Dear #SubscriberFirstName# #SubscriberLastName#,

July Newsletter

Board Away Day

ebns Chairman, John Taylor, hosted an away day for board members on Tuesday 19^th July at Faraday Wharf. The results of the workshops will inform the development of the Strategic Investment Plans. The event was well attended by Board Members from the following organisations:.

· Birmingham City Council
· Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council
· Sparkhill/Sparkbrook and Tyseley Regeneration Board
· Hodge Hill District LSP
· Saltley Small Heath Regeneration Board
· Corporate Procurement Services
· Birmingham Chamber of Commerce and Industry
· Jobcentre Plus
· Learning and Skills Council
· University of Birmingham
· Advantage West Midlands

Ecotec and Thomas Lister took the lead on the workshop sessions. The attendees were split into two groups and engaged in three sessions of discussions on the following Strategic Investment Plans:

· Employment Land
· Local Employment Centres
· Skills, Access to Work and Enterprise

SIP Consultation Events

ebns held its second consultation event, on Tuesday 4^th July, for the final three Strategic Investment Plans: Employment Land, Local Employment Centres and Skills, Access to Work and Enterprise. The event took a similar format to the previous event on June 20th and was attended by colleagues from the following organisations:

· Bucknall Austin
· Solihull Metropolitan Borough council
· Learning and Skills Council
· Birmingham City Council
· RegenWM
· University of Central England
· Jobcentre Plus
· South Birmingham College
· Future Foundations



Employment Land

This presentation covered the following:-

Influences on our approach

• Local authority UDPs
• Availability
• EU State Aid rules

Investment Criteria

• Job creation
• Diversify & strengthen business base
• Underused/unused land & buildings

Types of Intervention

• Gap funding?
• Equity stake?

Key Players

• Local Authorities
• Planning authority
• Land owner
• Private Sector

Local Employment Centres

ebns will use Local Centres identified by

• Birmingham City Council and
• Solihull MBC

What is a local centre?

Local Centres vary depending on their history and the community they serve.

Some Local Centres have a potential to be:-

• Comprehensive local service centres where people can access professional services, for example, solicitors, surveyors, opticians, travel agencies etc.
• Places with distinctive character.
• Places with a range of shops, food outlets, markets, restaurants.
• Focal points for local transport.
• Centres for local culture, arts, music, theatre and cinema.
• Training, information and local authority services centres.
• Employment centres.

Area covered by this plan

Wards:-

• Kingstanding, Hodge Hill
• Stockland Green, Fox Hollies
• Yardley, Acocks Green,
• Shard End, Erdington, Kingsbury
• North Solihull and Enterprising Communities are covered in their respective area based plans but we will capture any partner input for those plans today.

ebns will work with partners to identify the Economic, Environmental and Social strengths and weaknesses of the local centres.

• The local centre already identified for investment is Chelmsley Wood Town Centre (North Solihull SIP).

Other centres might include:-

• Erdington
• Kingstanding
• Acocks Green
• Shard End/Lee Village

ebns will support activities that provide:

· Support Business and business creation
· Improvement to public realm where eligible
· Employment
· Transport
· Training

Enterprise Skills and Access to work

· All of the Zone except Sparkbrook, Small Heath and Erdington are below the Birmingham, West Midlands and England average for Enterprise creation.
· All wards are below average in Enterprise creation by women.
· Social Enterprise is growing but from a very low base.
· Also have a significantly lower than average V.A.T. registrations (below threshold of £60,000 p.a.)
· By 2014 there will be higher demand for NVQ3+ qualifications this will reflect the changing make-up of the jobs market and the growing demands of the sectors like professional services sector more highly multi-skilled personnel.

There was agreement that there were some activities that were working well to address these issues ? for example:-

· AEGs trying to coordinate activity
· Hubs working well, promoting a demand led environment
· Customised training

In terms of what consultees though was not working well they identified the following examples:-

· Distance learning
· ESOL ? not flexible
· Improvement in public knowledge of what skills are needed for certain types of employment

The following responses were given in answer to what we need to do to support start ups?

· Provide a targeted approach
· Provide affordable workspace with easy in/out leases
· Provide role models from existing enterprises in the Zone

In response to what we need to do to improve existing businesses the following responses were given:

· Extend Train2gain
· Improve communications with employers
· Share knowledge and experience between service providers
· Focus on activities where most impact can be achieved.

The consultation groups were generally in agreement with our approach. For further details of the consultation results see our website www.ebns.co.uk

Thank you for your time.

ebns
www.ebns.co.uk