Building inclusive growth The Salford Way

Recent years have seen unprecedented change to Salford’s economy and labour market, as the city emerges as one of the fastest growing places in the North. That isn’t a coincidence, writes Matthew Ainsworth of Salford City Council.

The number of jobs in Salford over the past five years has grown by 19%, more than four times faster than the national average and the number of companies located in the city has risen by a quarter since 2017.

Key sectors driving this are business, financial and professional services, digital and creative industries, construction, health and logistics, linked to regeneration and development activity.

At the heart of this growth is our skills, work, and social value plan, which we call The Salford Way.

The Salford Way focuses on tackling poverty and inequality and achieving good growth. As part of the plan, we’re employing a range of tactics and initiatives to help achieve our goals. We’re developing and strengthening partnerships both within the city and across Greater Manchester.

Why this matters

Since I rejoined the council as director for skills, work, and inclusive economy in 2022, we’ve focused on delivering and prioritising growth from within. Inclusive growth and the importance of the Salford pound are central to our work.

I’ve grown up in the city and still live here. I’ve spent the majority of my working life here, and my children have gone to school here. So this idea of the Salford pound is really important to me, and it’s immensely satisfying to see our work having a positive impact in our communities.

It is genuinely incredible to see how much the city has changed over the decades. The regular walk I take with my children from the bright lights and vibrancy of MediaCity to Old Trafford is a million miles away from when I was a child, trekking across the desolate, slightly scary remains of the old Salford docks.

The power of partnership

To help implement The Salford Way and our vision for the city’s future, we are harnessing the collective strengths of key players within the city through the Salford Anchors Network and acting as a driving force within the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, which is increasingly important as more policy levers and funding streams are being devolved to the city region.

We’re building on our track record of innovation, agility, and deliverability by seeking new opportunities to support our residents and implementing new approaches to our work. Our Salford Employment Hub is a great example of this in action.

The Salford Employment Hub has been launched as a one-stop-shop for residents and businesses to connect both adults and young people to opportunities, including providing employment and training support for those young people who are still at school, just left, unemployed, or thinking about college but struggling to know what to do. It’s a simple approach that helps users navigate the process and removes the complicated wiring of the system.

Our Salford Futures programme offers access to voluntary work placements at Salford City Council and our partners, providing experience and a pathway back into employment.

Our Supported Employment scheme is growing from strength to strength, helping people with learning disabilities or autism secure employment, with the right support. In recent months, we’ve seen high rates of engagement from both residents and employers.

Build Salford continues to be a popular and successful scheme, aimed at young people who are keen to develop construction trade skills and get experience. Working with more than 20 dedicated construction employers, social housing providers, and key support agency partners, the scheme offers a unique traineeship programme, enabling access to apprenticeships and jobs with some of the best local construction companies.

We’re now growing the offer into a broader and more strategic approach to meeting the recruitment needs of the construction and built environment sector and using this as a vehicle to reduce labour market inequalities.

Digging into social value

On the social value front, we want to continue making a difference for Salford people, looking beyond making decisions based on financial cost and instead at the wider benefit to a community.

We’ve developed a social value strategy, where we’ve looked to understand local needs and priorities, and put in place appropriate actions and activities to address these needs.

For example, all major developments are now required to submit a social value strategy at the planning application stage. Externally, we’re also looking to encourage businesses to move to the city, creating jobs for local people and making sure that those companies reinvest some of their profits back in other services in the community.

Linked to our social value work, we’ve also championed the value of the Living Wage. In 2013, we launched Salford’s Employment Standards Charter and we became the first local authority in Greater Manchester to pay the Real Living Wage. Over ten years on, we continue to encourage more and more Salford-based organisations and firms to follow suit.

This approach across skills and work and social value reiterates our commitment to our residents and we’re proud of what we’ve achieved so far. Only last month, we won the Excellence in Planning Award at the Social Value Awards 2024.

This is an ongoing approach, but we have a plan that we’ll continue to build on and deliver, constantly seeking out new initiatives and ways to develop further. The commitment across the council to creating opportunities for all, delivering internal growth, driving inward invest, and building the Salford pound is clear.

We know it is the right thing to do, it benefits local Salford residents and we can see clear evidence of successes.

This is The Salford Way, it’s just what we do.

• Matthew Ainsworth is director for skills, work and inclusive economy at Salford City Council