Islington Council has just completed a complete re-organisation of its management and Services structure into 15 divisions including a new division called ESRD set up to manage, co-ordinate and promote the economic development activities of the council.
The re-organisation of local economic development activities reflects a move towards more holistic approaches to economic development which recognises the linkages between economic, environmental and social regeneration, and organisational-culture change towards a partnership model, rather than direct interventions by the council.
A) ORGANISATION OF ESRD
The new division has around 100 staff and is therefore a relatively small Council Service division. There are a number of teams in the division, the largest being the External Funding and Partnership team (EFPT) which carries out much of the economic work through a range of interventions across the local economy, labour market, and physical infrastructure through partnerships between the council and other agencies in the public, private and voluntary sectors. Other teams are drawn from previously separate small units including race equality, community safety, community support and contracts administration and competition. Total net expenditure on economic development budgets in 1996/97 was 1.5 million but this does not include external income from SRB and EU sources which is currently targeted at 10-12 million per annum.
B) OBJECTIVES
The objectives of the new division emphasises the need to connect measures aiming at economic and social regeneration to improve the economic performance and social cohesion of the borough. Thus LBI's ESRD key aims are
targeted programmes and partnerships to enable measurable improvements in the skills of local people and increased opportunities for their employment
and
targeted programmes and partnerships to enable measurable and sustainable improvements in the quality of the physical and social environment of Islington.
C) TARGETS
Its 5 year targets for this work are that by 2002 the council will have
* created 450 new permanent jobs in Kings Cross through partnership and developed a strategy to exploit new markets opened by the Channel Tunnel Rail link
* assisted 1500 people to obtain a recognised vocational qualification
* assisted 700 people into permanent employment including 200 jobs in new information and communications technology
* made 5 successful bids for external funding for employment led economic development
* developed 3 new partnerships to bring new business and investment to Islington
* initiated 3 major projects to improve the competitiveness of black and ethnic minority businesses
* increased visitor spending by 50% in partnership with Discover Islington
D) ACTIVITIES
The employment and training related aspects of the division's work involve using external structural funds especially SRB; labour market interventions, sectoral interventions, enterprise support and area-based interventions. Aspects of these are described below.
1 Kings Cross SRB Programme
A major area based SRB programme development is the Kings Cross Partnership - a cross borough partnership of 37 million over 7 years for which LBI is the 'accountable body' having ultimate responsibility for the management and delivery of the project. The EFP team has led on the employment and training opportunities for residents located at Kings Cross and the surrounding area. The pilot project "Tracks Toward Employment" is a collaboration between Islington and Camden Councils, Employment Service Job Centres, Enterprise Careers, Capital Careers, and LENTA job reach (which provides careers guidance to adults). The aim is to work with employers in the area, and contractors working on developing Kings Cross (which includes the channel tunnel terminal) to recruit locally. In 1996/7 the target of 200 Islington residents into employment was met and future targets are 400 per year for 6 years. A "One Stop Shop" to give the project a visible focus close to Kings Cross Station has been opened.
2 City Fringe SRB Programme
This is another area-based cross borough initiative designed to tackle the widespread discrepancies in wealth between the City of London and its fringes which include the boroughs of Islington, Hackney and Tower Hamlets. The "Pathways to Employment" initiative works with the same partners as Kings Cross and is run from the City & Islington College site in Bunhill Road. Targets are 88 Islington people into employment per year for 3 years.
3 Labour Market Initiatives
LBI has a major new strategic priority to become a "Learning Borough" which involves promoting lifelong learning and training opportunities for its residents. Agreements (called Compacts) have been developed between Islington Council, the 2 Universities (University of North London and City University) that are located in the borough, City & Islington College, and local schools, to improve access to HE and vocational training for local people.
Through a variety of funding sources (SRB, ESF, FEFC, Integra, Article 6 etc) additional help for women returners, single parents, and socially excluded groups to access training and employment opportunities will be available through the provision of taster courses, access courses, employment guidance, and Pathways to Employment.
ESF provides a funding base for 4 projects concentrating on vocational training in new technologies for people from socially deprived groups. These include ARTEC (see case study No 1) for multimedia training, FSST (Financial Services Sector Training), Wellstec, Andover (estate based education and training) and ITEC (Information Technology) training.
The council also funds a wide variety of voluntary sector training projects which provide training for people who are not covered by mainstream TEC programmes. These include black and ethnic minorities, refugees, people with disabilities, and non traditional skills training for women (eg Migrant Training Company, Black Arts Training, Asian Women's Project, Taxi Trade Promotion, Information Technology for Women Returners).
Government funding under its Welfare to Work (also known as New Deal) for young people is being sought to develop a local programme targeted at the 1500 Islington young people unemployed for over 6 months. Other projects targeting young people are being developed (eg Kings Cross Youth Partnership, Copenhagen Youth Project, and Finsbury Youth Project).
4 Sectoral Interventions
The EFP team is keen to strengthen Islington's business base through exploiting the potential of new technologies. In addition to providing subsidies to local business to develop web sites (promoting Digital business), and putting the Islington Business Directory on-line, through EU Periphera funding (which uses new technologies to integrate people from socially marginalised groups through mechanisms like remote working), trainees based at ARTEC are provided with equipment and on-going support to obtain work on-line or by starting digital businesses.
5 Enterprise Support
Islington Council has a longstanding relationship with City & Islington College (see case study no 4), Business Link and Islington Enterprise Agency (see case study no 6) to encourage small business start ups. In partnership with IEA and others, it hopes to develop a job creation programme in multimedia. Through its involvement with local Agenda 21 (the Charter for working towards a Sustainable future), it hopes to develop projects to support alternative economic activity such as Local Exchange Trading Systems and Credit Unions.
Another development is Local Purchasing Initiatives which opens up the possibilities for smaller local firms to supply goods and services to large organisations in the public and private sector - including the local council itself. So far this is being fostered by providing (through promotional activity), information and guidance about council purchasing procedures and by breaking large contracts into smaller contracts. Following this, 150 Islington firms have now registered to become "Approved Suppliers" and their success will be monitored (prior to this initiative only 2 local firms had achieved approved status). Initiatives specifically to assist Islington based black and ethnic minority business to improve their competitiveness will be developed.
6 Area Based Initiatives
Kings Cross and City Fringe Partnerships, both area based developments, are described earlier (section D.1). In addition, in other parts of the borough smaller scale regeneration initiatives are being pursued in partnership with local business and local residents. At Archway this is to work on a sustainable shopping centre. In Cannonbury Capital Challenge funding for major improvements to the Marquess Estate are at the on-site development stage and job creation initiatives from employment arising from construction and new retail units will be open first to local people. Details of the Tollington Initiative which is still at its early phase are described in case study no 10.
E) CONCLUSION
These interventions highlight the local authority's move towards a partnership approach for economic development in which working successfully with other players is made explicit, and where local people are recognised more fully as active participants rather than objects/subjects in local economic development.
Staff in the Economic and Social Regeneration Division require a high level of commitment, 'partnership' capacities and 'partnership' working methods to achieve the council's economic and social regeneration goals through collaboration-in-partnership. There are tensions and conflicts in this more processual approach - for example in the council's function as a regulatory and controlling agency, and as a key enabling, motivating and co-ordinating partnership agency.