Clare Coghill, the Labour Leader of Waltham Forest Council, was passionate about the need for private and public sector to work together, and enthusiastic about when it works well.
“Serious money is being stripped out of local authorities. So there is an opportunity for a conversation led by public and political speakers who are more willing to be bold and speak out.
“The private sector needs to be bold and talk about what their business provides to people, the skills and the training, talk about families supported. It needs to take people with it”.
“If you bury your head in the sand, it will still get cut off”.
“Thank you to Matthew and U+I for giving us this platform today, U+I has been fantastic for my area.”
Finally, it was for our very own Matthew Weiner to outline some of the new business commitments we have established at U+I to hold ourselves to account on our PPP projects.
“First, we will be creating a Community Challenge Panel, bringing together representatives from the public sector, civic society and other developers with the specific remit to ensure that we are abiding by the standards we have outlined in this paper. A newly appointed non-executive director will be tasked with establishing and chairing this panel and it will form part of the company’s corporate governance structure.
“Second, one of the first tasks of the new Panel will be to develop a Community Profit Share scheme, so that any profit we make above an agreed projected return on a PPP scheme is shared with the relevant public body and local community.
“And third, on all our major PPP schemes, we will set aside a specific budget so that community organisations and representatives are better equipped to engage more effectively in the planning process.
“Civic trust is the magic glue which binds PPP schemes. Without it, they fray, and fall apart. Trust is clearly a broader societal issue and we’d be fools to think we in the development community can fix it on our own. What we can do, however, is work hard to ensure that the glue is in place at the local level where we are on the ground regenerating, creating, engaging.
“We know that these moves will not fix the reputation of PPP overnight. But we hope they will go some way to restoring trust between all of those involved in these vital projects, and in the concept itself.
“Most importantly, we genuinely believe these commitments will help to deliver better Public Private Partnerships – creating more impact, more reward and better places. Not only will that help improve the perception of PPP, but it will ensure the model continues to evolve, to improve, and to change people’s lives for the better.”