Five lessons Wales can learn from Manchester

By Dr Fari Aftab, Wales Productivity Forum Research Associate

The discussion around ‘Manchesterism’ draws on the Manchester Model described by McCann and Ortega-Argilés (2026): an approach to economic development built around long-term cooperation across Greater Manchester’s ten local authorities, businesses and universities. Developed over several decades, it combines sustained leadership, greater local decision-making powers and a shared economic strategy. It seeks to connect investment in transport, housing and regeneration with skills, research and business development, bringing institutions and resources together around common priorities. As Sezer Yasar explains in his review of evidence on devolution and UK productivity, the potential benefits depend on which powers are devolved and whether the institutions exercising them have the capacity and accountability to do so effectively.

My interest in these questions began with Huw Morris’s presentation at the Wales Productivity Forum on 1 July 2026, which prompted a wider discussion about what Wales could learn from Manchester’s approach to institutional cooperation and productivity. I explored these ideas further at the ‘Manchesterism, the Manchester Model and Inclusive Growth’ event on 21 October, considering not simply what Wales could learn from Manchester, but how those lessons might work in a very different context.

I came away with five lessons for Wales: build on existing strengths, sustain a shared strategy, coordinate support for investment, use public resources more effectively, and judge growth by how residents benefit. The question for Wales is which arrangements could address its own constraints, rather than whether Manchester’s approach can be reproduced as a whole.

Build on Wales’s own strengths

Philip McCann’s presentation emphasised building on existing strengths and connecting physical regeneration with a wider economic strategy. Investment decisions should therefore begin with a clear view of a place’s existing assets and the barriers holding back further development.

Melanie Jones brought a Welsh perspective, questioning how Manchester’s experience could apply to places with different assets and circumstances. My main lesson was that Wales needs to identify its own strengths and constraints, including differences between its cities, towns and rural communities. Similar policies may produce different outcomes in different settings.

In practice, Wales should map the firms, skills and institutions already in place, understand how they connect and identify the constraints limiting their development.

Manufacturing provides one example. The Wales Productivity Insights Paper identifies its comparatively strong productivity performance, providing a basis for considering how links between established manufacturers, local suppliers and skills providers could be strengthened.

Across sectors, a separate question is which decisions are best taken locally and which require cooperation across local authority boundaries. A town may be best placed to identify sites for business development, while transport and skills provision often need to serve employers and workers across a wider area.

Commit to a shared long-term strategy

Long-term commitment and cooperation were recurring themes. The discussion linked Manchester’s development to relationships and capabilities built over many years, with coordination between local government, business and universities. New powers alone do not establish the capacity to use them effectively.

Henri Murison described the importance of maintaining economic priorities and working across political differences. For Wales, the lesson is that a shared strategy needs sustained support across political cycles, giving investment and institutional change time to deliver. The Insights Paper similarly calls for a long-term productivity strategy supported by collective action across businesses, public services and government. Evaluation should guide adjustments where interventions are not working.

The event also highlighted the importance of stable funding and the time needed to develop institutional expertise. The Welsh Government’s aim to halve the productivity gap between Wales and the UK in ten years makes these delivery questions particularly relevant. Achieving this will require clear responsibilities across the organisations involved, supported by relevant expertise, resources and authority. Building on the Insights Paper’s recommendation to identify short-, medium- and long-term priorities, the strategy should establish milestones for assessing progress towards the ten-year aim. Alongside these milestones, it should explain how proposed investments and institutional changes are expected to improve productivity, which organisations control the relevant levers and what evidence would indicate progress.

Coordinate the support that investment needs

Nigel Driffield argued that attracting investment requires a realistic business case, backed by the necessary skills, business support, supply chains and capacity for innovation. The discussion highlighted the need to coordinate these with housing, transport and other services that make investment workable.

Wales should assess what each investment proposal needs to succeed and whether that support is available locally. Universities, businesses and public bodies may each have relevant expertise, but collaboration needs to be organised around a clear purpose. Local firms also need opportunities to participate in the activity that investment creates. Skills and transport need to be considered together, since training may offer limited benefit if people cannot reach the jobs available.

The discussion also considered whether investment creates lasting local benefits. For Wales, this suggests looking beyond the number of projects attracted to consider employment opportunities, skills development and connections with local suppliers.

The event also explored how government intervention might reduce risks that discourage private investment. For Wales, this means identifying which constraints require action by the Welsh Government, local authorities or the UK Government, and what additional investment that action could enable. Investment proposals should explain how the intervention would address the identified constraint and whether the expected local benefits justify the public resources committed.

Use public resources more effectively

The closing discussion considered how local authorities use their resources. Henri Murison questioned the staff time absorbed by repeated competitive bids for central government funding, while another panellist emphasised the need for audited valuations of public assets before disposal.

At the July Forum meeting, Huw Morris described shared nursery provision, libraries and procurement among Manchester’s institutions, alongside conditions on land and funding that required cooperation. His account suggests that collaboration needs practical arrangements and incentives as well as a shared ambition. For Wales, this raises the question of where joint provision could improve services or reduce duplication, and what would encourage institutions to participate. These questions relate to public sector productivity: how available resources can support better services. Any changes should be assessed against service quality and outcomes, as well as costs.

Better use of resources also requires attention to what communities need. A building with limited financial returns may still provide an important local service. Decisions should therefore consider its current use, community value and realistic alternatives.

A practical starting point could be to review underused assets and activities repeated across public organisations, assessing whether shared provision is feasible. Reducing the administrative burden of repeated funding applications could also release local authority staff time for delivery. Both approaches would need to take account of the costs of change and any effects on access to services.

Judge growth by how residents benefit

The event raised a question that is particularly relevant to Wales: do productivity gains translate into higher wages and better living standards? An expanding economy does not necessarily mean that output per hour has increased: growth can also reflect more people working or longer working hours. Assessing progress therefore requires distinguishing productivity improvements from increases in total activity, and examining how each translates into residents’ living standards. The discussion also considered uneven benefits across places, housing affordability and residents’ access to employment.

Productivity should therefore be assessed alongside earnings, job quality and access to suitable work. These measures would help show who benefits from growth and who remains excluded.

Higher earnings may offer limited improvement in living standards if housing and travel costs also rise. For Wales, this makes the distribution of benefits part of the assessment from the outset. We should ask which communities gain, whether opportunities reach people facing barriers to employment and whether improvements are sustained. This would help assess whether productivity growth translates into better living standards across Welsh communities.

The Wales Productivity Forum can contribute by bringing Welsh evidence and perspectives into these discussions. The event offered principles worth examining in Wales, while leaving open which arrangements would work best in particular places. The next step is to test how these lessons could be applied in different parts of Wales, and to build evaluation into delivery from the outset. You can explore the discussion in more detail in the full summary of the Manchesterism, the Manchester Model and Inclusive Growth event.