Government gives England's 8 largest cities unique deals5th July 2012

Government has agreed to devolve new powers to England's largest cities in a series of unique deals that will help them invest in growth, improve local workers' skills and create jobs, support local businesses, control budgets and improve critical infrastructure Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and Cities Minister Greg Clark announced today.

The core cities are Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds, Liverpool, Newcastle, Nottingham, Sheffield and Manchester. These eight largest and most economically important English cities outside of London were invited to set out the powers they need to drive local growth in December last year. In return the cities have agreed to put in place stronger, more accountable local leadership and to spend their resources more efficiently. The resulting groundbreaking agreements signal a dramatic shift, freeing cities from Whitehall control.

Following Greater Manchester's example, Leeds and Sheffield will each form Combined Authorities, bringing their existing local authorities together so they can make more strategic decisions about how money is spent and what it is spent on. Liverpool and Bristol have voted to have directly elected mayors supported by strong decision making structures across the wider economic area. Leeds will form a West Yorkshire Combined Authority and Sheffield will form the South Yorkshire Combined Authority.

Newcastle is working with the seven authorities across their economic area to take steps towards forming a North East Combined Authority; Greater Birmingham and Solihull has established strong private sector leadership and decision-making across its Local Enterprise Partnership. And Nottingham has created a new private sector-led governance structure to deliver their City Deal.

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said: "These groundbreaking deals signal a dramatic power shift, freeing cities from Whitehall control. Everyone in these eight core cities will feel the benefits - from young people looking for jobs, to businesses looking to expand.

"Over the coming months, we are transferring more and more power from Whitehall to these cities. They are the economic powerhouses of England - so it makes sense that the cities decide for themselves how to boost their local economies."

Cities Minister Greg Clark said: "City deals represent a watershed moment in the Government's revolution to hand power down from Whitehall to the local level.

"These landmark agreements will unlock the huge potential of our cities by harnessing their unique strengths to drive the growth Britain needs.

"Our major cities have seized the opportunity to take control of their economic destiny and will now reap the benefits of new financial freedoms and investment opportunities available to them.

"Now we have concluded the first deals, we will shortly set out next steps for this radical extension of power to other places across the country."

The deals give new freedoms, powers and tools to help the cities go for growth, including:

More power to invest in growth

• Powers to 'earn back' tax from the HM Treasury for Manchester
• Freedom to fund critical infrastructure through tax increment financing for Newcastle, Sheffield and Nottingham
• Self-sustaining investment funds to spend on local priority projects, reducing dependence on grants from central government for Birmingham, Bristol, Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool and Sheffield

More freedom to support local businesses

• Power to create a venture capital fund to invest in high tech start ups and growth businesses for Nottingham
• Business Growth hubs bringing support, advice and services to help businesses grow for Manchester and Bristol
  

More power over budgets and resources to drive infrastructure development

• Devolved transport budgets for Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds and Sheffield
• Responsibility for commissioning and managing franchise arrangements for local and regional rail services devolved to Manchester, Leeds and Sheffield
• Joint investment programmes bringing together private and public sector assets to unlock resources for housing development and regeneration

Powers to deliver the skills training local people and businesses need

• Control of the skills budget so the city can better respond to what businesses need from the local workforce for Sheffield
• Apprenticeship hubs for Bristol, Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle and Nottingham, enabling the cities to boost apprenticeship numbers by supporting small and medium sized businesses to take on more apprentices with measures such as incentive payments

A 'Guarantee for the Young', with innovative new ways to give every young person access to a job, training, apprenticeship, volunteering or work experience for Leeds, Liverpool and Newcastle.