360 Lecture: Martin Reeves, Chief Executive of Coventry City Council

The Department of Economics is pleased to annouce Martin Reeves will be delivering a lecture as part of the 360 Guest Lecture Series 2019/20.

A Tale of Two Cities Within a City - A Search for a New Model of Inclusive, Sustainable Economic Growth in the UK

Monday 21 January 2019, 5-6pm
OC0.03, Oculus, University of Warwick

About the speaker - Dr Martin Reeves

Martin has been Chief Executive of Coventry City Council since April 2009. He was the Chief Executive and the Head of Paid Service of the West Midlands Combined Authority from March 2016 to September 2017. He had previously been with Bedfordshire County Council for three and a half years as Assistant Chief Executive and Chief Executive.

Martin was previously Head of Performance Improvement at Westminster City Council in the heart of London. He was also Programme Director for WorkSmart the City Council’s flagship transformation programme.

Martin spent much of his early career as a lecturer and researcher, and has a PhD in applied economics. He is a Governor on the Board at Coventry University; is the first Honorary President of LARIA (Local Authorities Research and Intelligence Association) and on the board of the Centre for Cities. He was the President of SOLACE (Society of Local Authority Chief Executives) in 2013.

He is the Local Government Association (LGA) National Procurement Champion. In 2015, Martin was invited onto the independent taskforce, which produced the new 5 year national cancer strategy. He chairs the national cross system board for sustainable health & social care. He is also a member of the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Advisory Board. In 2018 Martin was once again included in the top 50 of the Local Government Chronicle’s list of most influential people in local government.

About the talk

Coventry is doing well; based on the most recent economic assessments, it is doing very well indeed. It has one of the highest Gross Value Add (GVA) improvement rates in the UK and one of the highest levels of foreign direct investment per capita outside of London. The City is enjoying its highest private sector employment rate ever. By the end of the next academic year, the City will boast over 60,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students at the University of Warwick & Coventry University. It is proud to be the Global HQ for Jaguar Land Rover; EoN; Severn Trent and Geeleys (London Electric Vehicle Company). It is European City of Sport 2019; UK City of Culture 2021 and Host City for the Commonwealth Games 2022.

These are the best of times, but there are also deep and enduring social challenges which represent the other narrative for our City, which cannot be ignored. Coventry appeared in the Sir Joseph Rowntree Foundations’ Top 10 list of highest levels of destitution and one-third of Coventry is in the 20% most deprived areas of England. 33% (30,000) of children in the City live in poverty (after taking into account housing costs). 9.4% of the population in Coventry is claiming out of work benefits as compared to the national average of 8.3%.

Registration