What Can Prime Minister Burnham Do for Design? Jasper Sanders and other design leaders share their vision for transforming procurement, regional resurgence and cultural identity.
What can Prime Minister Burnham do for design?
Published by Design Week, the article explores what Andy Burnham’s move from Greater Manchester Mayor to Prime Minister could mean for the UK’s design industry, asking whether his understanding of design at a regional level could translate into meaningful national change.
Bringing together a broad group of designers, strategists and creative leaders, the article examines how government could better harness the UK’s world-leading creative capability. The overall message is one of cautious optimism. While Burnham is recognised as a politician who understands the value of design and place, contributors are clear that ambition needs to translate into structural change rather than rhetoric or regional tokenism.
A significant focus is placed on public procurement. Contributors argue that current government frameworks often favour large consultancies through high turnover thresholds, extensive tender processes and unpaid creative pitches, excluding smaller, specialist studios from competing on merit. The article explores how breaking contracts into smaller, specialist and regional lots, separating strategic thinking from delivery, and paying for creative work could create a more open and competitive marketplace.
There is also a strong emphasis on regional capability and the built environment. Contributors reject the idea that work should simply be directed north because of geography. Instead, the argument is for genuine meritocracy, giving talented regional studios the opportunity to compete alongside London-based practices while allowing greater creative decision-making to sit with regional authorities.
Within this broader conversation, Jasper Sanders, brings a specific perspective on sustainability and the circular economy. His contribution highlights the need for government to move beyond departmental thinking and establish a genuinely joined-up approach to waste, reuse and the built environment.
Sanders points to Defra’s Circular Economy Growth Plan as a positive starting point, but argues that circularity cannot sit within a single government department. For designers, the principle is already embedded in the way buildings are approached, particularly through retaining existing fabric and avoiding demolition as the default response. The article uses this contribution to broaden the discussion beyond procurement and regionalism, towards the way government itself needs to think about the long-term value of buildings, materials and resources.
His perspective reinforces one of the article’s central themes, that better outcomes require design thinking to be embedded much earlier in decision-making. Rather than treating design as something applied at the end of a process, government has an opportunity to use design as a strategic tool for creating more sustainable, resilient and meaningful places.
Ultimately, Design Week asks whether Burnham can turn an apparent appreciation of design into meaningful systemic change. The collective response is clear: the opportunity exists, but it requires government to become a better client, to value expertise over scale, empower regional talent and place design, sustainability and long-term thinking much closer to the heart of decision-making.
Read the full article in Design Week