Are we investing enough in selling Merseyside?

Apr 9 2008 by Alex Turner, Liverpool Daily Post

Should the region’s inward investment agency show it is a success before it gets any more money? Alex Turner reports

WITHIN three months of starting with The Mersey Partnership (TMP) last year, chief executive Lorraine Rogers had identified the inward investment agency’s two immediate challenges.

It needed to clarify its working relationship with the North West Regional Development Agency (NWDA) and the area’s six local authorities and increase its funding from them.

Last week, TMP proclaimed that it had succeeded on both fronts with what it extravagantly described as a “groundbreaking” agreement.

Ms Rogers said: “This is a ground-breaking commitment by Merseyside’s six local authorities, who are united in support for TMP in its investment role for the Liverpool city region.

“It clearly underlines the confidence they have in us to drive forward inward investment.

“Our collective approach coupled with improved funding levels make us better equipped than ever before to make a greater impact on prospective investors.

“The decision-making process often takes many months, or even years, and a long-term strategy is essential. Moving from one-year funding to a three-year agreement represents real progress and enables TMP to plan ahead.” The three-year plan should help to address the problems that TMP has faced, which have been clear for some time.

The parting shot from TMP’s previous chief executive, Robert Crawford, was that the agency did not have sufficient funding to recruit the staff needed to go out and sell the region to investors in the face of stiff competition from Britain’s other big regions.

This was echoed weeks later by Mark Basnett, TMP’s director of operations, who said: “We have one sales person. The idea is that he will look to build the team who will act on the whole of Merseyside’s behalf to win investment. I think we need five to six, one for each of the sectors we are driving forward.

“What we need is the really driven, passionate sales people who understand the product and can sell complex issues and who will knock on doors and get the message into the market where it’s not currently as aware as it could be.”

As a result, the sales force has now been boosted to three.

Ms Rogers said: “We have a £17bn economy. If we were managing a £17bn company, what sort of sales team would we have?

“We have to go out there and sell. We can’t do it from behind a desk here in Liverpool.”

Last week’s announcement doubled the local authorities funding as Halton, Knowsley, Liverpool, St Helens, Sefton and Wirral councils agreed to provide a total of £1.89m for the three years to 2011.

This will be provided as £575,000 in the first year, and £655,000 in each of the final two years.

The previous funding agreement, which only covered the 12 months from April, 2007, to March, 2008, had provided just £300,000.

TMP would not confirm how the councils were splitting the payments, but the councils confirmed that there was a per capita element to how much each was investing in TMP’s activities. Liverpool City Council will invest up to £150,000 each year.

But is the new funding enough? The area’s inward investment sales team is still small compared to its competitor regions.