The TUC has published a new report today showing that north-west England would be disproportionately hurt if the government follows through on its pledge to cut spending by £34 billion in the comprehensive spending review next month.
The north-west has already been hit the hardest by the local government funding cuts that were announced last June.
The report cites research commissioned by the TUC and Unison showing that households across the UK each benefit from public services worth the equivalent of £21,000 a year but departmental spending cuts could leave households in the north-west worse off on average £1,284.
The report cites examples of cuts that have already hit the region including:
- A £100,000 cut in the Transitional Employment Scheme (TES) to help people in long-term unemployment get the skills they need to find work
- A £1.3 million cut in the Local Enterprise Growth Initiative, a programme providing entrepreneurial grants for new and existing businesses
The north-west, already suffering from high unemployment, is likely to suffer disproportionately from government plans to cut the public sector workforce as it has more public servants than most other areas of the UK.
Recent TUC analysis found that more than 190,000 private sector jobs have been lost across the north-west since employment levels peaked in 2008. A 10 per cent cut in public sector employment could mean the loss of a further 95,000 public sector jobs in the region, and it could take a quarter of a century for it to return to pre-recession employment levels.
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[...] Inside the M60 | TUC – NW households will lose 5% of income [...]