Agenda item

Director: Liz Hunter. Author: Mitchell McCombe

The Committee considered a report of the Director of Policy and Development which provided an update on the work delivered by the Mayor’s Manufacturing Taskforce.

The Chair introduced the report. The purpose of the report was to provide the Committee with an update on the next steps of the work delivered by the Mayor’s Manufacturing Taskforce. He then asked the Director of Policy and Development to present the report.

The Director of Policy and Development explained that the Task Force was established in November 2021 with manufacturing business leaders and representation from the four local manufacturing alliances and Make UK, which represents manufacturing businesses across the UK. Its objective is to develop a series of recommendations to improve the future resilience of the manufacturing sector with West Yorkshire.

In July 2022, the Task Force published its list of 17 recommendations. The full list is available in the report. These are grouped under four missions which are:

·       Mission 1 – Enabling growth through productivity and innovation

·       Mission 2 – Manufacturing for net-zero

·       Mission 3 – The place to be and buy from

·       Mission 4 – Skills for manufacturing

The Director of Policy and Development clarified that the West Yorkshire Combined Authority has developed an initial delivery plan of the Task Force’s recommendations that outlines how these will be acted upon. Delivery of these recommendations will run in waves, recognising that the report produced by the Task Force runs up until 2028.

The first wave of projects will be progressed under Mission 1, whose purpose is to enable growth through productivity, innovation and technology adoption. The central aim is to ensure that, by 2028, more manufacturers will be engaged in innovation and will have boosted their productivity levels. This will involve:

·       The rollout of new regional productivity and innovation programmes in West Yorkshire

·       Establishing a West Yorkshire Productivity Index (WYPI) to support increasing firm-level productivity

·       Encouraging more businesses in West Yorkshire to use effective methods of employee engagement

·       Strengthening engagement with national innovation agencies to support activity in the sector

To enable the delivery and oversight of the Task Force’s recommendations, a new Manufacturing Advisory Board will be established. This will replace the existing Leeds City Region Made Smarter Board. The membership of the new Advisory Board will comprise of representatives from across the private sector, business support organisations, membership bodies and subject matter experts within the public sector. The new board will be established in late Autumn 2022, with a proposed membership to be developed beforehand.

In order to amplify the work of the Task Force, it is proposed that a Westminster Day is held in the Autumn or early 2023 to provide an opportunity to present the recommendations of the Task Force to civil servants and industry bodies. Officers are also planning to host a roundtable with regional manufacturers over the Autumn to help evaluate the impact the Cost of Living Crisis is having on their businesses.

A key part of the Task Force’s recommendations is calls for business support to help businesses decarbonise their operations in accordance with the region’s net zero carbon targets. These also seek to support the region’s inclusive growth ambitions by ensuring that the delivery plan will have individual equality and diversity targets included to widen opportunities for underrepresented groups.

Member of the Committee expressed a collective desire to see a greater focus on the future with skills being developed not just for now but in a forward-thinking way. While it was positive to see that productivity is a theme strongly embedded in the paper, is vital that efforts are made to help diversify the manufacturing workforce through additional apprenticeships and other educational programmes.

Resolved: That the Committee noted the progress of delivering on the Task Force’s recommendations.