Anybody who has seen the council graph of doom will know that, if the current funding cuts continue, in five years’ time councils will be doing nothing but emptying the bins and providing social care in five years’ time. Helping residents into work will not get a look-in.
We will all lose out from this, as councils can play an incredibly valuable role in both demand and supply – boosting local economies as well as the skills of local residents. In Waltham Forest we set up a business, employment and skills unit, integrating supply and demand. Between 2013 and 2014, unemployment fell by a quarter and we went from being in the top eight London boroughs for youth unemployment to the bottom eight in a year.
This was a great example of the public and private sectors working together for our residents’ benefit. Jobcentre Plus opened the first dedicated youth hub in England, which gave focused one-to-one support to all unemployed young people. Our developers and suppliers in the private sector stepped up by offering apprenticeships and guaranteed first job interviews to Waltham Forest residents. When Empire Cinemas recently opened in Walthamstow, every job was taken by a local resident.
In the council we did our bit by striving to be an exemplar employer. We massively increased the number of apprentices we employ, taking on over 40 young people. We also became a living wage employer, which we will also seek to push to our contractors. We took the view that the old way of expecting our residents to come to us for employment and skills advice no longer works – if it ever worked. We take our advice to our residents, where they are – at home, in the supermarket, at the doctor’s surgery – through our dedicated jobs bus, which looks like a cross between Doctor Who’s Tardis and Aerosmith’s tour wagon.
We also look to set a tone for the borough. We said to our residents: ‘You do your bit, and we’ll do ours.’ So we set up a scheme for young people who volunteer in the borough, rewarding them with job advice and guaranteed first interviews. We believe that borough boundaries are meaningless in the real world. We should strive to grow our local economy, but our aim should not be an unrealistic push for all our residents to be employed in Waltham Forest. Instead, we should aim for our residents to be able to get any good job, wherever it is based. If it is in Waltham Forest, great; if not, also great – just come back in the evenings and weekends and spend your money here!
Creating decent, well-paying, life-enhancing jobs should be central to our Labour mission. It certainly was for me in Waltham Forest. That needs a push on skills for life as well as increasing the supply of jobs available to local people through the council’s regeneration, planning and procurement work. But it also needs schools to focus on the literacy and numeracy skills that employers rank as their highest requirements. It needs families to stress to their children that hard work at school will reap rewards later in life. And it needs local businesses to see the enlightened self-interest in growing their potential customer base by giving work experience and job opportunities to local people – especially young people.
On jobs and the economy, when some lose, we all lose. Low skills and low employment means low demand for businesses’ products and services and high demand for councils’ services. Moving from vicious to virtuous circle is all of our business. We are all in it together – and good Labour councils get that.
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Mark Rusling is a Labour and Cooperative councillor in the London borough of Waltham Forest and writes the Changing to Survive column. He tweets @MarkRusling
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