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.
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”.
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.
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…
Greater Manchester Local Enterprise Partnership (GMLEP) is set to receive £24.7m from the Department for Communities and Local Government (CLG) as part of a £500m ‘Growing Places Fund’ package launched this week by Secretary of State Eric Pickles. In a seeming hark back to the policies of the dying Labour government, the scheme is designed to “get Britain building again” and kickstart stalled housing and infrastructure projects across the country.
Thousands marched through the streets of Manchester today in support of public sector strikes called against proposed pension reforms and in opposition to the government’s austerity drive. Trade unionists in the city took part in industrial action involving hundreds of thousands of workers nationwide.