Cities in Yorkshire and Humberside and the North East are lagging behind the rest of the UK when it comes to productivity, but have enormous potential for growth and prosperity, a new briefing from The Productivity Institute (TPI) has found. ‘The Yorkshire and The Humber and North East Productivity Challenge’, written by Kate Penney from The Productivity Institute – of which the University of Sheffield is one of eight partners – provides key insights into productivity growth within the region and highlights a number of strategic initiatives for growth and development. While overall productivity in the region is below the national average, Sunderland, with its strong manufacturing base, has exhibited higher productivity levels and growth rates than the UK as a whole. However, cities in Yorkshire and the Humber, including Bradford, Leeds, Sheffield, and York, have struggled to match the national average in productivity growth over the past decade. The brief highlights several factors that contribute to the productivity challenges faced by the region. The prevalence of low-productivity firms, under-investment in research and development and skills, and inadequate regional connectivity have hindered substantial productivity improvements since 2008. Additionally, the North East and Yorkshire and the Humber were among the least resilient regions to the 2008 global financial crisis and have been significantly affected by Brexit, given their reliance on EU markets for trade. The brief will assist the business community in the region by highlighting various initiatives that offer potential for future productivity improvement, and examines various factors and bottlenecks that shape regional growth. The brief is intended to inform the discussions and actions of the Regional Productivity Forum (RPF) for Yorkshire, Humber and the North East, based at the University of Sheffield. The forum is one of eight regional productivity forums established by TPI. The TPI is an ESRC-funded initiative that brings together academics with business, industry and policy representatives to identify and address the causes of the UK’s weak growth in productivity. Professor Jason Heyes, a Professor of Employment Relations at the University of Sheffield’s Management School and the academic lead for the Yorkshire, Humber and North East RPF, commissioned the new report, as part of ongoing work to understand and address productivity challenges in the region. Professor Heyes said: “This paper provides extremely important information about productivity in our region and the obstacles to improvements in economic performance that different parts of our region face. It will help our RPF to develop initiatives that we hope will make a strong contribution to improving productivity in Yorkshire, Humber and the North East including investing in and retaining skilled workers, the adoption of green and digital technologies and incentivising innovation.” In the North East, the new governance structure resulting from the devolution deal will provide greater powers and opportunities for growth and innovation in areas such as advanced manufacturing, health and life sciences, energy, tech, and business services. In Yorkshire and the Humber, the focus is on leveraging the region’s strengths in sectors such as healthcare and innovation, manufacturing, financial and professional services, and digital technologies. The region has established itself as a major centre for financial and professional services outside of London and earns billions from advanced manufacturing and R&D activities. However, there is a need for increased investment, both public and private, in research and development to unlock further growth potential. One of the common challenges faced by both Yorkshire and Humber and the North East is the need for improved connectivity and transportation infrastructure. The cancellation of the planned HS2 rail eastern leg to Leeds has raised concerns, but the Transpennine route will receive upgrades to enhance connectivity. Infrastructure investment is crucial to facilitate economic growth and ensure efficient access to markets. Professor Bart van Ark, Managing Director of The Productivity Institute, said: “By adopting a comprehensive ‘scorecard’ approach, we analyse key metrics across five core drivers: business performance, skills and training, policy and institutions, health and wellbeing, and investments and infrastructures. “These regions have enormous potential for growth and prosperity, particularly in sectors such as clean energy, advanced manufacturing, digital technologies, and healthcare innovation, and by implementing strategic policies, fostering innovation, and increasing investment, there is the real opportunity for them to unlock their productivity potential and contribute to the national economic landscape.” Sarah Tulip, Chair of the Yorkshire, Humber and the North East RPF, and Senior Director at IT services and consulting company Cognizant based in Leeds, added: “This paper both sadly highlights the lack of productivity in these regions, with both sitting in the bottom quartile nationally and that major factors such as the significant lack of investment have driven this down during challenging times when it needed support most. “What I believe shines through is that despite adversity, the cities across Yorkshire, Humber and the North East are finding ways to reinvent themselves – and in areas of innovation, becoming world leading across sectors. With the right support, powers, skills and investment in the region, this could be accelerated and have a massive impact both locally for its people, creating high skilled work and transforming some of the left behind communities, but also nationally in allowing the region to contribute more significantly. I look forward to us diving deeper into some of the core challenges faced.”

Manufacturers in West Yorkshire are invited to take part in research to help reduce their environmental impact and reuse material waste.

The West Yorkshire Combined Authority and The Yorkshire Circular Lab are collaborating on a project to explore eays manufacturers can work together to give new purpose to their waste materials instead of throwing them away. This process is called industrial symbiosis. Manufacturing is one of the biggest industrial sectors in West Yorkshire, but it also produces a lot of waste that harms the environment. Industrial symbiosis allows manufacturers to find new ways to use this waste rather than disposing it in landfill or incinerating it. The research project aims to understand the main sources of waste in the region and find other industries that can directly use or repurpose these materials in their own production processes. This research project supports West Yorkshire’s goal of becoming net zero by 2038 and helps manufacturers in the region move away from the traditional linear approach of taking, making and disposing, towards a more sustainable circular economy. If your manufacturing business in West Yorkshire wants to participate in this study to assess the potential reuse of your waste materials, please contact isaac.lassey@westyorks-ca.gov.uk.

Marketing experts at Leeds Beckett University have joined forces with Halifax pet treats company, Sniffers, to build on the company’s rapid growth. They will support them in a strategy to develop their new ‘Naw’ own-brand products and enter new markets. A team of Leeds Business School academics will work with Sniffers Pet Care Limited on the two-year Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP), which is part-funded by the Government through Innovate UK. Sniffers is a small business based in Elland, Halifax, with over 40 years’ experience in the pet industry. Dr David Andrews, senior lecturer in marketing and project leader, said: “The KTP will focus on developing and embedding a platform for Sniffers to grow sustainably. We will develop strategies to identify the best distribution channels for Sniffers to enter new markets and establish their own-brand products. “Using our expertise to support the wider team at Sniffers, we will build their management capabilities, skills and training. This will create a more strategic approach for the business, embedding innovation throughout the company and facilitating the company’s long term growth objectives.” Another key focus of the KTP will be to build Sniffers’ targeted marketing strategies to amplify the brand impact with the company’s customers. The project aims to create a brand personality and reputation that reflects the central principles of Sniffers, and positions it more strongly in the market – to support their goal of being recognised as the UK’s leading natural dog treat supplier. Simon Brown, CEO, and son of the founder of Sniffers Pet Care, said: “We have experienced impressive sales growth in recent years – in part, due to the Covid-associated increase in dog ownership in the UK. We are ambitious and motivated to continue our strong growth through this new partnership with Leeds Beckett – including developing our own-brand products and growing in new markets. “Working with LBU has been a fantastic experience so far – the support and insight we’ve received already to get to this point in the KTP process has been beyond expectations. We very much look forward to embedding the capabilities within our business and helping us meet our ambitious targets – particularly as we are on the cusp of launching our new retail brand NAW.” The Sniffers team will have access to the university’s popular business support programmes including Help to Grow: Management, the #WECAN (Women Empowered through Coaching and Networking) programme – building the leadership skills, capabilities and opportunities of women in SMEs in the Leeds City Region, and student consultancy projects and placements. Jo Griffiths, head of Knowledge Transfer Partnerships at Leeds Beckett, added: “Working with our academics enables Sniffers to take advantage of future opportunities from a basis of sound academic knowledge and expertise, and a solid strategic foundation. “The project will embed improved strategic marketing decision-making capabilities and skills to support longer-term, sustainable SME growth. These ambitions and objectives align directly with the UK government’s agenda to foster a robust economy and for levelling up.” Dr Andrews has more than 30 years of industry experience including senior posts as CEO of Yorkshire Tourist Board and as a company director. He has worked with more than 200 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the last four years on a variety of funded programmes. He is also a workshop facilitator and business coach on the BEIS funded Help to Grow: Management programme at Leeds Beckett and regularly works with Leeds City Region businesses with growth aspirations and strategic challenges. The academic project team is completed by Helen Hepworth, lecturer in marketing at Leeds Business School. Prior to joining the university, Helen spent two decades working in the UK consumer packaged goods market, holding senior positions in product development, category management and sales, and more recently working as a retail consultant. A skilled graduate will be recruited to carry out the project, as a full-time member of staff within the business, and with the full support and input of the academic team at Leeds Beckett.

The headline NatWest Yorkshire & Humber PMI® Business Activity Index – a seasonally adjusted index that measures the month-on-month change in the combined output of the region’s manufacturing and service sectors – dipped to 50.6 in May, from 52.5 in April, signalling a growth slowdown midway through the second quarter. Of the 12 monitored parts of the UK, only Wales recorded a worse monthly performance in business activity, with Yorkshire & Humber growth lagging behind the UK average by a considerable margin. The volume of incoming new business dipped during May, marking the first contraction in demand since January. Weaker conditions in the markets key customers operate in reportedly weighed on new order inflows. Of the 12 monitored parts of the UK, Yorkshire & Humber was one of three where new business fell. Although the drop in demand across the region was marginal, it was stronger than those seen elsewhere. Private sector businesses in Yorkshire & Humber remained strongly optimistic towards the 12-month outlook for activity in May. Increased investment, new product launches and entry into new markets, as well as hopes of stronger sales performances underpinned growth forecasts. That said, the level of confidence dipped to a five-month low. The level of employment across the Yorkshire & Humber private sector rose again in May, marking a fifth consecutive expansion in staffing capacity across the region. According to surveyed firms, extra workers were hired to fill vacancies, reduce the strain on existing staff and prepare for future growth. The rate of jobs growth slowed and was modest, but broadly matched that seen for the UK as a whole. For a third month running, private sector companies across Yorkshire & Humber recorded a drop in the volume of outstanding work during May. The pace of decline was solid and unchanged from April’s four-month record. According to survey respondents, the catch-up of incomplete orders was enabled by falling intakes of new business. Another sharp increase in operating expenses was registered by surveyed companies in Yorkshire & Humber midway through the second quarter, although the rate of inflation eased to a 28-month low. That being said, trends diverged significantly by sector as a fall in input prices at manufacturers compared with a softer, but still steep rise in costs at service providers. While lower prices for raw materials and energy helped bring factory input costs down, wage pressures were behind the sharp rise in service sector expenses. The seasonally adjusted Prices Charged Index remained well above the no-change mark of 50.0 in May, signalling a further sharp rise in prices charged for goods and services across Yorkshire & Humber. Firms that raised their fees commented on efforts to pass on higher costs to clients. That said, selling prices were raised to the weakest extent since February 2021 as companies, particularly in the manufacturing sector, offered more competitive prices amid falls in their costs and difficulty securing new work. Malcolm Buchanan, chair of the NatWest North Regional Board, said: “The NatWest Regional PMI data suggests Yorkshire & Humber faced a challenging period during May. Not only did growth slow to a marginal pace, but compared to its peers, this part of the UK was one of the worst performers. The region saw demand conditions weaken over the course of the month, affecting the rate of growth and impacting business confidence in some sectors. “The latest report does offer grounds for optimism. Encouragement can be gleaned from sustained employment growth, which suggests that companies are filling vacancies and preparing themselves for future opportunities. Falling inflationary pressures also bodes well, and we’ve already seen reports of firms making their prices more competitive. “That said, underlying data shows that price pressures are driven by services, with firms in these industries reporting higher wage costs. Therefore, the risk of inflation staying stubborn remains elevated for the time being.”

A Yorkshire-based finance boss has been found guilty of a £20m fraud and sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment at Leeds Crown Court. The Insolvency Service found Liam Francis Wainwright, 61, from Leeds, had falsified documents to mislead investors and spend their money on ventures including a racehorse syndicate and his own failed private businesses. These investors were victims of a classic Ponzi scheme, whereby the returns paid to them were funded by the capital injections from later investors. Wainwright, who had been a director of Rawdon Asset Finance Ltd, was disqualified for 11 years in November 2020 after investigators at the Insolvency Service found he had falsified around £12 million worth of entries in the company’s loan book in the two years before the company entered administration in 2019. After a further criminal investigation, the Insolvency Service brought the director to court on counts of false accounting, fraud, forgery, and acting as a director while bankrupt. Julie Barnes, Chief Investigator for the Insolvency Service, said: “Liam Wainwright’s greed and selfish actions had a devastating effect on the people who had put their trust in him and his business. “His victims included elderly and vulnerable people. Many investors lost most or all of the money they had entrusted to him, and some lost their life savings.

“His sentencing shows that the Insolvency Service will seek the toughest penalties for those who break the law, to help ensure that the UK is a safe place for investors and for businesses.”

The court heard that Wainwright had enjoyed a lavish lifestyle as a result of his offending, and that his actions had had a devastating impact on individuals and families who had invested money into the business. Wainwright told investors and shareholders that Rawdon Asset Finance was lending money to businesses with security on property, land or plant and equipment, but was in fact using the cash to pay returns to other creditors, buy into a racehorse syndicate and to fund other companies, including a Lincolnshire-based property development and a redevelopment company in West Yorkshire, both linked to himself. By the time the company went into liquidation, Rawdon Asset Finance’s creditors were owed more than £20 million. Liquidators have so far recovered £750,630. Wainwright admitted that he began to falsify accounts from around 2017, to hide the company’s true financial position from his co-directors and investors. He also admitted he had earlier forged a mortgagor’s signature on a legal charge to mislead investors and had – between April 2010 and April 2011 – breached the terms of a previous bankruptcy by acting as a director of the company the court’s permission. The court also heard that Wainwright had lied about the company’s accounts and the destination of funds in order to elicit £100,000 from one investor only weeks before the business collapsed, in the full knowledge that investors would not get their money back.