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Businesses are crucial to solving
the UK’s productivity problems.

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productivity means for business

Businesses are crucial to solving
the UK’s productivity problems.

Business

North West Productivity Forum

England’s North West region has more than seven million people and is made up of five distinct but interconnected sub regions: the two major cities and urban agglomerations that surround Manchester and Liverpool and the more rural regions of Lancashire and Cumbria to the North and Cheshire to the south. If we use Gross Value Added (GVA) as a measure of  regional productivity performance, the North West lags 8% below the UK average (2018 ONS figures). However, there are marked inter-regional differences too with Cheshire East being  the 19th most productive of the UK’s 170 NUTS3 areas and North East Greater Manchester ranking 160th.

The North West of England’s Productivity Challenge: Exploring the issues

Find out more about the historic context, key issues and future research priorities of productivity in the North West of England in our insights paper, which sits alongside an executive summary: a high-level overview highlighting its productivity picture, including a scattergraph showing the disparities on a NUTS3 level in comparison with the UK average, the primary drivers and bottlenecks, a SWOT analysis and a look to the future.

Insights Paper
Executive Summary

Key Contacts

Kieron Flanagan

North West Forum Lead
University of Manchester

Jennifer Halliday

North West Forum Chair
Wienerberger

Dr Richard Allmendinger

North West Forum Contact
Alliance Manchester Business School

Committee

Barry Leahey

Playdale

Clive Memmott

Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce

Damian Waters

Confederation of British Industry

David Hughes

ABB Group

Donna Edwards

Made Smarter Growth

Emma Degg

North West Business Leadership Team

Gary Young

Fujitsu

Henri Murison

Northern Powerhouse Partnership

Jessica Bowles

Bruntwood

Kate Forth

Tesco LTD

Murryam Anwar

Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy

Sally Penni

Kenworthy’s Chambers

Mark Hughes

The Growth Company

Alan Harding

Greater Manchester Combined Authority

Rick Holland

Innovate UK

Jen Rae

The NP11

Insights

What can the UK learn from ‘turnaround cities’?

Funding call for research proposals to better understand business leader decision making around productivity

How to improve regional productivity levers in England and Wales