Greater Manchester Strategy
Prosperity for All: the Greater Manchester Strategy
On 31 July 2009 the AGMA Executive Board approved the Greater Manchester Strategy (GMS). This is AGMA’s overarching document which sets our strategic direction up to 2020.
The GMS is based around a series of priorities – eleven in total – which can help us to deliver prosperity for all and a higher level of sustainability and quality of life for the city region. These priorities are not intended to be the only areas of importance for us, but they are the things we wish to tackle to make good on our vision of a long term sustainable economic growth based around a more connected, talented and greener city region where the prosperity secured is enjoyed by the many and not the few. By doing this on a much wider scale, the GMS will add value to the work already underway across the city region.
These strategic priorities are:
• Early years: Radically improve the early years experience for hard to reach groups, particularly in the most deprived areas.
• Better life chances: Improve life chances in the most deprived areas by investing in lifelong skills development and other forms of support so that people can compete in the modern labour market.
• The highly skilled: Increase the proportion of highly skilled people in the city region.
• Attracting talent: Attract, retain and nurture the best talent
• Transport: Significantly improve transport connectivity into and within the city region
• The economic base: Expand and diversify the city region’s economic base through digital infrastructure
• International connectivity: Increase the international connectivity of the Manchester city region’s firms, especially to the newly-emerging economies
• A low carbon economy: Achieve a rapid transformation to a low carbon economy
• The housing market: Creating quality places to meet the needs of a competitive city region.
• Effective governance: Review city region governance to ensure effective and efficient delivery mechanisms.
As the GMS is also the basis for the statutory city region pilot, many of the interventions identified in it are directly based on the freedoms and flexibilities agreed through the city region pilot process.
Implementing the Greater Manchester Strategy:
Over the coming months AGMA will develop the Greater Manchester Strategy ‘Delivery Plan’, in partnership with all those who can make a difference in delivering results for the people of the Manchester city region. After engaging with and getting commitment from our partners, including the AGMA Commissions, Business Leadership Council and regional/national agencies, we will develop coordinated and prioritised programmes of action.
As with any set of interventions it is crucial to measure the difference they make and learn lessons from the results. The GMS will therefore include a thorough performance and evaluation framework based on a combination of quantitative and qualitative analysis methodology consisting of:
• high level performance measures measuring economic and quality of life indicators related to strategy; and
• SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-bound) objectives tracking performance with appropriate measures and baselines of agreed interventions.
