Providing support to Mid & East Antrim's Manufacturing Task Force

Following on from Simon Pringle’s work to lead the development of ‘Amplify!’, Mid and East Antrim’s economic development strategy to 2030, SDG Economic Development has been commissioned noncompetitively to support the relaunch of the Mid and East Antrim Borough Council Manufacturing Task Force.

The Task Force was set up originally in early 2016 to respond to some 2,700 manufacturing job losses, following decisions by two major international manufacturers to disinvest at their plants in the locality. The early work of the Task Force was to commission work on the likely economic impact of the closures (this work was also led by Simon Pringle) and to identify with the two firms the rates at which jobs were to be lost.

With M&EA local Economic Development Strategy in place, and the new Northern Ireland Economic Development Strategy published, the decision was taken to relaunch the Task Force in early 2017. This involves a new private sector Chair, and representatives from local enterprise agencies, Higher Education, local enterprise agencies, and private sector firms, with a new forward programme of deliverable tasks put in place.

Our work is concentrating on four main areas:

• Designing the draft Terms of Reference for the relaunched Task Force, ensuring appropriate links to other agendas for jobs and manufacturing in Northern Ireland including the priorities set out in the Draft Industrial Strategy for Northern Ireland, published in January 2017. 
• Identifying and supporting the selection of candidates for the Task Force Chair role.
• Providing after-care support to the Chair once he/she had been selected, in order to help move quickly into practical actions. 
• Facilitating work between Mid and East Antrim Borough Council and central departments in Belfast (notably the Department of Economic Development, and Invest NI) to ensure appropriate alignment between local and central regeneration efforts.