"Not of themselves sufficiently robust or transparent to evidence value for money"
The Teesworks Review has been published!
It’s Christmas time for the three journalists who’ve been paying close attention to the Teesworks saga, as at about 5.30pm on Monday evening the Government finally decided to publish the long-awaited, much-delayed independent review into Teesworks.
The report was ordered by Michael Gove as the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, after Middlesbrough MP Andy McDonald make accusations of corruption and illegality in the business dealings around the site.
That was June last year, and the report was delivered to the department last Tuesday. I’m sure it’s just coincidence that having had it most of the week, they chose to publish it shortly after Private Eye’s deadline for this week’s issue.
Like all good independent reviews, there’s something in it for everybody - your Houchens and your McDonalds alike.
If you’re the mayor, you can go to paragraph 1.7 and take the line “we have found no evidence to support allegations of corruption or illegality” and be happily vindicated.
If you’re the accuser, you can also go to paragraph 1.7 and take the line “there are issues of governance and transparency that need to be addressed and a number of decisions taken by the bodies involved do not meet the standards expected when managing public funds” and be happily vindicated.
The mayor’s immediate response was directed at McDonald (all politics is personal, I guess) and doesn’t acknowledge the criticisms in the review.
Those criticisms are broad, around governance, scrutiny, who was involved in key decisions, procurement processes for the appointment of partners, and on the use of public funds more generally.
It’s not a clean bill of health for the project or any of the parties involved.
There’s also a section which doesn’t bode well for transparency or completeness of the evidence gathering process.
Beyond that, the terms of reference were narrow - it doesn’t include the wildlife issues along the coast, the joint venture at the Airport (which features the same players), or a new energy company joint venture (which also features the same players), health and safety concerns on the site, or an ongoing court case with PD Ports.
In short, it doesn’t seem likely that this will be the last review of activity in the Tees Valley.
The mayor has until 8th March to give a full response to the Secretary of State, including around the governance and transparency, and you’d hope that would be more nuanced than yelling ‘LIAR’ in the direction of a local MP.
As a general point, it’s a weird comms strategy that takes that report and attempts to claim victory - for either side, really, but especially for the mayor’s office. Eyes are still on you, there have already been calls for the National Audit Office to get involved, you’re about to fight a mayoral election campaign.
I get not wanting to admit fault, or that there were things which could and should have been done better, but there’s probably still enough public goodwill around the project to be the bigger man, look like a grown-up and say you’re going to respond to the review’s recommendations and deliver for Teesside.
Anyway, that’s just my view - and I’m by no means a full-time observer of this stuff.
Guest views from Leigh Jones of the Yorkshire Post
Someone who is a full-time observer is Leigh Jones of the Yorkshire Post.
He’s been employed as an investigative reporter covering political and environmental issues on Teesside for much of the last year.
He’s kindly offered to share some views with Wor Room readers (he did offer, honest, I didn’t make him).
What’s your key takeaway from the review?
While the top line is "No illegality", the substance of the rest of the report is a methodical deconstruction of numerous failures of governance, transparency and decision making.
These sorts of things are often dripping in dry, diplomatic language, but even with that to cushion the blow the report is deeply excoriating in so many ways.
Is it what you expected it to be?
I think anybody who's been paying close attention to TVCA's issues could have speculated the report would have found no illegality but uncovered a whole host of institutional shortcomings.
TVCA is still a relatively fledgling body, but large numbers of posts are occupied by people recruited from the private sector with no experience of running public bodies. The report in fact states, "it may have been the case that there was a lack of awareness amongst TVCA members of the levers available to them", and one of its 28 recommendations is quite plain despite its dry, diplomatic language: "Review the makeup of the Board, including the Chair and role of associate members, to ensure relevant expertise and knowledge is in place to support the Mayor".
Does it leave any questions unanswered?
Plenty of questions remain unanswered. The report says that evidence was provided to them by TVCA "in an unstructured way and lacking a cohesive narrative", which led to "drift and delay in the process and reduced our confidence that we have been given access to all relevant materials".
They admit they didn't have enough time to examine everything they needed, so focused on key areas instead.
How has reporting of the review been? Knowledgeable and well-informed, I trust?
It's a complex story that I've been up to my neck in for the last 12 months or more, and there are still aspects I struggle to get my head around.
When the story comes to the surface nationally there'll be fellow journalists who I call "day-trippers" popping in and filing copy, but there tends to be inaccuracy. This is forgivable to a certain extent because things are deliberately complicated, but simple things like saying the steelworks site is 90% owned by private businessmen shouldn't be happening - a company to market and let the steelworks site is 90% owned by them. It just makes my job more difficult.
What do you think will happen next?
Labour are calling for a National Audit Office investigation, as they originally called for in May - something Ben Houchen himself called for at the time, too. They would need to be given additional powers by the secretary of state in order to conduct an investigation of a local authority, and that was the stumbling block the first time around, although the political weight may tip the scales to make it happen this time.
What else should Wor Room readers be paying attention to around Teesside and Teesworks?
The relationship between TVCA and the publicly-owned Teesside Airport has yet to be publicly examined in the same way as Teesworks, and issues of transparency are plentiful there.
TVCA insist Ben Houchen has no operational role at the airport, but he claims credit for its successes. Because of the ownership structure, details about the airport are not subject to FOIs, according to TVCA.
Thank you to Leigh for his insights - follow him on Twitter here, or BlueSky here, and you can read his coverage of Teesside and North Yorkshire in the Yorkshire Post, including his latest on the review here.
International Students and University Admissions
In other news, The Sunday Times reported on a ‘secret route’ into top universities for international students. Those top universities include Newcastle and Durham, and that story follows another from the FT on York.
The report says that for one economics course - taken as an example - overseas students on one of the pathways needed a CCD at A Level for Durham, and a DDE at Newcastle. Home students would require at least three As.
The Sunday Times has positioned the story as greedy universities prioritising international students and the higher fees they pay over home-grown students.
The reality is, of course, more nuanced.
Aside from HE being a significant export - and international student recruitment being the marketplace for that - and international students being worth more than £40bn a year to the UK economy, this is also a matter of survival.
Higher Education sector funding is so broken that international fees are forming a bigger and bigger chunk of revenue, and being used to support and cross-subsidise courses.
I’ll quote a House of Commons Library briefing from last November now…
“Reductions to teaching grants, the freezing of tuition fee caps, and cost of living pressures have meant many higher education providers have looked to increase their surplus-generating income streams to cover shortfalls elsewhere in budgets.
“The tuition fees of international students are a major source of income for many universities. They are not capped in the same way as the fees of ‘home’ students, and so providers can charge significantly more. This has led to some universities significantly expanding the number of international students they recruit, in order to cross-subsidise research and the teaching of high-cost subjects, such as medicine.”
That same paper estimates 19.1% of HE funding comes through international student fees - £8.9bn in 2021/22, up from less than £1bn (5.6% of income) in 2001/02.
So, yes, the market has changed, but out of necessity - there are more international students, and the top universities are competing for them, because they need the money. Without them, we might not have the spaces for home students anyway, because there goes a fifth of an institution’s revenue.
I’d argue there’s a problem there, but the international students aren’t it, it’s how we fund and support the system more generally. We’re very lucky to have great HE institutions in the North East, they’re a huge asset, and we need them properly funded and stable to feed the region with the talent and the ideas it needs in the future.
A nod to Paul Smith for flagging this one to me.
Life Expectancy
The latest analysis of local life expectancy from the ONS shows a strong North-South divide.
As you can see in the chart above, life expectancy in the North East is the lowest of any English region for both men and women.
Life expectancy generally is falling across the country, 9.6 months lower in England for men in 2020-22 than for 2017-19.
The North East has matched that fall for men, and 7.2 months lower over that period for women, which is a bigger fall than the English average.
Within the region, Northumberland is best across all measures - men at birth and 65, and women at birth and 65.
Here’s the trends across regions over the past twenty years. The decrease in the last couple of years have taken the North East back to around a decade ago.
What I’ve been reading/thinking about this week
The latest updates from Reading FC. Even Mike Ashley isn’t interested anymore amd they’ve sold three first team players and loaned another out in the past week.
This on the fact the Prime Minister doesn’t eat on Mondays. As if Mondays weren’t already enough of a chore.
What’s coming up in the next week or so?
PMQs later on - it’s Wednesday, so hopefully the PM has had breakfast
Data on GVA at low level geographies, out later on
Data on fertility rates and childbearing, out tomorrow
There’s a Westminster Hall debate on real time bus information in the North East this morning, led by Newcastle MP Chi Onwurah
Home Sec James Cleverly is paying a visit to the Home Affairs Committee today
There’s a backbench debate on mining and mining communities tomorrow, with Grahame Morris of Easington’s name against it
The PM is expected to launch his new business advisory panel today, with Greggs and Newcastle-originated (but now Coalville-based) Barratt Developments both on the list
Labour are then hosting a City and financial services focused business summit tomorrow, so big business chat in policy circles this week
Working with me
I did a session for academics at Newcastle University last week where I was giving an update on devolution and the mayoral election and the year ahead and all that. I merrily set off describing what I thought the North East mayor ought to focus on, and someone stopped me and said something to the effect of “woah, woah, woah, just explain this whole mayor thing to me, what’s it about?”
That was, of course, a brilliant question and exactly the sort of thing people should be asking and too often don’t.
We then talked as a group about the history of devolution, how every deal is different, what formal and informal powers mayors have, how it maps (or not) over other bits of local government, who might get elected, and how well what’s in this region’s deal relates to what the challenges are here.
If that sort of chat is useful to you or your team, let me know - the more people understand this stuff, the better.
If it’s just you, I’ll do it for a coffee…if it’s your whole team, I’ll probably want paying.
You can find out more about me on my website.
You can email me on worroom@substack.com or arlen@arlenpettitt.co.uk
I’m @arlenpettitt on Twitter, and you’ll find me on LinkedIn and on Bluesky too.