Greater Manchester’s next wave of Good Growth and the role of VCFSE organisations
Mayor Andy Burnham has unveiled the latest plans to deliver a decade of good growth in Greater Manchester.
The new National Wealth Fund backing of at least £500million of investment comes on top of a £314 million transport funding boost, and £175 million from Government – meaning Greater Manchester’s UK-first Good Growth Fund is set to grow from £1 billion to almost £2 billion.
Greater Manchester is using its unique devolved powers and a bold new approach to public investment to unlock major infrastructuresites and an integrated pipeline of projects which will create thousands of new jobs and deliver regeneration on a scale and at a pace not seen before this century.
This approach will help turn the tide on the housing crisisby providing much needed new homes – including socially rented housing.
At the same time, regeneration hopes to bring both social and economic benefits to communities through a new Good Growth Contract. All recipients of Good Growth funding will make social value commitments – from signing up to the Good Employment and Good Landlord charters, to including local businesses in their supply chain and creating new training placements for young people.
This post on LinkedIn shares more about what good growth means across Greater Manchester’s localities.
What this means for VCFSE organisations
Whilst VCFSE organisations are not the Funds intended beneficiaries, its likely partners, or its target applicants, the Good Growth Fund does create a development landscape in which community-facing organisations may have legitimate roles in housing development, workforce development and pre-employment support, and community infrastructure and place-making.
Development supply chain
GMCA has committed to local supply chain procurement conditions in funded developments. If translated into enforceable development agreement terms, this creates a potential market across construction, landscaping, building services, catering, cleaning, security, and community engagement. The practical route is through developers and their main contractors, not through the fund directly. VCFSE organisations with trading subsidiaries or social enterprise arms should:
- Monitor pipeline developments in their areas using the Mapping GM interactive map. Understanding what is planned in your area allows anticipatory engagement with local authorities and developers before schemes reach detailed approval.
- Engage with local authorities on what social value conditions are being built into development agreements
- Build relationships with developers active intheir areas before schemes reach detailed approval
Workforce development and pre-employment support
The first-wave employment allocations target capacity for around 22,000 direct jobs. Whether those jobs reach people currently outside the labour market depends on enabling conditions the fund itself does not address. This is the most credible area of alignment with VCFSE activity.
GMCA's documentation references Live Well as the vehicle forconnecting people to economic opportunity. Live Well is a place-based communitysupport model delivered through VCFSE partnerships, operating primarily withinthe health and wellbeing system.
More broadly, the fund creates a policy context in which the case for pre-employment and enabling support can be made with greater urgency: a city-region generating significant new employment capacity while retaining large numbers of people far from the labour market is a problem that requires proactive argument, not waiting for the fund to generate its own community pathways.
Community infrastructure and place-making
Some funded developments will generate Section 106 obligations (legally binding agreements attached to planning permissions to mitigate a development's impact on local infrastructure and communities) or create demand for community assets.
Where VCFSE organisations have existing relationships with local authorities in major development areas, they are well-placed tocontribute to thinking about what community infrastructure is needed, what support functions should be embedded in new developments, and what role the sector might play in operating community assets once created.
