Senior sector figures have demanded a radical shake-up of the nation's failing economy. 

Speaking at the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives (SOLACE) Summit today, deputy director at the Centre for Progressive Policy think-tank, Charlotte Alldritt, claimed the 'trickle down' economic model paraded by Whitehall was 'not working'. 

She said: 'The resilience in our economy in turbulent times is the most pressing problem, and one if I was in the Treasury I would be thinking about. 

'I would tell the Treasury that its model of the economy is not delivering the outcomes we or the Office for Budget Responsibility want to see. 

'How will you shift your model, particularly the macro economic model, and rewrite that in a local way?'

Ms Alldritt, claimed those who would be left behind by the rise of automation would be the same people who had been left behind by previous recessions and deindustrialisation. 

She continued: 'We should be going to place level and asking what can we do to provide training, shared prosperity through skills and other things as part of this move towards a new model of macro economics.'

Chief executive of the Centre for Local Economic Strategies, Neil McInroy claimed the Government's Industrial Strategy was 'strong on diagnosis, weak on prognosis' as he described 'those who still believe in liberal economics' as 'luddites'.

He said with the 'economic crisis ongoing', the nation needed to build a new 'social contract' that would 'reshape the social and spatial planning of the UK landscape'.