Unlike certain other regions across the UK (for instance Strathclyde, for which see Danson et al, 1999 and MacLeod, 1999, Kent County Council and Birmingham City Council, for which see Martin and Pearce, 1993), including close neighbours such as Lancashire, Manchester and the fellow Merseyside borough of the Wirral, which had become involved in a number of Community Initiatives (Meegan,
1994), Liverpool’s engagement with the European Structural Funds was, until the early 1990s, limited.
That the EU was low on the agenda of Liverpool City Council throughout the 1980s reflected its tumultuous local politics that encompassed the single minded focus of the radical Militant
Tendency-led council of 1983-87 on housing renewal and the need for the mainstream Labour Party council that gained control of the city following Militant Tendency’s disqualification to wrest back control of Liverpool City Council’s finances while bedding-in a significant number of first-time councillors. Meegan (ibid) additionally cites the weakened cultural and political presence in Liverpool that followed the city’s sharp social and economic decline as a constraining factor in its ability to engage in collaboration with external agencies generally.
While interest in the EU shown by local elected members at the district council level was minimal, Merseyside County Council, operating at the city regional tier, had, prior to its abolition in 1986, lobbied the European Commission to fund a feasibility study into Merseyside’s problems and opportunities with a view to considering the potential benefits of the application of the Structural Funds there. The results of this proposed the use of the programmatic format IDO initiative that had been progressively expanded since its introduction in 1984 (Armstrong, 1995). The Merseyside Integrated Development Operation (MIDO) ran in two successive programmes between 1989 and 1993 and was viewed positively in terms of the working relationships involved (Boland, 1995). Its greater significance, however, lay in three other factors: the encouragement it gave to sub-regional actors in terms of engaging further with Europe; the fact that it entailed a programme of funds, in contrast to the then-dominant approach of urban policy, which encompassed a range of central government determined issue-specific measures that were not applied in an integrated way (Pike et al, 2006); and that its coordination demanded a Merseyside-scale tier of governance following the abolition of the formal metropolitan county council.
In the absence of the Merseyside County Council a governance structure at that scale had to be put in place in order to match the Commission’s desire for the participation of regional government in the programming of the funds. As such a voluntary steering group for the first MIDO programme was formed by local officers and MEPs that included representation from the five Merseyside local authorities, North West Water, the MDC and the Merseyside TEC (Meegan, 1994). That the steering group had been set up by officers and MEPs was significant, as it displayed the lack of interest in doing so among local councillors. A planning officer who worked at Liverpool City Council during the period made clear in an interview that this lack of interest in European matters was a particularity of the councillors belonging to that district:
‘Well, the other districts were very interested from the start. They wanted to support it from the start, but before, when the Militants were in, it was difficult. Alan [Chape – Assistant Chief Executive at Liverpool City Council] wanted to push [the EU funding application] forward, but they weren’t really interested, so he must have found it very frustrating at that time. But after that they were a new Labour group on the city council and they were keen to pursue it, with Keva Coombs as leader, who had been leader of the county council.’ (Interview with former Liverpool City Council planning officer.)
The disqualification of the Militant-led Labour council in 1987 and its replacement with mainstream Labour Party councillors thus paved the way for the officer-led movement for Structural Funds to progress. This was aided by the fact that, as well as the MIDO steering group, efforts had been made by some of the same officers to maintain a governance presence at the Merseyside scale. After the abolition of Merseyside County Council, an assistance chief executive at Liverpool City Council, Alan Chape, had set up an informal group among the chief executives of the Merseyside local authorities in order to maintain a strategic level discussion. One interviewee referred to the combination of this group, together with the MIDO steering group, as a form of ‘shadow Merseyside governance’ (interview with senior academic active in policy-making discussions, 2012).
A more formal mode of coordination was established as the Merseyside European Liaison Unit (MELU) in 1992 as the governance mechanism for addressing European matters. The MELU was ultimately expanded, as the Merseyside Policy Unit (MPU), to encompass joint working across the Merseyside local authorities on matters relating to housing, planning, transport and economic development, in addition to Europe. The MELU was conceived of with the express aim of bidding for further Structural Funds when it was determined that Merseyside’s GDP per capita was becoming progressively closer to the 75% of EU average threshold below which Objective One funds could be allocated. While that threshold had not yet been reached, Merseyside was awarded Objective One funds on the basis of its low, and falling, GDP per capita and persistent long term structural
unemployment, especially high among males. In fact the former was actually slightly above the 75% of EU average GDP per capita required to qualify for Objective One funding, with Merseyside’s status assured only following a special plea, the precedent of Northern Ireland being granted Objective One status with a GDP per capita of 76% that of the EU average having already been set (Boland, 1995). The involvement of the UK national government was ensured through the MTF, which aided the joint working groups acting on behalf of Merseyside in lobbying the Commission for funds, and granted the application the imprimatur of the UK government, as required by the Commission, to form a partnership body in the sub-region. In spite of the timely involvement of the MTF, there are
echoes of MacLeod’s (1999) description of the Strathclyde Regional Council ‘jumping scales’ in order to engage with the Commission while bypassing the UK government, this becoming perhaps more explicit once Objective One funds had been secured, with the establishment of the Merseyside Brussels office giving the sub-region a literal presence in close proximity to the Commission. The activities of the Commission, meanwhile, in engaging regions across Europe, had been stepped up following the expansion of the Structural Funds from 1988 and the reforms to the regulations at the same time that had increased the role of regional government in the programming of the funds. Graham Meadows, of the Directorate General for Regional Policy (now known as DG Regio) had visited the North West region already in an effort to persuade local government and regionally active private and civic sector bodies of the need to coordinate at the regional scale, as detailed in the previous chapter. Once Objective One funds had been awarded to Merseyside, further engagement was embarked on with the Merseyside sub-region that circumvented the UK government.
‘[The Commission] were pushing both [nationally and locally] but they were almost trying to burrow underneath the government by getting everybody stirred up to say “this is our programme and if we get our act together we want some ownership of the programme”.’ (Interview with former Liverpool City Council senior officer.)