This was a session organised and hosted by the Suffolk Chamber of Commerce on behalf of the planning authorities in the English county of Suffolk. The authorities want to consider what the business environment in Suffolk might look like in 2050 so that they can ensure that the vital infrastructure is in place to facilitate that development. The evening was split into three sections - an informal networking session, followed by a briefing that framed a number of smaller group discussions, and finally a plenary session to bring together all of the smaller group discussions. From my perspective, it allowed me to get a feel for how the future is viewed and handled by non-futurists.
In my approach to the first part of the evening - a series of informal conversations - I thought that I could probe into how far the audience had embraced the future. It was, of course, an entirely unscientific sample of those attending who I spoke to, but it did manage to give me an idea of the futures literacy within the room. I managed to speak with transport and IT professionals, and I found their responses quite interesting. When asked about the policy towards autonomous vehicles, one member of the transport team didn't know what they were, let alone what the policy was. Equally, when asking about the transport policy towards drone based delivery services, once again this was news to the people responsible for such policies. I also tried to touch upon the issue of using AI and robots as care assistants (remember, we were looking out to 2050), but I was told that as we couldn't define intelligence, we would be unable to construct an artificial intelligence. I was disappointed by this part of the evening because I had been hoping for more. I had forebodings that the evening would contain a low degree of futures literacy.
The briefing section that followed the networking section framed the later conversations. 2050 was the planning horizon for the exercise. The focus was on jobs, transport, and housing. We were told that the organisers wanted:
"all the key people to come together to make stuff happen".
The exercise felt quite top down, but it did have a specific goal. Apparently the current GVA in Suffolk is £34 billion per annum, and the ambition is to drive that number to £45 billion per annum by 2050. In doing so, we would determine the place of Suffolk in the world.
This intrigued me. The vision of the future we were presented with was a Suffolk in 2050 which is well connected, has housing in the right place, has a skilled workforce to meet future needs, has a working transport infrastructure, has investment opportunities, and which has a high quality of life. Quite an ambitious list, but who wouldn't want those things? I was a bit surprised that the wish list had a heavy focus on the physical infrastructure, whilst the digital infrastructure was unmentioned. It was as if we were being asked to prepare Suffolk to meet the challenges of the 1930s!
It was at this point that we were introduced to the SPIF - Strategic Planning & Infrastructure Framework. This is the chosen delivery vehicle for the vision. It has a pathway to 2050 that contains an ambitious economic vision that balances both local and national priorities. Those of us accustomed to corporate briefings were starting to feel a bit over-full of management-speak by this point, but I kept with it. I'm glad that I did because it was here that the bombshell was dropped. To achieve this vision, 95,000 new homes would be built (i.e. building at about twice the current rate) and 46,000 new jobs would be created. These communities would be placed into an enhanced physical infrastructure that develops relationships across local authority units.
We were presented with three scenarios in which the future is to be framed:
- Development is dispersed around the county in a more or less even fashion.
- Development is concentrated in the core county town of Ipswich.
- Development occurs along the existing transport corridors.
The conversation in the workshops was supposed to focus on the roll out of these competing scenarios.
Our particular workshop tended to ignore this instruction. We were far more interested in learning where the core vision came from and contemplating the chances of success of a plan that is given - almost imposed - upon a community. A number of inconsistencies were pointed out. For example, based on the numbers we were given, there would only roughly be one new job for every two homes constructed. This does seem to be a weakness. It relies upon a demographic model of the fragmentation of family life. There are grounds to believe that this assumption may be wrong (i.e. family life will be more concentrated by 2050 than it is today), in which case one could question the entire reliability of the exercise with regards to housing.
Little consideration was given to what the jobs of the future might look like. The locations outlined in the three scenarios might be entirely unsuitable for a future workforce, but there was little evidence of sensitivity analysis to these core assumptions. Upon questioning, it appears that the authorities participating in the exercise have only a minimal budget to actualise their plans. They don't even have the money to build the roads or houses! In the light of this one has to question the validity of the whole exercise.
After the smaller workshops, we returned to the main auditorium for a plenary session, where each group reported back the two main conclusions of their deliberations. These were a mixed bag of conversations. It is hard to discern a primary theme throughout the reflections. A far more complicated and inter-related set of concerns was raised. For example, it was noted that the conversation needed a delivery framework if it is to be more than just conversation. Implementation needs a robust plan, but one which has sufficient flexibility in delivery. However, infrastructure investment is front loaded, and once started, tends to lock in a certain course of action. If that course of action has a poverty of ambition, then the whole exercise will have become the result of a pointless talking shop.
Listening to these points as they were hurried out was, in a way, inspiring. We were given 16 elements (2 points form 8 groups). It ought not to be beyond our skill to be able to stitch these elements together into a single working system, one that balances the various challenges and inconsistencies. I wonder if that work will be undertaken?
All in all, I found that the evening lived up to expectation. Prior to the event, I was of the view that the agencies involved had not really embraced the future. I feel that this expectation was realised. I was dubious of the likely success of an exercise that is presented as a top down plan. I think that I still have those reservations. I am very uncertain that the core assumption - that the future will be very similar to the past, only more of it - is a reasonable one. We were looking 33 years ahead. It was like assuming that 2017 would be broadly similar to 1984, only more of it. When we put it that way we can see how questionable that assumption is.
This isn't to give up on the exercise. It badly needs a dose of futures thinking. In my opinion, the evening demonstrated a low degree of futures literacy. However, that does create an opportunity to inject a bit of future thinking into the planning sphere, if the planners are willing to accept it. Perhaps we may provide this dose through a pro bono project?
Stephen Aguilar-Millan
© The European Futures Observatory 2017
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