Summary

This paper is about how to mitigate the recession, and, where possible, turn crisis into opportunity. It has been prepared to provide a framework for thinking and action by governments and local authorities, voluntary organisations and businesses, linking the global dynamics of recession to action on the ground.

In the paper we summarise the background to the recession and the different approaches that governments around the world - national, regional and local - are taking, including what we call protective, future investment, localising and insulating responses. We describe some of the social and economic effects that are already visible, and what's likely to lie ahead.

We argue for adapting recovery plans to put a much greater emphasis on future growth industries rather than bailing out failing ones. Most available evidence suggests that the biggest employers of the next decade will be in health, education, care, environmental services and tourism. Yet recovery plans have been primarily oriented to sectors with smaller shares of employment and that are likely to further shrink in the years ahead. The care industry should be a higher priority than cars. The voluntary sector is more likely to grow jobs than retail banking.

We then recommend a series of options for public agencies and foundations to consider both to mitigate the recession and to prepare for the recovery. These include ideas for direct job creation; youth and adult apprenticeships; creative uses of empty high street buildings (eg for fast colleges providing training and gyms); and local financial institutions that can rebuild habits of saving.

We argue that the national emphasis of policy needs to be balanced with a much bigger role for local government and voluntary organisations which in previous recessions proved more agile in finding ways to use wasted resources. And we argue that the web and social networks should be used to mobilise creative ideas, and provide small grants for their development.

Finally, we suggest potential machineries at national and city level for coordinating crisis responses (with new models of war-room), gathering intelligence on economic and social impacts (based on the US Intellipedia model used by intelligence agencies), pooling capacities for action, accelerating global learning about what works and developing new financing models (such as Social Impact Bonds).

Our central argument is that the majority of current policy responses have been - inevitably - designed to fix the past, putting right the mistakes of the banks and others. The priority in the next phase is to shift direction towards fixing the future.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt argued in 1932 for "bold persistent experimentation", and said "it is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something" .

We argue for linking the two great challenges of our times that most demand ‘bold, persistent experimentation': the need for better solutions to the short-term problems of recession; and the need for better solutions to the long-term challenges of climate change and ageing, healthcare and expanding education.

This paper is a work in progress and will be updated regularly.

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Fixing the Future version 2 27 Feb 2009