Contrast:

The issue

Background

Waltham Forest Working Together, the borough’s local strategic partnership (LSP), was founded in 2001. It brought the public, private, voluntary and community sectors in Waltham Forest together to improve the quality of life for the people of the borough through the provision of better services. There was a special emphasis on narrowing the gap between the most deprived neighbourhoods and other parts of the borough. At this time, the LSP had an executive board and seven themed action partnerships, including one for employment and skills which developed its own action plan.

The Community Strategy 2012 was launched in July 2005 and aimed to improve learning opportunities to help individuals achieve their potential and to improve the local economy and infrastructure. In 2005/06 the local area agreement (LAA) was developed, negotiated and agreed with central government to reflect residents’, partners’ and the government’s priorities over the short to medium term of 2006–09. In the LAA, the focus of the Employment and Skills Partnership was to reduce worklessness by creating employment, skills and business opportunities for local people. It responded by creating and commissioning an innovative neighbourhood-based employment and training network, known as Worknet, in the LSP’s priority wards.

Developing the Worknet Partnership

The Worknet Partnership existed as a concept since 2005/06 and aimed to deliver modular services and support to those residents in need. It was designed to help local residents benefit from the opportunities created by the developments at Stratford City, the Olympic and Paralympic Games 2012 and associated activities within the Olympic Local Employment and Training Framework developed by the London Development Agency (LDA), the five host boroughs group and other partners.

There were a number of drivers that allowed Worknet to move from being a concept to being an operational partnership network tackling local worklessness during 2007.

• Waltham Forest continued to suffer from high levels of entrenched worklessness, especially among young people, and low skill levels. It had an employment rate of just 67 per cent for their working age population compared to 74 per cent for the UK (Oct 2006–Sep 2007). For 16 to 24-year-olds the employment rate was 48 per cent compared to 57 per cent for the UK. About 25,000 residents received some form of Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) benefit in November 2007 (for example Jobseeker’s Allowance, Incapacity Benefit). This represents 17 per cent of the working age population, above the rate for London and UK (both 14 per cent). Just under half of all working age residents (46 per cent) lacked a Level 2 qualification or higher.
• The local response to worklessness remained highly fragmented and not strategic, so reducing the effectiveness and sustainability of the local delivery structure. Funding was provided from a multitude of organisations, including DWP, Jobcentre Plus, the LDA, the Learning and Skills Council and the Government Office for London. This led to many separate commissioning and contracting exercises resulting in disconnected and fragmented delivery that was unable to respond to local need in a client-centred way. A further problem was the short-term nature of initiatives, which meant that approaches were only sustainable on two- and three-year cycles and there was no comprehensive evaluation of their impact and effectiveness locally. As a result, workless residents were not being supported back to work through mainstream funded programmes. The LSP accepted that addressing worklessness amongst the most disadvantaged groups and areas required substantial change in the way support services were designed, commissioned and delivered to residents.
• The development of Worknet was given further impetus by an independent review of the LSP completed in late 2006. The review was undertaken to ensure the LSP followed best practice and was equipped to develop and deliver the LAA. It recommended a simpler structure with one board, five theme partnerships covering key policy areas and task groups for key issues. Improved engagement was to be achieved through the business forums. As a result, an expanded Enterprise, Employment and Skills Partnership was created as a more strategic body with membership from the LDA, Learning and Skills Council, North London Strategic Alliance, Waltham Forest Business Board and Jobcentre Plus.
• The opportunity for funding came through the DWP’s City Strategy, which replaced the Deprived Area Fund operated by Jobcentre Plus. The business plan for £3.4 million of City Strategy funding was produced by Waltham Forest Council at the end of 2007 and approved by the five boroughs and other partners on the Board for East London City Strategy, which operated across multiple local authority areas.

What Waltham Forest didTop of page

In its strategy for 2008–12, the new Enterprise, Employment and Skills Partnership (EESP) developed an integrated approach to service delivery and development in response to the worklessness challenge in the borough.

The vision of the EESP Strategy 2008–12 was to ensure two things:

• that local economic benefits flow from the substantial regeneration and development opportunities as they arise in the borough and elsewhere in North and East London; and
• that people from disadvantaged communities, especially young people within the borough, can develop a range of specific and highly marketable skills that will enable them to compete effectively within the UK’s most dynamic regional economy.

The key objectives of the strategy are as follows:

• Strengthen growth-potential sectors by encouraging inward investment, supporting Business Improvement Districts for all the town centres, strengthening the creative and ‘aesthetic’ sectors and increasing the supply of skills for growth sectors.
• Support Small Medium Enterprise (SME) growth and self employment by developing an enterprise culture and by providing business growth services, start-up incubation space and enterprise outreach services.
• Improve the borough’s infrastructure and environment by refreshing its 2004 investment strategy, developing a new accessible transport plan, aligning the local development framework (LDF) and by developing a greener economy.
• Supply what employers need (demand-led, integrated services) by strengthening sector-specific initiatives, engaging employers and involving business leadership; and by enhancing subsidised training for employees of smaller firms through the ‘Train to Gain’ programme.
• Target low employment localities and hard-to-reach populations through an integrated outreach service, new retention and progression services, enhanced role of voluntary, community and faith organisations and the development of integrated employment support.
• Improve the borough’s skills base to ensure that residents can benefit from new economic opportunities by: reducing the numbers of residents who lack a Level 2 qualification; increasing the supply of basic skills, English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) and essential ICT training; and by reducing the numbers of young people not in education, employment or training (known as NEET).

The role of the Worknet Partnership

The EESP Strategy 2008–12 included establishing the Worknet Partnership as the primary delivery vehicle for employment and skills activity coordination across the borough in order to achieve its objectives.

Worknet Partnership

The Worknet Partnership involved the following:

• Establishing a network of single points of access for residents that bring together different services already being provided in their neighbourhoods. Currently there are 32 single access points under development including 14 children centres, three Waltham Forest Direct shops, two Jobcentre Plus centres, four community based housing association (CBHA) offices and other community buildings. Each type of centre has a distinct service focus including, for example, health and wellbeing for children and families and advice on employment, job search, benefits and housing provision.
• Recruiting nine Worknet advisers who operate from these access points with timetabled and programmed coverage on an outreach basis. Qualified to Level 3 for Information Advice and Guidance (IAG), the advisers actually come from six different organisations, but simply appear as Worknet advisers to the client. All the organisations and their advisers are experienced in engaging with hard-to-reach groups. A bi-monthly information and best practice exchange between the advisers forms part of the ongoing learning programme.
• Allocating a Worknet adviser as a case worker for each client who undertakes skills and other needs analysis. They give advice on benefits and money through one-to-one sessions or workshops and will refer them to the vocational training opportunities and job brokerage that forms part of the service. The Worknet adviser agrees the next steps on the route to employment with the client and is responsible for all client support and referrals up until the start of employment. The job brokerage service then provides support for the next six months while the client is in employment.
• Recruiting a further four in-house Worknet advisers to spend 50 per cent of their time coordinating the operation of the access points in each of the four postcode areas of Waltham Forest (E17, E10, E11 and E4). They also monitor the local management agreements to identify gaps in service provision and are developing the directories of service providers.
• Establishing a totally flexible fund of £60,000 from City Strategy for the Worknet advisers to help individuals with costs that can prove a barrier to entering employment (for example, a bus fare, a set of tools or safety equipment).
• Developing a customised, web-based support system for the Worknet advisers that is accessible from any location. The software allows a case worker to track client progress, make referrals for training and identify what training support is currently on offer. Reporting tools allow real-time monitoring and evaluation of progress and gap analysis by management and funders. The customised software system is being provided by Meganexus at a cost of £25,000.
• Establishing a Worknet steering group that is responsible for budgets and funding and reports to the EESP. The lead councillor for enterprise and investment sits on both these groups.
• Commissioning outreach services, job brokerage and vocational training services separately within one procurement round (to ensure contractors only focus on their core competences) and agreeing referral mechanisms and protocols. Training providers can only take referrals from outreach advisers for people registered on the programme. Job brokerage providers can only take referrals from outreach advisers and training providers.
• Using the Waltham Forest Business Board to engage local employers from the top four growth sectors in the local and sub-regional economies. Businesses are being used to contact businesses and Worknet is marketed as a recruitment agency with funds to train up local people to provide the future workforce needs of local employers.
• Developing a pilot project with Registered Social Landlords (RSLs)

Pilot: Working with Registered Social Landlords

Given the number of benefit claimants living in social housing, the Worknet Partnership has also developed a pilot project with the Waltham Forest Community Based Housing Association (CBHA) with £300,000 of funding. The CBHA is a subsidiary of the Peabody Trust and manages about 1,600 properties concentrated in four of the five most deprived neighbourhoods in Waltham Forest. The CBHA has a dedicated community development team that works with its residents to promote personal and social development through the experience of learning and interaction. The Worknet pilot with the CBHA has involved:

• delivery of integrated advice across four CBHA offices as part of the network of single points of access in Waltham Forest
• provision of outreach services in partnership to CBHA residents to avoid duplication of activities
• joint investment planning with CBHA community development budgets and increased delivery with CBHA providing funding for two additional ‘money advisers’.
• using the CBHA to drive forward partnering with RSLs in the borough to tackle worklessness and to improve coordination of activities between the council and RSLs.
• strategic bidding with RSLs to ensure integration with the housing services provided by Waltham Forest Council.
• provision of dedicated youth services in CBHA neighbourhoods with funding from Waltham Forest Council’s children and young people budgets.

Current funding for the EESP Strategy 2008–12 is more than £7.5 million. This is identified and/or applied for from a wide range of sources over a 15-month period, including European Regional Development Funds, Business Improvements District funds, Local Authority Business Growth Incentive, Local Employment Training Framework (LDA) and City Strategy Pilot (DWP). These funds are additional to mainstream funding from Jobcentre Plus, the LDA, the Learning and Skills Council, European Social Fund programmes and Section 106 contributions from planning agreements with developers.

The EESP Strategy 2008–12 aims to help 1,000 residents into employment and 1,000 residents to receive vocational skills training. Of these, 600 residents will be helped into employment through City Strategy funding (DWP). The total programme costs were developed on the basis of achieving the London employment rate in the borough at a cost of £3,500 per person helped.

The benefits / resultsTop of page

While the Worknet Partnership is in the first phase of its operation, delivery planning has been underway for some time and a range of benefits are becoming increasingly evident.

• £1.7 million of employment and skills services has already been commissioned through the new Worknet Partnership.
• Improvements to the sustainability of the local delivery infrastructure, which previously suffered from short-term funding regimes. Worknet Partnership aims to provide a more sustainable approach so if funding regimes do change the established delivery structure remains in place through the single points of access. The extent and range of training on offer would vary in line with budgetary levels.
• Improvements in value for money as the outreach services were commissioned as an integrated package rather than having each training provider budgeting for their own outreach provision.
• Improvements in cross-departmental working in Waltham Forest Council on worklessness issues between the regeneration team, children and young people services (including the youth offending team), housing services (for RSL pilot approach), Waltham Forest Direct shops and neighbourhoods team.
• Improvements in partner working and a strengthening of the EESP to provide oversight.
• Worknet has formed the basis for developing operational approaches to other service areas (for example, child poverty).
• A much extended outreach and engagement tool in the borough with a pooling of resources behind Worknet helping to reduce the amount of independent commissions.
• Improvements in tracking and monitoring. Previously some pan-London programmes were unable to provide a breakdown of clients in Waltham Forest.
• At a recent forum, training providers cautiously welcomed the new approach as an improved way of operating. They accept the need to move away from competing with other providers and to focus on the services they can best provide. Increased joint bidding has been occurring as a result.
• Councillors are very supportive of the new approach and keen to see the outcomes. For example, the lead member for enterprise and investment sits on the Worknet steering group and provides a direct link to cabinet and the community councils.

Being part of the Worknet Partnership has been a really good experience personally and for the organisation. It really is the kind of genuine partnership that everyone wants but is quite rare. Worknet has worked hard to include a wide range of partners of different sizes and types as the set-up is complex and what it is trying to achieve is complex. Creativity is encouraged and it feels genuinely innovative. This is leading to some early successes. Our money advice sessions have already helped people with their debt problems. Our youth engagement workers, working closely with Waltham Forest Council's Youth Services, have managed to get about 40 young people not in education, employment or training enrolled on the programme. None of these people would have been helped without Worknet. In the future I see permanence for Worknet as it is the right way to do things and it will become a mainstream service.

Gary de Ferry, Director of Development CBHA

The challenges / lessonsTop of page

At this stage, the main lessons from the implementation of the Worknet Partnership are as follows:

• About a year is required for planning the integration of employment and skill services across a London borough (for example, development of staff structures and protocols for providers). Waltham Forest Council had to condense this work into three months to meet the requirements of funders.
• A core team of staff need to be recruited early in the process so they can develop through the planning process and into the delivery phase.
• The importance of ensuring that vertical communication with the authority’s leadership team is effective, in addition to the success in improving horizontal working across internal departments in Waltham Forest Council.
• There are still considerable challenges in how to affect a cultural change in the commissioning approach of funding bodies, particularly at a local authority level in London.
• The challenges of managing risks in a changeable external environment with simultaneous change underway at the DWP, Jobcentre Plus, the Learning and Skills Council and the LDA.

For the future, Waltham Forest Council is planning to:

• further develop Worknet so it becomes the joint investment plan for all employment and skills support for worklessness residents in the borough
• channel all Section 106 / planning agreement funds for skills and employment though the Worknet Partnership and join up services across major development sites in the borough and wider area
• push for the next round of freedoms and flexibilities within the framework of the LAA and LSP to reduce the extent of separate commissioning.

Further informationTop of page

Chris Dransfield, Employment Development Manager, London Borough of Waltham Forest
email: chris.dransfield@walthamforest.gov.uk
Tel 020 8496 6745

Waltham Forest Working Together (LSP)

Meganexus