Policy in Practice

Struck am I at the lack of direction the Home and Communities Agency (HCA) places on communities; it seems best economic value is the direction of play and community cohesion is very much off the agenda. It exists, but only when it’s needed to exemplify a responsibility to communities in a context that already exists, such as the 92 hectares transferred to the Parks Trust in Milton Keynes. But what about cities that are already squashed and face issues of social exclusion such as Bradford or Birmingham; how do the HCA deal with their needs? Best economic use is very much at play here; it is the deciding factor in establishing ‘site value’ and plays a huge part in the redevelopment of the local climate. In Bradford the question of demolishing the landmark Odeon cinema has been raging for a while, Yorkshire Forward (a government QUANGO) purchased the site to redevelop/demolish in 2003 and in 2012 nothing has changed with the HCA now responbile. Campaigns and local efforts hav...

In recent time the Work Programme has gone live and organisations (businesses) have been working with communities to improve their employability. This began under Labour where huge mistakes were made  and private businesses were allowed to bring their own buckets to  shower of money soirées. Since then nothing has changed (apart from an increase in bonuses) and unscrupulous private businesses are still able to tender for huge contracts and provide no measurable service quality either before, or  after they begin. In South Birmingham we have two training providers for the unemployed; one named Pertemps and the other named Intraining; they provide work experience opportunities/employment training and operate as referral  agencies for the JobCentres. The city used to have another main competitor in the way of WorkDirections but they, due to unsatisfactory performance and community complaints, lost many of their contracts. ...