality, damp homes
- The standing charges for energy prepayment meters in their homes is higher than the UK average
- Food insecurity is an everyday occurrence.
The headline takeaway from a fist skim of the IPPR report is that if the North of England were a country, it would be second only to Greece for the lowest levels of public and private investment!
And I’ve been following the tweets on the Convention of the North with interest and a degree of jealousy on not being there, although I was happy to find out that we were able to offer a number of places to members of our Membership+ CEO Network so that representatives from the North East’s VCSE could attend.
My immediate response to all this is, as always, an emotional one. My blood boils and eyes fill at the everyday experiences of some of our children – they’re cold and hungry and that shames us all.
The frustration is almost physical when I consider why our region do so poorly in terms of levelling up funding, I have to stop myself clenching and grinding my teeth.
However, as a proud northerner I know the emotional response will fuel action, not just from me but across the region and sectors.
It’s not all doom and woe.
The IPPR report highlights examples from around the world of places that have turned around their economies. Such as Lulea, Sweden that is a model for net zero transition that is delivering local socio-economic benefits. It points out that the North’s strengths are national strengths and that our prosperity contributes to national prosperity. The Lulea and other examples demonstrate that where governments collaborate with local places and relinquish power then levelling up can be successful.
The Child of the North is a call to action, setting out a number of steps that can be taken immediately that would make a huge difference. We know that with ambition and appetite the problem of child poverty can be solved.
If you’re wondering how this relates to the work I’m involved in at VONNE or if I’m having a policy-wonk moment the honest answer is probably a bit of both.
As I read about Lulea I couldn’t help but relate this to VONNE’s Going Green Together project and that right now VCSE organisations can apply for a bursary to help them work towards environmental sustainability.
When I’m mulling over levelling up, what it means, and do I ‘get it’, I’m reminded of two of our other projects:
- Catalysing Innovation where we work in a partnership that helps small and medium sized organisations look at how they might do things differently and to do them, read more on that here
- Digital Pathfinders a programme of support for VCSE organisations to ‘adopt digital’ approaches this might be just learning a bit more about some of the jargon, finally getting that social media strategy done, sorting out all the spreadsheets (including where you’ve saved every version ‘just in case’). You can register interest here
Part of VONNE’s reason for being is to ensure that charities, social enterprises and voluntary and community groups make a distinct and sustained contribution to the economic, social and environmental development of the North East. The vibrancy of our sector, whether that’s the Local Infrastructure Organisations or the hyper local community group responding to needs in a neighbourhood, makes me hopeful. I know it’s tough for our communities and those supporting them but we’re a determined bunch who know how to do things that are hard.
And to end, I’m hopeful that if government through levelling up and devolution backs us we, in the North East, will deliver for our people and our own and the national economy.