Partnerships pay dividends

Minister urges local authorities to step up their efforts to prevent a 'lost generation' suffering long-term unemployment

By John O'Leary

Local authorities will play a key role in ensuring that the recession does not produce a “lost generation” of people plunged into long-term worklessness, the Minister for Regional Economic Development and Co-ordination told a conference this week. 

Rosie Winterton, who is also the Local Government Minister, said the forthcoming Employment White Paper would set out a new vision for employment and training, as well as covering the benefits system. Only councils could provide the necessary local leadership.

“We know we cannot tackle worklessness on our own, sitting in Whitehall,” she said. “Councils know their areas and residents better than anyone, so we need to take a partnership approach.”

From next April, all top-tier authorities will be required to carry out a ‘local economic assessment’. Part of this exercise will involve a worklessness assessment.

Ms Winterton told the conference, organised by Neil Stewart Associates, publishers of Policy Review, that authorities should use their local knowledge to produce a work and skills plan. “These plans provide a framework for tackling barriers to employment locally,” she said. “And they are a starting point for any local partnerships that want a greater devolution of employment services in their area.”

Work and skills plans would translate the strategies of regional development agencies into a coherent delivery plan for each area, Ms Winterton said. “I believe that, taken together, the economic assessment and the Work and Skills Plan are the building blocks of a ‘Total Place’ approach to tackling worklessness in an area.”

Ms Winterton acknowledged that a successful assault on long-tern unemployment would require economic growth and could not be achieved by local partnerships alone. “A coherent local response, supported by effective national policy, is essential to managing these challenges effectively.”

The £1 billion Future Jobs Fund will be at the heart of the Government’s contribution. “In future, economic development must be a core activity for every authority,” Ms Winterton said. “The Future Jobs Fund shows why. It is designed to help young people and other groups who are especially vulnerable to long-term unemployment.”

The fund is expected to create 150,000 jobs nationally, with 95,000 of them already in existence or in the pipeline. Around half are from partnerships led by local authorities.

Some authorities are supplementing their allocations from central government. Hampshire, for example, has added £300,000 to the money received from the Future Jobs Fund to set up an apprenticeship programme, co-ordinating apprenticeships in the county and seeking more. Barnsley has used money from its Working Neighbourhood Fund allocation to double the length of time that placements last, from six months to a year.

Ms Winterton said research to be published next week by the Social Exclusion Task Force would demonstrate the value of intervention at all levels of government. “According to preliminary findings, the Task Force research will show the social costs have been less severe in this recession than in the 1990s and 1980s,” she said.  “This time around, for example, there has been no evidence of an increase in homelessness, or of property crime increasing – although, of course, we cannot be complacent.

“I would urge everyone to look at the research in detail when it is published. It identifies the lessons we all need to learn from previous recessions, and practical steps councils can take to boost local economic recovery.”

8 December 2009

John O'Leary. Editor, Policy Review Magazine