THE WEALTHIEST CITY IN BRITAIN 

Manchester generates around a quarter of the North West’s wealth and is the largest and fastest employment growth area in the region.  In the last 5 years alone, Manchester has secured over £2 billion of private investment and generated around 45,000 new jobs.  The Manchester: Knowledge Capital initiative could create up to 100,000 new jobs over the next 10 years and over 50,000 job opportunities will continue to be created each year through turnover in the labour market.

Manchester City Council is the best performing Council in the whole country when it comes to growing business; generating the biggest rise in the business base anywhere in England in 2005.

However, too many residents are unemployed or economically inactive.  There are still many residents with few or no qualifications or skills and many fact discrimination or other difficulties in gaining employment.  The Labour Council will work with Government agencies to help these residents gain skills and qualifications and to find employment.

The Labour Council has schemes to encourage Manchester residents to apply for Council jobs and initiatives like Black Staff Groups to support black staff and encourage their development within the Council and the use of apprenticeship schemes for young workers.   The Labour Council has been recently named as one of the best employers for lesbian and gay employees by Stonewall.

The Labour Government has developed policies that improve unemployed people’s access to jobs: Jobcentre Plus, the New Deal, the Working Tax Credit etc.  However, ensuring that all Manchester people are able to work will require improvements in the qualifications, skills and work experiences many residents hold.  Work has begun:

 The first Skills Board in the country has been established to provide an opportunity to improve the skills levels of residents and help them to compete for jobs.
 An innovative joint project between the City Council and Jobcentre Plus called Stepping Stones aims to reduce benefit dependency in the City.  The project works with people receiving incapacity benefits and is a national model of good practice.
 The Labour Council is working closely with social enterprises to develop a programme of investment that will create jobs in the most deprived communities.

These initiatives have meant that the rate of unemployment in Manchester is falling faster than the national average.
However, Manchester Labour believes that many public agencies, including the Learning & Skills Council, the North West Development Agency & ‘Job Centre Plus’, must focus their resources and efforts in Manchester where people need the most help to get the skills necessary to get jobs.  The Labour Council will make sure that the organisations with direct responsibility for getting people into jobs improve their services to Manchester people and employers.

The creation of a single Manchester College by the merger of MANCAT and City College will play a major role in equipping Manchester residents, particularly young people, with the skills they need to benefit from Manchester’s economic growth. Manchester Labour will ensure that the new college benefits residents across the whole of Manchester. We will also work to make sure that Manchester Adult Education Service is focussed on providing residents with these skills, and will seek to make learning more accessible to all our communities.

Manchester Labour recognises the importance of local post offices to our communities and local businesses. We will work constructively with Government and the Post Office to ensure services are improved and neighbourhoods have access to post offices and post office services.

We will ensure that the Labour Council promotes co-operative models of service delivery in practical ways.

Not every Manchester resident is able to benefit from the growing economy and so we will ensure that the Labour Council further develops strategies that ensure that the quality of life for everybody is enhanced.  In particular, we will ensure that Council systems are easier to understand and that if people are in debt, that they get the best possible advice.

Manchester Labour will ensure that the Labour Council works with the Voluntary Sector, the Banks, Building Societies and Credit Card Companies to provide high quality financial advice and information to ensure that vulnerable people do not have to pay excessively high interests rates.  We encourage the development of Credit Unions that can provide valuable local community provision.

Young people represent the future of Manchester and we will make sure that in particular regeneration schemes benefit young people.  Specially good job opportunities including apprenticeships will be promoted.

Manchester Labour will do all in its power to defend and improve occupational pension schemes and campaign for increases in the state old age pension to improve the living standards of our retired citizens.