Agenda item
SPOTLIGHT ON EMPLOYMENT & ENTERPRISE
There will be a Power point presentation for Members by Chris Holme.
Minutes:
Chris Holme, Service Head Resources and Councillor Shafiqul Haque, Cabinet Member for Jobs and Skills were both in attendance.
Cllr Haque referred to The Employment Strategy’s five key aims and highlighted the Council’s main goals:
1. Making the main employment agencies work together better for local residents;
2. Ensuring the money that was invested in employment was done in a smarter way;
3. Finding ways to engage better with residents who found it difficult to access the mainstream services;
4. Promoting the benefits of work – particularly amongst inactive groups;
5. Doing everything possible to capture as many employment opportunities as possible for local residents.
There were agreed objectives in the Enterprise Strategy that provided an environment for business to flourish including:
- Focussing support on small and medium sized businesses - helping start-up and growth;
- Maximising local procurement;
- Developing the business forum and the Mayor’s Employment and Enterprise Board.
This was one of longest and deepest recessions in living memory, which therefore meant that officers worked in the most challenging of environments. However, the challenge was to make every penny count to deliver jobs for local people and business for local suppliers.
Better relations must be forged with Job Centre Plus and the Council was delivering real, sustainable jobs for local people.
Some of the barriers residents faced were language barriers for which there was now additional funding for “English as a Second Language” in this year’s budget.
Action points
Chris Holme endeavoured to report back to the Committee on the following:
- With regards to the increase in unemployment among 50 – 64 year olds, Members were keen to understand the reason for the increase and had asked that an analytical review be conducted;
- With reference to the DWP’s Work Programme, Members asked what targets had been set and when would information be available about performance of the contractors against these targets;
- There were areas of the borough in which economic inactivity rates were particularly high, particularly in the east of the borough. Cllr Uddin asked what was the Council's approach when tackling unemployment in such areas - was there any data/were there any statistics available on this?
- In relation to the regeneration funds previously managed by the Council, including the Neighbourhood Renewal Fund and Working Neighbourhoods Fund, Cllr Uddin asked what evaluation had been done on the success of programmes intended to support the developments of sustainable social enterprises in the borough?
There was a request that the Council look further at what work could be done to encourage employers to offer greater opportunities for flexible working, including part time work. The Chair welcomed Mr Holme’s comments on the importance of supporting social enterprise and the third sector as key sectors of the local economy and sought Mr Holme’s views on the Council's current approach and whether there was room to further strengthen this work. She highlighted the success which Hackney had had in reducing unemployment despite it having a highly transient population, similar to Tower Hamlets and asked if there was good practice which could be shared by them? She further requested that as information was made available from Census data due to be published in the autumn, that the Committee be kept updated on the profile of economically inactive people in the borough.
The Chair also referred Chris Holme to the Committee’s work programme for 2012-13 and highlighted where the aforementioned points tallied with the Council’s overall employment and enterprise objectives. She was of the view that it would be useful to get regular updates and have a link with Chris Holme’s team, in order to be able to take the Council’s objectives forward. She stated that any officer proposals in this regard would be welcome.
RESOLVED:
That the officer’s verbal presentation be noted.