Money meant for poorest handed back to government in housing benefits blunder

Article published: Wednesday, May 29th 2013

Manchester City Council has given back to the government a “substantial” amount of funding intended for people falling behind on housing costs after thousands of pounds went unspent in the last two years.

Day care centres under closure threat

Article published: Tuesday, May 14th 2013

Yet more adult social care cuts are on the way, with Manchester City Council refusing to rule out potential day care centre closures for people with learning and physical disabilities.

Patient safety fears as council slashes health watchdog funding

Article published: Friday, March 1st 2013

Concerns are mounting over patient safety following severe cuts to Manchester’s independent health watchdog.

Slum city: how Manchester will be hammered by welfare reforms

Article published: Tuesday, February 5th 2013

The Economist magazine might list Manchester in the top 50 most expensive cities in the world, but the Coalition government’s welfare reforms will see an explosion in homelessness, debt and slum landlords.

Millions spent on PFI “white elephants” as fire service staff face sack

Article published: Tuesday, April 17th 2012

Hundreds of local frontline fire service staff face the sack despite millions of pounds of public money used to bailout a national initiative undertaken by the previous government and denounced by Parliamentary watchdogs as “one of the worst cases of project failure” they have seen “in many years”.

Cuts take at least £1 billion from Greater Manchester – and there’s much worse to come

Article published: Tuesday, January 17th 2012

At least £1 billion in public spending was cut from the “city region” of Greater Manchester and Warrington over the last year, according to University of Manchester researchers. The study, carried out for Radio 4, anticipates a total of £10 billion to be slashed from the area over the next four years as part of the government’s austerity drive.

Report reveals North West employers are axing jobs and ignoring trade unions

Article published: Monday, December 5th 2011

A new report from the Manchester Business School’s Fairness at Work research programme sheds some light on the way employers in the North West have been responding to the recession. Read on to discover what’s happening to our workplaces…