Economic Growth

Member Champion - tbc

Introduction
The DWP worklessness resources are being used as part of our Economic Growth Work Programme, which received EMIEP Board approval in September 2009. In total £330k has been committed to the programme summarised below of which £100k is the grant from DWP for 09/10 and £100k indicative grant 10/11.

Engagement
Key Partners are DWP, Job Centre Plus, GOEM and the National Apprenticeship Service, local authorities and community Groups.

Benefits Delivered

Apprenticeships - EM IEP has recently commissioned the National Apprenticeship Service (NAS) to develop an East Midlands Local Authorities Apprenticeship Agency (EMLAAA) for local authorities who have not engaged with this agenda. The scheme is aimed at 16-18 year old unemployed people predominantly for placement in local authorities. The target for the EM IEP Apprenticeship service is 300 placements in 2010/11.

A prospectus was published in March 2010, which sets out the offer to LAs, Schools and Fire and Rescue Authorities. This was marketed to the client groups at a major launch event on 30th March. The East Midlands Employers Organisation are part of the coordination arrangements with the client groups.

Regional private property letting agency - The project will secure affordable, good condition property from private landlords in a central administrative lettings agency, to be hosted by Derby City Council. The target for this new accommodation is homeless families in expensive bed & breakfast accommodation, which will result in significant savings for DWP and local authorities and provide a sustainable income for private landlords. A 100 family accommodation service is predicted to realise £3m efficiency savings. Another feature of this unique service is to link up to the training and employment service advice agencies, providing areas of employment/training for families who have found themselves homeless with little or no income.

Single point of entry for the unemployed ‘Circles of Need' - The system currently being developed will remove the necessity for unemployed/housing benefit claimants being asked to provide personal information up to 16 times by local authorities and Department of Works and Pensions (DWP), and will join up local and DWP services for the unemployed.

BME worklessness programme - The EM IEP and the BME Alliance for the East Midlands developed and ran two events to consider how best to tackle Ethnic Minority Unemployment. The first event on the 28th January was held for the BME Community and the second event on 23rd February for Local Authorities and BME community groups. These events are part of a series of similar events in other regions, being run by DWP. EMLAAA has ringfenced 60 of its 2010 cohort for 16-18 year olds from BME communities.

EM IEP support for PSA 16 - The East Midlands aspires to become an exemplar region for the delivery of PSA 16 (providing settled accommodation and employment for offenders under probation supervision, care leavers, people with a learning disability, and people with mental health problems). In partnership with GOEM the EM IEP developed an Awards Scheme to celebrate the best practice from the public and third sector in relation to vulnerable people. The awards were presented at a celebratory event in March 2010.

Support for worklessness from other regional programmes
In addition to the specific regional projects highlighted above, a number of other projects within the sub regional and regional programmes are supporting programmes tackling unemployment and Economic growth, for example:

• EM IEP is engaged with national and regional initiatives to support local businesses compete for public sector business within the region through the EM Contracts register and Source East Midlands contract portal.

• One of the key objectives of Source East Midlands (created with funding from the EMCE) is to make it easier for businesses to find out about new Local Government contract opportunities and sources of potential business, and therefore, grow and develop to the benefit of the local economy

• The Regional equalities project and other SRP equality and procurement projects include activities that relate directly to enhancing social benefits in procurement to support local businesses.

• The Midlands Highway Alliance (MHA) and East Midlands Property Alliance (empa) are also working with local businesses across the region to encourage SMEs to sign up for their accreditation schemes and to be incorporated into the supply chains for the construction framework agreements in place (approximately 1,200 EM SMEs have signed up so far).

• The EM Support for LAAs programme also deals with support required by LSPs on issues affecting the local economy and it is envisaged that any products developed by the IDeA on Local Economic Assessments and the Work and Skills Plans, will be utilised with this network.

• The Regional Customer Insight project contains an element that will be looking at opportunities for economic growth through better use of Intelligence networks.

Next Steps
To role out the package of support for training and employment services to enable homeless families back on to the jobs ladder (where appropriate) and thus make even further savings on the benefit claims system.

To continue with the development and implementation of the Single Point of Entry for Unemployed system ‘Circles of need project', being led by Bassetlaw DC in partnership with Nottinghamshire County Council and DWP.

To continue to explore other opportunities for joint working with other agencies through the PSA 16 network in the East Midlands in partnership with the Government Office and EM IEP.