City wants control over business support

GREATER Manchester’s city chiefs are fighting to maintain a meaningful role for key local agencies like Marketing Manchester and Midas by retaining control of strategies for business support and inward investment.

Speaking at Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce’s property and construction seminar,  Manchester City Council chief executive  Sir Howard Bernstein said that there is currently “a real tension” in the Government between ministers’ desire to promote localism through its Big Society agenda and between government departments who were looking to centralise more delivery models as part of its bid to cut costs.

“What we’ve said to Government is that we want the ability to lead on business support, inward investment, marketing and tourism.

“Why? Because we understand what the needs and the priorities of Greater Manchester’s businesses are and we want to ensure that the support they receive is a fair reflection of their needs. You don’t get that from national models of support and delivery.

“If that means we can undertake regional roles too and that’s accepted by our partners elsewhere in the North West that’s something we’ll happily do.”

At a regeneration summit in Manchester last month, Business minister Mark Prisk said the Coalition Government intended to centralise functions roles such as inward investment and business support, as under the regional development agency structure such services often overlapped and regions competed against each other to bring in the same inward investment projects, creating unnecessary waste.

“By leading from the centre will be able to provide the consistency in these vital activities which business needs. And we will be able to maximise the value from tighter budgets,” said Mr Prisk.

At Wednesday’s event, Sir Howard also told the audience of property and construction figures that the £350m JESSICA fund it is building for investment in stalled projects would allow it to use public sector resources to take a long term view of investment in what he described as “inherently viable” projects.

“I think we’re building a fund in Greater Manchester is not only going to be hugely innovative investment model but it will also but also has the real capacity to make a difference if we get all our ducks in a row.

“If that is the case you’ll be hearing a lot more from my colleagues and myself about how the private sector can support what we’re doing and benefit from it.”