How Darlington Economic Campus is flying flag for our region
The Darlington Economic Campus has been a huge plus for the town and the wider region – the standout example of how Government not only CAN be run from the regions, but has to be.
The voice it was looking for, the local accent to balance the home counties tone, has been heard loud and clear and now has a permanent place in conversations about the most complex and impactful economic policies of the UK.
When DEC first landed at Feethams no one knew what to expect. It was probably just a rather large gesture to show evidence of Levelling Up. The fact that it might provide new jobs was almost a side issue.
So DEC and people like Pauline Crellin had to prove why they were there. Not to the government, who knew what they wanted it to do, but to local people for who it might as well have been a spaceship landing a few yards from St Cuthbert’s.
It had to blend in to be able to stand out.
Soon, it was the actual work of the Treasury, DBT, Office for National Statistics, Department for Energy Security & Net Zero, Department for Culture, Media & Sport, Competition and Markets Authority, Department for Education and the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology and Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government that would provide the answers.
They all needed staff at every level, and while there was a steady flow of relocations from London, hundreds more would be needed – each bringing that vital voice of local experience. There are now around 1,000 civil servants officially working at the campus – with more than 800 of them recruited from the North East.
As Director of UK Exports and the Department for Business and Trade’s Head of Location at DEC, Pauline and her team are proud of their campus and the very careful balance it strikes every day between Government work and local employer.
She has spent more than 20 years at the heart of Government, with Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in 2002, then Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, UK Trade & Investment , Department for Work and Pensions and now at DBT in Darlington.
Sitting in the Minister’s office at DEC next to the furled Union Flag you are more likely to see behind Chancellors and Prime Ministers, Pauline told me about her journey from South to North as one of the first civil servants to move up to Darlington to set the campus up.
“There were a small handful of us who were almost seeded to get the ball rolling and to get things going,” she said.
“My career previously had always been in London, where I had been a civil servant since 2002 in Westminster.
“When the opportunity came to do my job somewhere brand new – completely unknown to me – I thought, well, fortune favours the bold….
“So we moved up lock, stock and barrel. I didn’t retain a comfort blanket. I thought, no, let’s just go for it.
“I had been based just outside of London, near the M25 and we sold up and bought a house here. My family is still in the South East, so it’s just me and my husband and two big smelly dogs – an Irish terrier named Finn and a dog called a Berger Picard that is basically a big shaggy blonde German Shepherd.
“He likes swimming in the rivers, so they’re having fun, and then my journey to work is about an hour door to door, which for somebody from London is not a lot.
“We often run sessions for our colleagues back in London and in other offices and tell them about the schools and the houses and where you can live and the commute and the countryside. There are really special things about Darlington and the North East that I think make it an absolute no brainer to want to come and be part of something in such a beautiful area.
“I’ve got no other family here, I’m not from here and I didn’t know or understand the region very well. But the thing that attracted me was the mission, the thing that we were trying to achieve, which is to make sure that there are opportunities right across the country for people to come and do great jobs.
“Working in the civil service means you’re never bored, that’s for sure. But the other thing, which is slightly more fundamental, is to make sure that we diversify the thought process that goes into policymaking and that we represent the communities we serve.
“As a mission, that has always been incredibly compelling because one of the things that we were determined to do from the start in the campus was to make it more than the sum of its parts. It was so important to us that the campus was not just an office moved out of London, it had to be firmly embedded in the place and in the local area.
“You have to have some staff who moved up from London, but in Darlington we’re still running at around 80% of people recruited from the region, which is amazing – but always part of what we set out to do. The talent we’ve been able to tap into in the North East from people who never imagined that they would have civil service careers has been amazing.
“When we had the Treasury Select Committee here recently – which is groundbreaking to have a select committee in the regions – we took them around the building to talk to staff and one of the people they talked to said that she would never have dreamed that she would have worked in the civil service if you’d asked her five years ago.
“She said she would have told them ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about…that’s not for me’ But now she’s here as part of a thriving community.”
The type of people DEC is looking come from a wide range of backgrounds and education. You don’t have to have a degree to work in the civil service, but Pauline says it is really important that you have initiative and curiosity.
“That’s what helps us solve problems,” she says.
“And if you’re great at engaging with people and businesses and communities that’s what we’re here to do. The other quite unique thing is that obviously the civil service still has a big presence in London so the odds are your line manager or members of your team might not be here in Darlington. So you can imagine the sort of communication skills you’re going to need to tap into that, stay engaged and be at ease with the technology you need. These people on the campus have all embraced that and are all really flying with it. It’s great to see.”
Darlington is not only part of the Government set-up, it is already starting to influence its new surroundings with new staff leading to fresh ideas about hot-desking and breaking down some of the literal barriers between departments.
Pauline explains: “Part of what we set out to do was revolutionise the way that we collaborate across departments, and so far there is something quite unique about the Darlington Economic Campus.
“The departments all sit together, working and collaborating in a way that traditionally we haven’t. In London, the Treasury Building and the Department for Business and Trade buildings are right across Horse Guards Parade from each other. But they’re very separate and you can’t get into them if your pass doesn’t work.
“Here it’s a completely new model which is making us work better, and you learn every day from the people sitting around you. Just before I met you today, at the bank of desks that I’m sat at there were two people who I didn’t know, so I had a good chat with them and found out they’re from other government departments and are relatively new starters.
“That sort of sharing of experiences and ideas and thoughts completely underpins what we’ve always been trying to do.”
The success of the whole move means another building is needed – on vacant land at Brunswick Street, right across the road from St Cuthbert’s.
The investment of more than £100million will bring a four-storey government hub to work alongside Feethams House and Bishopsgate House, but it is the long-term vision that will appeal most as the Government locks in its belief in the power of the regions.
“Although we had great ambitions, I’m sure we didn’t know how quickly we were going to be successful,” Pauline says.
“We were absolutely just bowled over and delighted by the amount of talent we were finding and we grew faster than I think we thought we would – very, very quickly. There were already 750 civil servants here in Bishopsgate in the Department for Education. They’ve been here for a long time, having massive positive impact on the area.
“So we squatted for a while on a floor of Bishopsgate House, getting increasingly squished and then had the privilege to take this building over, but quickly realised it was not going to be big enough. And so that was how the expansion to Brunswick happened.
“It was quite organic, actually. We didn’t have a masterplan to have lots of different buildings. But we have surprised ourselves, I think, with the success that we’ve had in growing.
“There has been plenty of interest from other government departments who want to be part of the campus. There are nine different government departments here now, and we’ve been firmly focused around the E in the middle of DEC – we’re in Darlington, we’ve got a strong sense of place, but we’re focused on economic policy and economic growth.”
That level of success not only means the Darlington campus will be extended, it also means the site has become a model for what could happen in other part of the country. Lessons are being learned here all the time.
Pauline says: “I don’t know if it will be quite the same model as Darlington – I always say Darlington’s got a bit of secret sauce about it that just makes it special. But certainly in places like Sheffield, government departments are already coming together around a policy campus in the same way that we’re the economic campus.
“There are clusters who are certainly learning from what we’ve done in DEC and the benefits of bringing together the thinking and also diversifying the thought from London. Moving more and more civil servants can only lead to more collaboration and potentially more campus-type approaches.
“We had the perfect illustration of the continuous learning curve we are on during a visit from His Majesty’s Trade Commissioner for Europe, Chris Barton.
“He held a roundtable with local businesses about exporting to Europe and they talked to him about exporting business and trade opportunities in Europe. That access to a trade commissioner for local businesses is unusual, but we did this in the campus because what happens here is proper work of benefit to us and to the region. Real things happen and everyone’s listening on both sides.
“There are tangible and obvious benefits in how we work, some of them longer term, but some of them really pragmatic that we can solve really quickly just by getting the businesses in the room.
“That’s what this place can achieve for businesses and for its own staff. If I look at my career path, I’m not an Oxbridge graduate. I didn’t have a specifically defined career path. And yet here I am, because I’m passionate about the job that we do and the subjects that we cover.
“One day, hopefully somebody from the North East will be sitting in this office, in that chair, saying the same thing.”