Report of the Strategic Director (Growth and Development)

This report presents the final economic strategy which will be taken to Executive on 15 November, and describes the development process followed in creating the strategy.

The Committee received a report of the Strategic Director (Growth and Development) which presented the final economic strategy which would be taken to Executive on 15 November and described the development process followed in creating the strategy.

Key points and themes within the report included:

• The development process;
• Resident and worker engagement;
• Business engagement;
• Phase 2 online survey;
• The Council’s response to the challenges; and
• Delivery and measuring success.

Key points and queries that arose from the Committee’s discussions included:

• The impact of the cancellation of the HS2 line to Manchester;
• Electricity North West’s capacity to increase supply at the speed and scale required;
• How the Council was engaging with residents, ensuring that the people responding to consultations were representative of the population of the city, including on ethnicity, level of qualifications and employment status;
• Data capture and monitoring measures, including the impact of the pandemic on ways of working, ensuring that equity and inclusive growth were included in the measures and that consideration should be given to including a measure on the proportion of people’s income spent on rent;
• The focus on the city centre and the importance of ensuring that deprived neighbourhoods benefited from economic growth; and
• Whether there was an over-reliance on high value growth sectors.

The Leader expressed her frustration and concern about the decision in relation to HS2.  She reported that improving connections between the east and west and north and south would enable the city to unleash its full potential and that the city was facing a challenge in addressing this without any meaningful discussion with national Government as yet on alternative transport projects; however, she advised that the Council would continue to pursue this and engage in discussions with the Government.  She stated that businesses needed certainty and a coherent plan and that the Council was working to reassure stakeholders.  She stated that the Council would be working with Greater Manchester colleagues on what infrastructure investment was needed over the next ten years, including transport, the electricity grid and the decarbonisation of energy.  In response to a Member’s question about capitalising politically on the launch of the Strategy to lobby the Government and the Opposition frontbench on behalf of the city, she stated that she had been putting forward the case that a future Government could place responsibility for economic development on local authorities, with a duty to collaborate across the combined authority area.  She stated that political lobbying would take place regarding the tools that the city needed to achieve the ambitions set out in the Strategy.  She reported that the measures set out in appendix 2 were still a work in progress and highlighted the Key Performance Indicators for Making Manchester Fairer which, she advised, when brought together with these measures, would provide a richer picture.

The Strategic Director (Growth and Development) reported that the Council had a strong relationship with Electricity North West and met regularly with them to review requirements, ensuring that forecasted growth in the city and Electricity North West’s 5-year investment plans were aligned, adding that there was also scope for flexibility within their plans, informed by the ongoing discussions.  In response to questions relating to data gathering and monitoring, she offered to bring regular updates to the Committee on the Performance Management Framework.

The Chair commented that it would be useful for the Committee to receive updates on the Performance Management Framework and consideration would be given to the timing and frequency of these.

The Strategy and Economic Policy Manager informed Members about the engagement that had taken place in relation to the Strategy, including work to reach different groups, such as face-to-face engagement in different communities and settings.  He highlighted the further opportunity to engage with residents on the refresh of the Our Manchester Strategy.  He reported on the measures that would be used to monitor progress in relation to the areas that the Strategy was intended to influence, acknowledging that work was still needed on the data gathering process and use of data in relation to a couple of aspects of this work.  He informed Members that the information on rent was available and could be included and that the intention was to include measures relating to inclusive growth and equity, with work still taking place on how best to do this.  He advised that using measures which could be compared against trends was helpful when there was an event which had a significant economic impact, such as the pandemic, as the Council could see how Manchester was performing against other cities.  The Head of City Policy reported that the measures had been split into resident prosperity and economic performance.

The Strategic Director (Growth and Development) reported that the city centre would be the primary driver of growth but that the Council was also looking at the role of other areas and neighbourhoods across the city such as Wythenshawe, Holt Town, Gorton, Moston and Withington and could look again at whether this was reflected strongly enough in the Strategy.  She stated that the Strategy reflected the importance of both the high value and the everyday economy and that the Council recognised the importance of employment across and the need to support all sectors but that high value sectors would drive the biggest increases in productivity.  She reported that one of the successes of Manchester had been in diversifying its economy. 

In response to a Member’s question on the Community Health Equity Manchester (CHEM) sounding boards, the Director of Inclusive Economy reported that these had been developed during the pandemic as a way of communicating with different communities and that her service had engaged with them on work relating to the cost-of-living.  She advised that she would respond to the Member’s question on the structure and make-up of the sounding boards after the meeting.  She reported that these sounding boards were one part of a wider system relating to the Communities and Power theme of Making Manchester Fairer.

The Chair noted that the issue of ensuring that consultation responses and engagement reflected the diversity across the city had been raised at a number of the Committee’s meetings and advised Members that he would speak to the Chair of the Communities and Equalities Scrutiny Committee about how this was being scrutinised by her Committee.

A Member commented that it was important for the Council to clearly communicate to residents the purpose of consultations and how the responses would be used to improve the lives of Manchester residents.

In response to a Member’s request that a measure on the proportion of people’s income spent on rent be included in the measures for the Strategy, the Leader confirmed that this would be included in the final version.

Decision:

To commend the Strategy to the Executive for adoption.