Chris Buss: 151 officers, strategic development and local skills – part two

Wandsworth’s 151 Chris Buss on the borough’s efforts to integrate skills development into strategic projects

It’s very easy to get a disconnect between the physical redevelopment of an area and the skills mix required both for its short and long term regeneration. In effect strategic development has to involve a mix of ensuring that residents have the right skills to gain employment, whilst physical development ensures that an area is fit for purpose in terms of places to live, work and play.

At present in Wandsworth we have three different regeneration areas all of which involve physical regeneration but all of which include elements which ensure this is tied into increasing the local skills base ensuring that residents, often from some of the borough’s most deprived communities, are able to gain future employment.

Our largest scheme, which is virtually all private sector development, is the Vauxhall Nine Elms area, a whole new community of 18,000+ dwellings with new offices, shops and business spaces.

Working with Lambeth and the developers a framework for ensuring residents are job ready, both for construction related work and jobs in the new developments once construction is completed, has led to the creation of a jobs brokerage service enabling residents to be ready for work often when they have been out of employment for some time.

One of our two estate-based regeneration schemes is just over a mile away from Nine Elms, close to Clapham Junction station, the busiest train station in the country. Here, although residents can gain from the initiatives at Nine Elms, additional local measures are being implemented such as a Housing into Work pilot, mentoring schemes and targeted support used to interact with groups, in particular 18-25 year olds who are at risk of becoming disengaged. This targeted approach is in its early days and it’s too early to see how effective this is. But it’s clearly the right thing to do to ensure that local residents are in the best possible position to benefit from the jobs on offer in the borough.

A further incentive to ensure that residents have the right skills to get into work is the government’s welfare reforms. With the introduction of Universal Credit placing a further emphasis on the individual to find employment or risk a significant reduction in income, it is clearly in the council’s interests to ensure that those of its residents who are in this potential dilemma have the right skills not only for work but to manage their finances.

In order to assist council tenants the rent collection service employs financial inclusion officers to help tenants with no skills or experience in planning a weekly budget to do just that.

Skills are not just about jobs but about life. An area is more than just the physical environment. It needs a blend of both to ensure that people have the skills to manage their life and work opportunities in a physical environment in which it is attractive to work.

Chris Buss is director of finance and deputy chief executive for the London Borough of Wandsworth