Lanarkshire Councils hit back at Bishop Devine’s failing economy claims

Jun 18 2009 by Richard Mooney, Hamilton Advertiser

BOTH of Lanarkshire’s local authorities have hit back at Bishop Joseph Devine after he criticised the councils’ economic strategy.

Figures released last week revealed that Lanarkshire was hit by a third of all redundancies in Scotland last year and the bishop claimed the figures showed that both Lanarkshire councils, along with local enterprise agencies, have a failing economic strategy.

Calling for the strategy to be revised, the Bishop of Motherwell said political bickering over the problems must be swept aside in order to gain a united front to tackle the county’s economic problems.

But the two authorities angrily rejected the bishop’s claims, with North Lanarkshire Council saying his comments were “simply untrue" and that the strategy had actually delivered considerable success.

Caitriona McAuley, economic development manager for North Lanarkshire, said 600 start-up businesses have been helped by Business Gateway (run by both councils) in the last year and that the authorities are consistently helping people facing redundancy through the PACE (Partnership Action for Continuing Employment) initiative, Job Centre Plus and Skills Development Scotland.

She said: “Lanarkshire has been particularly affected by the recent downturn as we still have a higher proportion of people employed in the manufacturing sector. However, we are well placed to capitalise on an economic upturn, with major developments and regeneration projects such as those at Eurocentral, Gartcosh and Ravenscraig.

“The council has led the development of North Lanarkshire’s Working, a £19m project over two years which involves bringing together various services with partners to help get long-term unemployed residents back to work. More than 1200 of these residents alone in the last year have found employment as a result.”

Both local authorities plan to obtain finances from the Future Jobs Fund to create jobs and added that they have held talks with the UK government, and Jim Murphy, Secretary of State for Scotland, on how to best tackle Lanarkshire’s economic problems.

Bishop Devine said: “Clearly, Lanarkshire does not have, within its boundaries, anything approaching a third of all the jobs available in Scotland. Yet it takes this enormous jobs hit – a staggering proportion of job losses well beyond the pro rata it should have suffered. These figures represent distress and hardship for thousands of families throughout our community. There may be worse to come.

“A North Lanarkshire Council report informs us that even before this current economic downturn, the region was already struggling with high unemployment with one-in-five people of working age out of work.

“It also highlights that Lanarkshire has the additional notoriety that it is home to the second-highest number of deprived neighbourhoods in Scotland.

“What a legacy for our children.”

Bishop Devine added: “The people of Lanarkshire need and deserve a united effort from all politicians to produce results. Namely, cranes on the skyline and jobs on the ground.”

A spokesperson for South Lanarkshire Council said: “Lanarkshire is ranked third in terms of local economic output in Scotland behind only Glasgow and Edinburgh.

“The fact that Lanarkshire has been hit so hard by the recession partly reflects the great success that the area has had in attracting new businesses.

“It is also as a result of significant job losses in the key sectors that have been most effected by the recession i.e. manufacturing, retail, finance/banking and construction. ”