Spring Budget 2023
Following yesterday’s Spring Budget, Rachel Coldicutt OBE makes the case for a different innovation story, with place-based creators of community tech working to boost local economies and strengthen our social fabric.
Much of the focus on innovation in yesterday’s budget was on securing Britain’s position on the global stage as both a “science and technology superpower” and “the best place in Europe for companies to invest and grow”.
But this is only one part of the UK’s possible innovation story: we also need to build solid, necessary foundations that will enable more people to become innovators, increase the UK’s technical skills and maturity, and strengthen our social fabric. Innovation is not just about potential future investments and inventions: it also requires supporting real change in the here and now.
The announcement of Investment Zones – spaces for entrepreneurs, researchers, government and local communities to collaborate – speaks to the need for stronger place-based networks. The assertion that “meaningful and sustainable inclusive local growth” needs local leadership is welcome, as is the government’s commitment to leveraging “local talent, institutions and networks”.
And we would add another essential stakeholder into this mix: community businesses creating community tech.
The Investment Zones policy outlines the need to “need to irrigate the soil for the private sector”, but private investment is not the only potential source of green shoots.
If healthy soil is a living ecosystem that thrives on diversity, so too is innovation. Community businesses are essential for embedding local leadership, cultivating skills development, and creating value that sticks to place. They are locally rooted infrastructure that deliver the kinds of restorative and sustainable innovation necessary for a truly modern economy: building community wealth, embedding sustainable practices, strengthening social connection, and creating products and services that lead to better local jobs.
For example, Carbon Coop is leading the way on home energy efficiency, growing from a collaboration between local climate campaigners, a local urban planning Co-op and early adopter householders, with a vision for radically transforming housing in Greater Manchester. Now, they are using community tech to lead the way in home energy management and prevent runaway climate change.
Likewise, Equal Care Co-op is addressing fundamental flaws in the social care system, a pressing challenge for the government, using their own digital platform to put power in the hands of people who give and receive care across Calderdale, West Yorkshire.
And Wings Delivery Coop, based in south London, has set up a food delivery platform that provides an ethical alternative to existing food delivery apps, boosting the local economy and tackling climate change by paying riders a London Living Wage, and using 100% zero carbon vehicles.
To further support this ambition, and nurture community businesses such as Carbon Coop, Equal Care and Wings, this year we are working with Power to Change to deliver a place-based fund that will seed and support the growth of local networks.
From our funding and development work over the last twelve months, we know that there are flourishing community tech hubs in Bristol and Manchester: our ambition is to multiply these to support the development of a sustainable alternative innovation economy for the UK. We want to see community businesses supported to flourish in all areas, including as a key stakeholder within the Investment Zones.
Investment in community tech is an essential, pragmatic step towards Britain’s growth and recovery. Limiting the UK’s view of innovation to inventions and investments creates significant risks: while we wait for speculative economic benefits of generative AI to be realised, we risk missing out on realising and distributing the well-established benefits of existing technologies and building the depth of talent, skills and infrastructure needed to create a truly digital nation.
A true innovation culture does not only deliver moonshots and venture capital money, it also gives more people the means to acquire new skills, find solutions to challenges, and make the best use of the resources at their disposal. A culture of innovation does not have to mean relying on the spillover benefits of science parks, it can also be a democratising force that empowers more people to build and contribute to their communities and their communities’ future.
But the UK is not yet in a position to take that opportunity.
According to research by the Centre for Progressive Policy, 1 in 4 UK businesses have not yet adopted basic ICT in their management practices. The Chancellor’s budget promised the UK would become a “quantum enabled economy” over the next decade, but – given we are not yet an ICT-enabled economy – this seems like a tall order. To achieve significant growth, the UK needs better and more equitably distributed technological foundations. Community technologies can help to deliver this by increasing technical literacy and agency in communities and across the country, beyond traditional tech hotspots, and help deliver sustainable, affordable solutions that give people more choice and more power in their everyday lives.