Environmental Business Strategic Investment Plan (SIP)
ebns is delighted to announce our new partnership with the University of Central England Technology Innovation Centre based at Millennium Point. Professor Ian Oakes, Director of Commercial and Business Development will be leading the development of proposals to support the delivery of our Environmental Business Sector Strategic Investment Plan. Over the summer months Professor Oakes and his team at TIC will be facilitating a number of workshops with ebns to scope out the projects that will deliver the vision of the SIP which is ? to encourage the growth of a sustainable, thriving, prominent environmental business sector in the Regeneration Zone.?
Our partnership aspires to develop a ?World Class? environmental industries sector in the Regeneration Zone. The partnership will encourage the growth of a sustainable, thriving, prominent environmental business sector in the Regeneration Zone. It will bring to bear its influence, knowledge and experience of the market, products and services, organizational development, human resources, finance, management and leadership to create inspiring goals and motivate people by determination and example to the highest levels of accomplishment.
This is a growing sector of the economy UK Environmental Goods and Services market will grow from £25 billion in 2005 to £34 billion in 2010 (42% growth from 2005) and on to £46 billion by 2015 however growth rates are likely to be lower in the West Midlands without intervention. The West Midlands and Birmingham do not have a reputation for excellence in Environmental Industries and are lagging behind other UK regions. Doing nothing would maintain the skills gaps and shortages at current levels.
The Department for Trade and Industry says that the Environmental business sector is being held back by a few critical weaknesses in the path to market, particularly at the demonstration and scaling-up stage. Too often innovative ideas developed in the UK are exploited overseas.? Doing more of the usual types of business support and training is unlikely to have sufficient impact to raise Birmingham or the West Midlands out of the bottom half of the UK performance table. The SIP Partnership believes that it is time to build Birmingham?s reputation as a ?World Class? location for Environmental Business and create a Centre of Excellence for Environmental Industry Skills in the Regeneration Zone.
TIC will be holding an Open Day on Saturday 23rd June, 11am to 3pm, Millennium Point, Birmingham where you can find out about part-time study to enhance your career prospects at under graduate and post graduate level in the areas of Information and Communications Technology, Advanced Engineering and Logistics, Operations and e-Business. Tel: 0121 331 6400, e-mail: course.enquiries@tic.ac.uk website: www.tic.acuk/part-time
City Region and City Strategy
Birmingham has the potential for developing a knowledge-based economy based on strong future growth if all planned capital projects are implemented. In a knowledge based, high value added economy, the key to success for a city is whether it can continuously innovate in products, processes and services. The OECD review of entrepreneurship in the West Midlands underlined that the region is performing below the UK average in terms of new company registrations and total entrepreneurial activity. The UK itself is performing below the OECD countries average.
The Region as a whole has a £10 billion productivity gap and there is a need for improved training and development to deliver the step change needed to put us on a par with our national and international competitors. As Prof. Michael Parkinson said in his recent Visioning Study for Birmingham City Centre, ?Birmingham is a big city. It faces big challenges. But it has made many big achievements and it has big opportunities.?
ebns is playing an active role is supporting the development of Employment and Skills approach for the City Strategy and the City Region Strategy which is a multi agency approach to tackling worklessness. For those of you who don?t know about the City Strategy it?s a plan to provide a ?Core Offer? that all workless individuals in the priority wards of Nechells, Shard End, Sparkhill, Washwood Heath, Kingstanding, Sparkbrook, Small Heath, Chelmsley Wood, Fordbridge, Smith?s Wood; and Kingshurst. The City Strategy is an integral part of the City Region Strategy whose vision is that: ?In 2020 the Birmingham, Coventry and Black Country City Region will have high levels of personal prosperity, business success and population growth equal to those in the South East of England with every individual realizing his or her full potential?? The vision of the City Strategy is enormously ambitious and will draw on a number of inter-related plans to tackle issues such as transport, housing and regeneration.
The central element of the Employment and Skills City Strategy is what is called a ?Core Offer?. This proposal aims ensure that anyone who accesses employment and/or skills services receives a seamless service, thus enhancing their chances of entering suitable employment. The client engagement stage is the first point at which someone has contact with the ?integrated employment and skills system?. At the end of the initial Client engagement process a report will be made to the proposed Caseload Tracking team on progress to date. A career planning service will look at providing advice about potential career options including different routes into careers i.e. vocational, educational etc. Job preferences will be examined to ascertain whether suitable jobs are available and whether additional support will be required to help people access their preferred jobs.
ebns welcomes and supports improvements to mainstream services to workless people to help them into jobs but it is worth taking a minute to think about the quality and sustainability of jobs too. Over 15% of the city?s employment is now in the professional services sector with an estimated 390,000 jobs. Other key growth sectors in the Regeneration Zone are in environmental business with approximately 150 businesses where the market for goods and services in the West Midlands has been estimated at between £1.3b and £1.8b per annum and is expected to grow at about 8% per annum; and creative industries where the Zone and private sector investors are currently making massive investments in places such as Eastside and Digbeth. Digbeth has two key developments supporting creative industries ? the Custard Factory and the Bond in Fazeley Street which support more than 300 creative businesses. Most of the jobs in these growth sectors require a labour force with either intermediate or higher level skills and ebns is working with colleagues from the Learning and Skills Council, our local colleges and universities to make sure that training at level 3, 4 and 5 in our key employment and growth sectors is available to people in the Zone so that they are able to compete effectively for the jobs being created in the Zone.
Further information on ebns proposals will appear in our strategic investment plan for Enterprise, Skills and Access to Work in July.