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…

Return of a desperate urban policy?

Article published: Thursday, November 10th 2011

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.

Voices of the Manchester Strike

Article published: Thursday, June 30th 2011

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.