Justin Brown

I have a degree in European Community Studies, French, and Spanish, and I graduated at the time of the 1991 recession.  So I came home to Lincolnshire to live with my parents, eventually getting a YTS placement at the local Training and Enterprise Council.  My job was to arrange for European Social Fund bids to be filled in.  We got about £600,000 in that bidding round so they decided to take me on permanently!

My role at the TEC evolved into their European Programmes and Social Enterprise Manager, so I had responsibility both for training schemes that weren’t part of the mainstream and for helping social enterprises and voluntary groups to become involved in delivering those schemes.

In 1999 the TECs were closed and several of us TUPE transferred across to Lincolnshire County Council where my role was expanded to include management of the SRB regeneration programmes.  That was my first experience of CEDOS, using my boss at the time’s connections to go and pick the brains of Warwickshire County Council’s SRB team.

My job has changed and adapted whilst I’ve been at Lincolnshire County Council, from leading our investment of £50m match funding for our Objective 2 action plan –covering infrastructure, broadband, tourism, and communities) to becoming Head of Economic Development with responsibility for policy, business, tourism, regeneration, and skills.

As Assistant Director for Growth I’m now responsible for economic development, economic infrastructure, policy strategy and lobbying, and our planning service.  I’ve also led on the establishment of a sister twinning relationship with Hunan Province, China.

I am very proud of the work that my team and our partners have done to help the economy through the Covid-19 crisis.

Two days before the first lockdown we sat down and agreed our strategy for informing businesses, for co-ordinating business grants, and for stepping in to help our business centre tenants and our subcontractors to cope with the situation.  Two days later, lockdown was announced and we had already got all of our plans and policies in place.

Since then we’ve used our really good relationships with district council partners, chamber, FSB, CBI, local colleges, and DWP to deliver the services that our economy requires quickly, professionally, and effectively.

In 9 months we have collectively:

• Distributed 19,000 grants
• Put vital information onto websites and social media within 24 hours of it becoming available
• Launched a wellbeing service for business leaders
• Attracted £26m in regeneration grants for our priorities
• Established local task forces to address the problems of large redundancies

In an environment which often works in the long-term, we’ve shown that we can really step up and deliver services quickly.

Local leadership of employment policy –in the large and often rural areas that CEDOS members represent, helping people into employment is a question not just of skills and training, it’s a question of access whether that is financial, transport, childcare, or something else.

I strongly believe that the only way to understand these issues is through local knowledge, and I also strongly believe that many of the levers to help people to overcome barriers to employment should be established locally.  That way they will be better embedded in our communities and they will be far more sustainable.

Could anyone in CEDOS contemplate not being an economic development professional…?

Networking with a purpose.

I love the fact that if I have a problem that I am struggling to solve, CEDOS gives me the opportunity to contact a fellow member and ask their advice.

My fellow members have the same professional background, the same context in which they work, and the chances are they have either previously done something about the problem that I am struggling to solve, or they are thinking about that problem in their own area.

I’ve asked the advice of CEDOS colleagues twice already this year, and it’s been really valuable.  Free advice from a fellow professional…what’s not to like ?

I would urge all CEDOS members to make the most of the networking opportunities.