‘All we need is confidence, a good education, and talented people who care about the detail’

Nov 28 2008 The Journal

Richard Elphick shares his thoughts on why it is essential to breed local talent

FOR a number of years in the recent past the population of the North East region has declined. This has meant that those people who had skills, or who were particularly motivated “got on their bikes” as Norman Tebbitt once proposed, to find better employment elsewhere.

At present, the region has a largely static population. It would be interesting to look closely at the figures over the last 10 to 20 years to see what picture they paint.

Although I do not have the statistics to hand, my gut feeling is that we will have lost a significant number of people with drive and motivation including executives and skilled labourers who have left the region. An example would be architects, engineers and bricklayers who have moved to London attracted by huge projects such as Heathrow Terminal 5 and, now more topically, projects such as the 2012 Olympics.

There have undoubtedly been gains locally. For instance, attraction to the region of scientists working on Newcastle’s stem cell programme. However, any increases in highest quality talent attraction will be insignificant in relation to other population increases such as the region taking on its share of foreign migrants.

Do we want to develop talent in the North East? Do we want to attract talented people to the North East? Some cynics would say not, on the basis that those who are already privileged to enjoy the region can do it without too much competition, in jobs, for housing, and on the roads.

However, the answer must surely be that we do want to attract the best talent, to develop the best talent and to establish it in the area to create a whole new groundswell of wealth creation. If we do not do this we will create a black hole of “lowest common denomination” incapable of surviving on anything other than hand-outs and incapable of supporting diversity, both economically and culturally.

So we agree we want to engender talent. Quite right. How do we do it?

Marketing is a good start. It helps to say that we are “passionate” as in One North East’s regional campaign, but it needs much more, using a multi-layered approach.

To start with we need fantastic schools with enthusiastic and good teachers both in the private and state sectors. Many of our schools are very good, but if they are truly excellent then parents will move into the region so that their children become eligible to attend them. As a result, we will start to develop our own indigenous young talent.

Moreover, we must attract the best, most creative and successful executives by showing them just how wonderful the North East landscape and environment is and what a high quality of life we have to offer here.

In parallel, we must develop our own indigenous executives and skilled people.

We have excellent universities and some very enterprising and dynamic colleges in the area. They already attract high calibre students from around the country. These students should be encouraged to stay and settle in the North East.

To assist this trend, some departments should desist from telling their students to find work in London or the south if they want to “get on”. They should be encouraged to stay here in the North East and develop a network or form a ‘cluster’ to create their own wealth.

This is perhaps the main point. Our region needs an economic USP so that everyone who has talent can identify with it. That’s easy: Our wealth was created in the 19th Century from a small organic business cluster of entrepreneurs which was a diverse range of what we would now call high-technology and service sectors: Armstrong, Clayton and Stephenson developed science with the assistance of legal minds to create the biggest worldwide technological explosion of its time in rail travel, armaments, heavy engineering and marine technologies.

Real, long lasting, multiplying wealth comes from small “organically grown seeds”: small companies with talent and good creative ideas as opposed to multinational “GM crop businesses”.

Whilst we might like a huge inward investor as a quick fix boost to the region, we really must generate our own small business which will grow, over time, if it is fed the high-octane fuel of talented people being developed here.

At the root of this is education: primary, secondary and further education. And education that instills confidence.

With confidence our youngsters will believe that they can develop as entrepreneurs and will be more willing to start up their own business. In parallel, we must, develop a regional confidence to be flexible, to be responsive and to believe that we can re-write the rule book so that we are seen to lead wealth creation from entrepreneurial success – arising from small ideas and business.

We do not necessarily need leaders. All we need is confidence, a good education, and talented people who care about the detail. And yes, we really need to create and retain them here in the region.