Agenda item

The Head of Programmes & Relationships, Mansion House spoke to the Committee on the Mayoral Visits Advisory Committee (MVAC), explaining that MVAC supported the Lord Mayor in their role as the Ambassador for the City by deliberating, debating and agreeing forthcoming mayoral international travel. This was based on the opportunities for UK FPS trade and investment in UK PLC provided to them and for the wider diplomatic and civic engagement that would underpin this. MVAC also considered engagement with UK nations and regions which was very much based around the City Corporation’s partnership strategy with Edinburgh, Cardiff, Belfast, Leeds, Manchester and Birmingham.

It was reported that the Committee had existed for a number of decades and had evolved over time to sharpen its focus in terms of the Lord Mayor’s role and what outcomes they were hoping to achieve on behalf of UK PLC when visiting foreign markets. Its schedule was not set in stone and normally covered a period of between 6-9 months in the run-up to a new Mayoralty and hold 2-3 formal meetings. The MVAC membership was relatively small, consisting of the Chair of this Committee as its Chair, a number of senior Aldermen, former Lord Mayors, the Policy Chair, the Vice Policy Chair, Chair of Finance and Chief Commoner. It was highlighted that MVACA also considered the Policy Chair’s programme of international engagement, particularly in terms of where the two programmes could support and compliment one another. Those Officers supporting the work of MVAC were drawn from Mansion House in the Programme Team, from IG (particularly Trade and Investment) and Governance and Member Services.

In terms of the evidence considered by MVAC with regard to which markets to suggest, it very much looked at the Innovation and Growth Market Prioritisation Strategy, the Competitiveness Strategy and the advice of the Board here and existing campaigns on sectors where advantage for UK PLC was evident such as sustainable finance or FinTech. MVAC also considered the priorities of Government and the proposals of the incoming Lord Mayor on potential markets and where they might have linkage. MVAC then went on to carry out a consultation, looking across all sectors within financial and professional services and interviewing key firms, associations and professional bodies as well as those within government, the Treasury, FCO and DIT as well as the Office for Investment, the Ministry for Justice and DCMS. Timings of visits and other factors relevant to specific posts/markets were also carefully considered before programmes were finalised.

Alongside all of this incoming requests from Government for the Lord Mayor to attend or lead on elements of their programme were received. Officers reported that they also sought, through business delegations, to stack UK, devolved and regional engagement into the early part of the Mayoralty as this then enabled Lord Mayors and the City Corporation to engage with many regional firms which may then become candidates to take around the world as part of business delegations. It was highlighted that this also worked conversely with Officers reporting that the current Lord Mayor had recently visited Cardiff with a number of investors.

It was reported that MVAC also looked at inward engagement at both the Guildhall and Mansion House as part of its evidence and priority gathering, particularly for those markets that a Lord Mayor might not visit during their time in office.

The Chairman thanked Mr Blackburn for his informative presentation and reiterated that this had come a long way since its inception particularly in terms of communication and collaboration with the Treasury, Foreign Office and DIT which was essential.

An Alderman noted that it was reported that the MVAC Team worked alongside a large number of other organisations/departments internally as well as externally. He recognised that each of these would also have their own priorities and questioned how these were ranked/aligned alongside those of the City. He also  asked if Officers could provide more information as to the approach to delegations. Officers responded to state that, in terms of the different views as to which markets should be visited, this was very much around how the MVAC Team applied a level of weighting within the sifting process, particularly from various firms and where they saw market advantage and opportunity balanced against where HMG, for example, may be looking at trade deals. This will also have formed a part of the IG market prioritisation process. Decisions around delegations were based around discussions with the host market and others as to capacity and opportunity. It was recognised that there would be times when a Lord Mayor visiting alone would be more appropriate and the best approach but other times when it was preferable for the Lord Mayor to act as a convener and means of introducing certain businesses.

Another Alderman questioned whether there was a follow up programme after a visit had taken place, recognising that there was a limit to what any Lord Mayor or delegation might achieve with one visit. He also questioned how the City measured the value of its visits. Officers reported that each visit had a number of objectives and outcomes tied to it from the outset. These were followed up both as part of the individual mayoralty but also a continuum between mayoralties in terms of dealing with certain stakeholders This was also factored into the IG market plans for dealing with each of these markets, the component stakeholder’s governments and business within those. An example of this was a recent visit by Alderman Russell to the Far East where, in discussion with the Trade Commissioner, the concept of an ASEAN dinner in the City with all of the UK-based ASEAN Ambassadors invited to attend has been worked up alongside HMG. The Chairman commented that the soft convening power of the Lord Mayor on such visits when accompanied by a business delegation was key. He added that feedback on this point was frequently sought and was overwhelmingly positive.

Another Alderman queried whether a post-trip report was produced, particularly for larger trips in terms of KPI and follow-up and whether some examples of these could be shared with this Committee. Officers confirmed that such reports were produced and that they were currently looking at how both the content and availability of these could be improved such that they might be more readily available to the wider Court of Aldermen in due course.

An Alderman commented that he remained unclear as to who was represented on MVAC, who appointed to it and what its terms of reference were. He encouraged more work to be done in terms of greater transparency in this respect. He also questioned whether there was an equivalent process to this in terms of the Policy Chair’s programme of visits and the extent to which it was felt there was appropriate engagement with the Policy Chair on these matters to co-ordinate the two and maximise the effectiveness of visits. Officers assured the Committee that there was always very early engagement with the Policy Chair and their office to ensure that the two aligned in terms of international travel and to identify as many opportunities as possible for joint visits. The idea was to continue to encourage deeper integration and joint working on these matters going forward.

The Lord Mayor commented that co-ordination with the Office of the Policy Chair was very constructive. He confirmed that regional visits had been the main focus of his Mayoralty to date with visits to Belfast and Edinburgh already undertaken and a visit to Dublin planned for next week alongside the Policy Chair. On joint visits, each had their own programme of events but then came together for certain receptions and important meetings. The Lord Mayor added that there was a lot of sophistication around the MVAC process that had been derived over approximately 25 years. He added that it was important to remember that the Lord Mayor was in post for just one year whereas the Policy Chair tended to serve for five years meaning that that postholder had a better opportunity to build personal relationships in this period. This also raised an important consideration for the Court of Aldermen as to how they might best build upon the relationships formed by individual Lord Mayors with key stakeholders and maximise assets. The Lord Mayor reported that international trips were extremely full in terms of meetings and a great deal of preparation with ambassadors beforehand and follow-up afterwards. The Lord Mayor stated that it was particularly helpful that Alderman Russell had visited Hong Kong when it had first begun to open up several weeks ago in order to crystalise a conversation on Green Finance that would hopefully manifest itself at the Net Zero Delivery Summit to be held later this year. In terms of delegations, the Lord Mayor reported that they postholder had Cabinet status when travelling and was therefore looked after by the relevant Ambassador. He added that it was clear to see the value that Ambassadors placed upon these Mayoral visits in terms of opening doors and that feedback provided by the Embassy was overwhelmingly positive in terms of the value of the visit for them.

The Chairman commented that the inclusion of SABTAC in recent and future Mayoral visits was also a positive in terms of establishing a continuum.

An Alderman questioned what approach was taken to facilitating visits to emerging economies such as Bangladesh and what mechanisms were in place for members of the Court of Aldermen to put forward these types of suggestions. He also questioned whether it was possible to devise a set of KPIs so that it was obvious to determine what success looked like post each visit. In terms of emerging markets, Officers stated that he would encourage Aldermen to talk to both the Mansion House and IG on these points as they developed and improved the market prioritisation plans and to feed into the MVAC process.  Visits were also considered in terms of their potential diplomatic and civic merits. In terms of KPIs, Officers stated that these were being considered in greater detail around things such as quality of relationships. They undertook to report back on these in more detail in due course. The Chairman confirmed that Bangladesh had been on the programme of Mayoral visits for 2020/21 to mark the anniversary of its independence but that this had not happened as a result of the COVID pandemic.

An Alderman cautioned that it was frequently difficult to set out concrete KPIs around visits given that these were often the start of a process/opportunities in terms of opening doors as opposed to Prime Ministerial trade visits that were often accompanied by an announcement as to deals signed and the like and came later on.