The UK's ‘clunky, centrally-planned' approach to economic growth must be scrapped if all communities are to benefit, an expert has warned.

Ahead of her speech at the London Councils Summit next weekend, chair of the RSA's Inclusive Growth Commission, Stephanie Flanders, called on the country to revise its approach to growth by better linking education with local labour markets and forming closer ties between services, schools, transport and health.

In a comment piece for The MJ Ms Flanders said efforts to tackle long-term skills and productivity issues would need to ‘move us away from the clunky, centrally-planned corporatism of yesteryear'.

She wrote: ‘The challenge will be for places themselves to define their own vision for inclusive growth and to work within a more grown up devolution context that blends the best of central and local government.'