APGDI Newsletter October 09

05/11/09 APGDI Newsletter October 09

Newsletter
Issue 27
October 2009

Events

Past event: Economy 2020: Innovation and Reform

Tuesday 27th October

Speakers:	Ian Lucas MP, Minister for Business and Regulatory Reform Sir Alan Rudge, Chairman, ERA Foundation Sunil Chopra, Vice President (UK) Tata Consultancy Services Nick Hussey, Director, Manufacturing Insight
Chair:	Derek Wyatt MP

How much can the economy continue to rely on the financial services sector? Could growth in the innovation and advanced manufacturing sectors compensate for loss of earnings in the financial? How can we stimulate the manufacturing industry? What skills do we need to be building now? – Some of the questions covered during last week’s breakfast meeting.

For the answers, click here.

Design in Procurement Report Launch

11th November: Postponed

The DBA and APGDI inquiry into public procurement of design is changing its course. It had been our intention to publish Recommendations on the 11th November. It has become increasingly apparent that we need to go out to consultation on the recommendations in order to identify likely partners to take our ideas forward. So, while the report will be launched officially next spring, work between now and then will focus on the fine-tuning of the recommendations and in agreeing schedules of work with new partners.

Upcoming Events

The Role of Design in Patient Safety, Breakfast Briefing

1st December

In association with the Associate Parliamentary Health Group

Innovation in Construction Dinner

1st December

In association with Buro Happold

Date tbc

Designing for Economic Recovery, Briefing

In association with Design Council

Please contact Jocelyn Bailey at the APGDI for further information about attending upcoming events.

News

Design

The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom started work on 1 October 2009. Read about the designer who made the chairs they’re sitting on here.

Design Counsil

The Prince Philip Designers Prize (in its 50th year) goes to Brompton Bicycle designer Andrew Ritchie. A good example of the 99% perspiration, 1% inspiration tenet, Ritchie has refined and developed his concept over a 30 year period. A highly deserving winner, more here.

Caroline Roux muses on design and the two princes here.

And watch Prince Philip complaining about VCRs here.

Following the example of pioneering ‘Design Bugs Out’ project, the Design Council partners once more with the Department for Health for ‘Design for Patient Dignity’. Get involved here.

Christopher Exeter for design council policy post, more here.

Design Business Association

The Design Effectiveness Awards 2009

The DBA's annual Design Effectiveness Awards is the only scheme that uses commercial data as a key judging criteria. A disposable insulin pen injector wins this year’s Grand Prix – more on this and other 2009 winners here.

Design Does It: limited places left

Do you manage design projects?

Design Does It has been specifically developed for marketing and communications professionals in the public sector and will help you manage design projects efficiently and effectively every time. Attending this course will enable you to get better results from the design work you commission. The next 3 day course runs on 20 November, 27 November and 4 December and delegates from the NPSA, COI, DCMS, Food Standards Agency and Ealing Council are already booked. Click here for full details and to book.

ACID

Anti Copying in Design launch two No.10 petitions, click on the links below to lend your support

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/DesignRight/

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/IPDamages/

A victory for design rights here, as ACID member Morgan Contract Furniture wins High Court claim against PTT Design Limited.

The RSA explores a different attitude to intellectual property in a debate about hacking here.

Published after lengthy consultation: the results of the European Commission's public consultation on "Design as a driver of user-centred innovation" are now online here.
Interested in contributing further to EU policy development? The Commission recently launched a consultation on future innovation policy here.

A special report from Business Week on design thinking for innovation here, including ‘Designomics’ in Korea.

The Americans want a Design Council here, a discussion of whether it’s mission impossible here

The DCMS sponsored Creativity & Business International Network (snappily named C&binet) met for its second conference at The Grove in Hertfordshire. No archive footage or transcripts yet, but more details here.

The Creative Conservatives (renamed from the tongue-twisting Conservative Arts and Creative Industries Network) met at one of the best designed – and hardest to get into – bars in central London, Tom Dixon’s Paramount at Centre Point. See some pretty pictures of the bar here. The event was supported by the Creative Coalition Campaign here.

A TED highlight here: Tim Brown of IDEO (a designer) on the problem with designers: “Somehow we went from systems thinkers who were reinventing the world, to a priesthood of folks in black turtle-necks and designer glasses working on small things…”

Philippe Starck tried to find the next great ‘British Designer’, Alan Sugar-style, for BBC2. More on winner Ilsa Parry here. Why it was a bit of a farce here.

Innovation

NESTA

Nails its colours to the mast with Philip Blond’s thinkpiece, ‘The Ownership State’, launched in Manchester. Download here.

TSB

Innovate 09 conference in Islington, watch video highlights here.

James Dyson on his new fan, working with the Conservatives, and why CSP is a good idea here.

Lord Drayson in the FT: SWFs lined up to bolster venture capital here.

BIS announces £40 million backing to support careers in technology and manufacturing here.

Luke Johnson discusses the nature and importance of invention (using the slightly questionable example of the inventor of air conditioning) in the RSA’s inaugural lecture here.

Architecture and the Built Environment

‘Never waste a good crisis’ – a damning review of progress since the Egan report here.

CABE

Green Skills Campaign: CABE will launch Grey to green on 11 November, more here.

The Sorrell Foundation

Celebrating success in the joinedupdesign for myplace progamme (the subsequent initiative to joinedupdesignforschools) with an event in Westminster here.

The government is investing £272m in the myplace programme to transform the way young people’s youth centres are created and to build world-class facilities. The Sorrell Foundation identified 15 arts and creativity projects to work with from the 41 projects in the main round of funding. More on the myplace programme here.

RIBA

The Stirling Prize this year went to Richard Rogers here. See pictures of his Maggie’s Centre here. Jonathan Glancey’s lowdown of the other contenders here. And a discussion of whether the award is ageist here.

A good summary of all parties’ policy developments here.

Hilary Benn talks to architects about climate change here.

Joseph Chamberlain Sixth Form College, Birmingham, wins ‘Prime Minister’s Better Public Building’ at the British Construction Industry Awards here. A round-up of the shortlist here.

Ben Bradshaw joins the Prince Charles debate here.

Ed Vaizey says Tories will keep CABE but ARB must go here.

Mark Prisk talks to NCE about PPP, procurement, and a voice for the construction industry here.

RTPI World Town Planning Day 2009 on 10th November will include a press briefing on the Global Report on Human Settlements, published by UN-HABITAT, more here.

In Parliament

Economy 2020: What role for Manufacturing

02 / 11 / 09

Article: Derek Wyatt chairs talk on the economic significance of manufacturing

Although the ‘our economy is in dire straits’ mantra is undoubtedly getting boring, the figures demonstrating the decline of the manufacturing industry – and its economic consequences – make alarming reading.

Yesterday, Derek Wyatt MP and the Associate Parliamentary Group for Design & Innovation (APGDI) invited Sir Alan Rudge of the ERA Foundation, Nick Hussey of Manufacturing Insight and Sunil Chopra of TCS to challenge the perception that ‘Made in Britain’ is obsolete.

Indeed, the opposite is true. But over the last thirty years the reputation of the manufacturing industry has taken a beating. By contrast, the financial services industry (at least until 18 months ago) had been lauded as an economic cashcow.

In times of prosperity we have been content to rely on the City. But the recent crisis has warned against over-reliance. The APGDI parliamentary meeting was therefore designed to evaluate and debate the contrasting contributions of these two industries – manufacturing and the financial services – to the economy.

Ian Lucas MP, Minister for Business and Regulatory Reform, opened the discussion by declaring his personal passion and dedication to British manufacturing.

He compared the paradigm shift we are currently facing as a challenge not unlike those of previous eras – such as the Industrial Revolution – and asserted his confidence that this opportunity could be handled equally as boldly.

But in spite of the Minister’s optimistic outlook, the picture painted by the three guest speakers was bleak.

‘It’s wartime’, said Sir Alan Rudge, ‘and compared to other nations we are losing.’ This view was supported by members of the audience, who argued that even current ‘progressive’ targets relating to infrastructure – water and transport – will still leave the UK ten years behind the rest of Europe.

A glance at the Office of National Statistics data (click on the link above right to see the numbers) demonstrates the ongoing importance of manufacturing as a sustainable economic base, particularly in balancing trade. But the industry has suffered from neglect.

Rudge used the figures to demonstrate an economic imbalance that existed well before the recent banking crisis (critically the ONS data was gathered before the disruption of the last two years), but an imbalance that has seemingly gone undetected, or at least poorly addressed.

The ONS figures show clearly that although there has been growth in the services industries – largely financial and other business – their net contribution was never balancing the loss in manufacturing trade, resulting in an ever-growing deficit.

Financing our short term consumption of goods by the sale of debt and equity assets is clearly not a sustainable model. In terms of balance of trade, manufacturing contributes 6 times as much as financial services per pound of GDP. But, although still providing about half our exports and direct employment for 3 million people, the industry has shrunk to only a 7th of GDP.

Taken as read that the manufacturing industry is in rapid and systemic decline, the question of how to reverse the situation – with the shared understanding that a reversal is crucial – formed the main topic of debate.

Nick Hussey, Director of Manufacturing Insight, outlined some key questions for directing the future of the sector. In a global market, with global supply chains, the question of domicility is complex. Where is revenue generated, tax due, a contribution to society made? And on a larger scale – how can any tax system cope with this trend? A second issue is one of positioning: which parts of the production process do we want to capture and in which sectors?

A greater acknowledged presence of the industry through branding would help shatter the other critical ‘cultural’ barrier to recovery. Dry statistics such as ‘18% of GDP and 50% of exports’ do little to convince a public whose received wisdom comes through the media – responsible for a great deal of negative, ‘Britain doesn’t have a manufacturing industry’, press – and an older generation pining for an earlier age of factories and large-scale industrial production.

According to Hussey, the reality is that most modern manufacturing is highly efficient, highly advanced, innovative, creative, dynamic, diverse. It is crucial that public perception is positive, even aspirational, so the industry attracts the brightest and best.

Not doing so detrimentally impacts the quality of manufacturing in a continuous downward spiral. Some of the blame lies at the door of the traditional class system – the distinction between professional and craftsman by which other more currently successful manufacturing nations are not plagued – but it is not only that. The stated mission of the recently launched ‘Manufacturing Insight’ group is: ‘to drive a fundamental and sustained improvement in the image of UK manufacturing capability’.

National figures, ‘manufacturing heroes’, were proposed as a means of raising the manufacturer persona, as well as a clearer message about career routes – establishing ‘manufacturing’ as a profession – communicated to children at a much earlier stage.

The financial services have equally suffered bad press of late. Sunil Chopra, Vice President of Tata Consulting Services (the consultancy arm of global manufacturing conglomerate Tata) brought some balance to the debate by speaking in support of the banking sector.

Whilst recognising the value of manufacturing, he stressed the importance of not undermining the enviable position of the UK’s financial sector by continuous short term and perhaps negative coverage. Financial services provide employment for over a million people – and not just in London as is often believed. And the interplay between the two industries is crucial – the element of financial services that supports business and industry obviously cannot be allowed to fail; and banks will need to support manufacturing, particularly new and growing areas, to make money in the future.

There is undeniably some conflict of interests. In the current climate, trading in Euros, thus negating the punitive exchange rates, would undoubtedly benefit manufacturers who have to buy much machinery from Europe.

There is also anecdotal evidence of European manufacturers pulling out of Britain because of the constant and laborious converting of currency – in spite of favourable exchange rates. But from a banking point of view, the independence of Sterling is no doubt a major factor in retaining London’s global primacy in the financial markets.

The low carbon agenda was another point of contention. The main thrust of Ian Lucas’s words related to the drive to place Britain at the forefront of the low-carbon future. He described it as a ‘key driver’ and praised industry for rising to the challenge.

However low-carbon pressures were questioned by members of the audience, concerned about an emphasis on one agenda (although not denying that it is non-optional: in the future there will only be low-carbon manufacturing) at the expense of many others. There is also a point of clarification to be made between manufacturing low-carbon products, and using processes that have a low-carbon footprint.

In closing his presentation, Sir Alan Rudge used the analogy of ‘the greenhouse’: ‘if most of the plants in your greenhouse are suffering, it’s time to examine the greenhouse rather than the individual plants.’ One-off individual cash injections won’t succeed in a poor climate. There is little point bolstering Universities if the downstream take-up of ideas is not in place – otherwise an act of reinforcing the rest of the world. (Ian Lucas alleged the government’s understanding of joining-up issues between academia and industry, and praised the work of the Technology Stratergy Board.)

Equally there is no point training thousands of designers when there is a scarcity of manufacturers with which to collaborate. He suggested a long list of measures – including deregulation, better IP protection, more favourable capital gains tax – which together could ‘fix the greenhouse’.

Although it is easy to expect too much, and we must accept that some problems are not within Government capability to solve, the Minister agreed that at a strategic level, the public contribution was paramount. Getting the greenhouse right is very much within Government’s capability. As Sir Alan Rudge summarised, 'What is required is not a few isolated initiatives, but a massive coordinated programme aimed at optimising the greenhouse parameters.'

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Associate Parliamentary Design & Innovation Group

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