Greater Manchester

Right place and time for change

This article originally appeared in the Municipal Journal.

This week all eyes will be on the Autumn Statement. While the headlines will likely focus on questions of tax and public funding on the national level, the question of whether local government will receive any relief from more than 13 years of austerity will probably not make the cut.

Yet the systematic defunding and devaluing of local government is – I would argue – one of the reasons why there are growing levels of poverty, hardship and destitution, creating huge vulnerability in places across the UK, generating significant pressure in the NHS and in social care and undermining the potential of local economies. For decades, every chancellor has stood at the dispatch box and argued their plan is the one that will set this country on the path to prosperity for all. That they will deregulate, bulldoze, cut through regulation, look under stones in the pursuit of growth. Few are bothered about the quality of the economy they are nurturing, merely the upward trajectory. Often the most important question is missed: who benefits?
“The gap between those who have least and most is growing”
Take Greater Manchester, for example, where recent CLES research shows the city region’s economy has more than doubled since 1998. Yet a third of children live in poverty, there are 16,000 live applications for social housing and 390 neighbourhoods are among the most deprived in the UK. The wealth of the average Greater Manchester resident, including property and other assets, is around £84,400 while the 11 richest individuals in the city region have a combined wealth of more than £9.3bn. The gap between those who have least and most is growing year-on-year.

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Post-Covid recovery through culture

The cultural and night time economies provide a compelling route to economic recovery for town centres, but this approach is not without the risk of exacerbating inequalities. Working with the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) culture team, CLES have been exploring an approach to developing sustainable business districts for creatives in Greater Manchester’s towns, that offer economic and social advantages to the people already living in those places.

As the UK’s towns and cities begin to move beyond the peaks of the Covid-19 crisis, discussions are turning towards the process for economic recovery and reform at the local level. The pre-pandemic trend towards lower occupancy rates of retail and leisure spaces evident in many places has intensified and local authorities are ever more receptive to ideas which have the ability to breathe life into high streets.

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Social Value 2020: people, place and planet 

Since 2008, CLES have been working with Manchester City Council to harness its procurement spend and maximise the economic, social and environmental benefit generated for its people, place and the planet.

Our collaboration has helped build a more inclusive economy over the last decade. The early adoption of an ethical procurement policy, a unique social value weighting of 20% in the tender process and a focus on supplier engagement in areas of deprivation has put Manchester City Council at the forefront of progressive procurement practice.
“CLES is working with councils across the UK to build community wealth and create good local economies for all.”
Progressive procurement is one important part of community wealth building: a systems approach to economic development built on local roots. It aims to reorganise local economies to put control back in the hands of local people, with wealth being generated, circulated and held locally. CLES is working with councils across the UK to build community wealth and create good local economies for all.

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Yes, we should move public sector anchors out of London

Today, the Centre for Cities (CfC) issued a new report suggesting that the re-location of the BBC to Salford has had minimal impact on employment across Greater Manchester and that city-regions looking to attract public sector organisations should not overplay the potential benefits. The work is framed by analysis of the types of jobs which have been re-located, the sectors where jobs growth have happened over the last five years, and the scope of displacement of jobs from across wider Greater Manchester.

While it is important to highlight quantitatively the short-term impact of re-location on employment change, the Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES) would argue that any assessment of impact of public sector re-location has to go beyond employment. We would argue that the BBC re-location has brought a whole host of benefits for the direct MediaCity locality, for the City of Salford, and for Greater Manchester including:

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