Local economic strategies and service employment

In attempting to develop local economic strategies local councils have broken out of the confines of their allotted service role. But in many ways the development of new economic stategies remain focused on the private manufacturing sector, almost as a reaction away from familiar areas of local authority activity. In this paper two interrelated issues are discussed: firstly, the manufacturing bias in local economic strategic thinking and secondly, the problems of developing appropriate strategies for service industries, particularly for the low paid caring services. It is argued that local economic strategies can only fulfil their potential, particularly with regard to the needs of women, if issues of service sector intervention are seriously debated and discussed.