The Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, has announced changes to some key policy portfolios for Greater Manchester Combined Authority.
You’ll be aware that each of the city-region’s local authority Leaders and the Deputy Mayor for Safer and Stronger Communities is given a policy brief by the Mayor, which they lead on for the whole of Greater Manchester.
Changes announced by the Mayor include his own new role as co-chair of the Greater Manchester Integrated Care Partnership (ICP) with Sir Richard Leese (to be formally agreed at the GMCA meeting on Friday 27th September) and the creation of a pensions-focused portfolio looking at a new Bee Network pension scheme.
These exciting updates reflect our direction of travel as an organisation, continuing to work in a more integrated way with colleagues across Transport for Greater Manchester and the NHS.
As a combined authority, we need to work in close partnership in order to deliver safe, effective and timely NHS services.
Central to this agenda is Live Well, which is not only a Mayoral manifesto commitment but is Greater Manchester’s movement for tackling community-led health and wellbeing inequalities.
The Mayor will drive this forward with Sir Richard Leese and those represented on the ICP Board.
Councillor Paul Dennett will now return to his role as Portfolio Lead for Housing First. He brings with him specialist knowledge of the housing sector, a strong track record in delivering high quality and affordable housing in Salford and lived experience of the challenges facing renters in the city region.
Councillor Gerald Cooney is taking on a new role as Portfolio Lead for Greater Manchester Pension Fund (GMPF) Investments and the Bee Network Pension Scheme.
This work will unlock opportunities for the GMPF by driving economic growth and will tackle issues around bus driver recruitment by developing a Bee Network Pension scheme proposal.
GMPF is managed by Tameside Council, which Councillor Cooney leads. The fund has already shown how money invested by workers in their pensions can be used to drive forward local regeneration and development projects at pace and scale, while delivering good investment returns for pension fund members. Thanks to our Trailblazer devolution deal, we’re able to expand and accelerate this work.
This new portfolio will also aim to increase the profile of the Fund’s work nationally, showing how public sector pension funds can be used to benefit local communities, kickstarting regeneration and funding housing development schemes. Councillor Cooney will also contribute to the Treasury Review into Local Government Pension Schemes.
A full list of portfolios of GMCA members is below:
- Andy Burnham: Policy & Reform, Transport, Healthy Lives and Chair of the Greater Manchester ICP Board
- Ged Cooney: Greater Manchester Pensions Fund Investments and Bee Network Pensions
- Bev Craig: Economy, Business and Inclusive Growth
- Paul Dennett: Housing First
- Neil Emmott: Culture
- Kate Green: Safer and Stronger Communities
- Mark Hunter: Children and Young People
- David Molyneux: Resources and Investment
- Eamonn O’Brien: Technical Education and Skills
- Nick Peel: Digital City-Region
- Arooj Shah: Equalities and Communities
Tom Ross: Green City-Region