The leader of Stoke-on-Trent City Council has called on businesses people to lend her their hearts as well as their minds to help propel the city forward.
Councillor Jane Ashworth said that passion for the area, as well as local business acumen and experience, is the combination needed to help the city succeed socially and economically.
She said she was determined to make things better for businesses in all areas – from redrafting the council’s procurement process and improving the area’s transport system, to a review of the city centre strategy and developing a highly-skilled workforce.
Jane said: “I do think when it comes to local business people they are going to want to work closely with the council because they want to see the city flourish. It is a hearts, minds and wellbeing matter as well as just being about the economic benefits.
“I very much have an open-door policy and would invite anyone who has ideas for taking things forward to improve the quality of life and the economy to contact me directly.” *
It is around two months since Jane took over the reins as council leader following Labour’s victory in May’s local elections.
She has been identifying a number of critical areas for review – and one of these is procurement. She said: “We are redrafting our procurement policy because we don’t think enough local money is going to local businesses.
“We need to increase the number of contracts won by organisations in the city. One way we are going to do that is by increasing the weighting in the tender scoring for social value and local labour and supply chain factors.
“We are also going to work with other anchor organisations in the city to see if we can get them to sign up to a similar process.”
Skills and inward investment are also high on the agenda. Jane said: “We actually have many good reasons why organisations should invest in Stoke-on-Trent.
“A workforce can settle here knowing there is plenty of affordable accommodation and plenty of green space that we’ll adamantly protect as well as schools improving all the time.
“But we need to further incentivise them by having the right skills in place to meet the challenges and opportunities ahead – particularly growing opportunities in the digital sector and the green economy.”
She added: “In terms of the digital economy we are actually really underrated. We all know the contribution bet365 makes but in many official data figures they are not classed as a digital business they are classed as leisure, which masks just how many digital jobs we have in city.
“Then we have been able to attract international companies like VCCP while Staffordshire University is leading the way nationally with its Unreal Engine gaming training centre – amazing!”
“So if we protect and nurture that kind of success and continue to develop the right skills there is no reason we can’t lead the way in the UK digitally.”
*Contact Jane on 07584 407310 or email: [email protected]
