Inner City Task Forces (Hansard, 3 February 1987)

§ Mr. Kenneth Clarke

The task forces set up in eight small inner city areas under the inner cities initiative are making substantial progress. This initiative aims to experiment with new projects and policies in inner city areas and achievements to date are many and varied.

Some 63 projects, involving around £2.5 million of earmarked task force funds have been approved for support, and the task forces are ensuring that existing Government resources from many other Government programmes are targeted more effectively on their areas.

A particular aim of the initiative is to encourage job creation and enterprise. A large number of projects address this aim. I am supporting small businesses, including those owned by ethnic minorities through inner city based enterprise agencies in Birmingham and Bristol, and intend to promote similar agencies in the other areas.

I have recently announced our intention to establish special Development Funds, each set up in partnership 611W with a major clearing bank, to help small businesses in the eight areas to gain more ready access to the finance they need. The first two such funds have been launched in Bristol (with the National Westminster bank) and Leeds (with the Yorkshire bank). Funds in the remaining areas will, I anticipate, be set up soon.

I have given a grant of £150,000 to the Cleveland youth enterprise centre to support its work in inner city Middlesbrough.

I have contributed £77,000 to support the headstart programme, under which, in collaboration with the Industrial Society and the Manpower Services Commission, we will give access to business training to 3,000 inner city youngsters in most of the eight areas.

I also announced in October a new arrangement in cooperation with the Association of British Insurers, to help businesses in the eight areas overcome difficulties in arranging insurance.

I am also giving support to projects to improve the employability of inner city residents. This includes: a grant of £93,000 to PATH in Leeds to provide high quality vocational training in banks, building societies and insurance companies mainly for young people from ethnic minorities; a grant of £55,000 to Handsworth Technical College to convert and equip a workshop to provide a base for skill training in personal services such as hairdressing, beauty therapy, food preparation and retailing; a grant of £325,000 over two years to allow the Association of Marine and Related Charities (AMARC) to expand their training agency in Middlesbrough, creating over 250 new training places in a range of technical skills; £42,000 to South East Training, North Peckham towards setting up a 100 place training scheme which provides employed-based, customised training in a number of skills, reflecting job opportunities in the travel to work areas.

I have approved a grant of £47,000 to an opportunities industrialisation centre (UK) project in Handsworth, a United States-bred scheme which aims to reintegrate young people through a programme of training, outreach, placement and continuity of support involving over 300 clients every year.

In addition we are developing innovative targeted training schemes such as one for the new Copthorne hotel in Birmingham. Sixty young people from in and around Handsworth will be given training over a four-week period in hotel and catering skills at the City of Birmingham College of Food abd Domestic Art. The Copthorne hotel has agreed to interview all those completing the course with a view to offering them jobs.

A major theme in all the task force areas is the need to ensure that future urban development projects in inner cities provide work opportunities and skill training for local people. At the end of November I announced an important and experimental scheme in Handsworth, under which local people will be employed by a major contractor (Tarmac) to refurbish a street of run-down Victorian houses at a total cost of £1.5 million. Local subcontractors will employ and train local people to do the bulk of the work. We intend to develop this approach with other building and refurbishment work in other Task Force areas.

This is an interdepartmental initiative, and task forces are receiving support and co-operation from other Departments and agencies. I am pleased that the 612W Manpower Services Commission is working with us to ensure that its programmes are better targetted to the needs of the eight areas, and the people living in them.

Additional community programme places have been made available to the task forces and we are currently aiming to fill many of them through private-sector led schemes with the accent on the construction industry. In addition task forces are participating in a pilot to encourage suitable CP schemes to turn themselves into viable independent businesses.

The advances and achievements the initiative has made to date have only been possible with the co-operation of the public and private sector, the voluntary organisations and local communities. I am pleased to say that most task forces have received wholehearted support from all groups in their areas. I hope that in areas where co-operation has been less forthcoming. The local authorities and community groups concerned will now work with the task forces to join with us in reversing economic decline in the inner city and providing lasting benefits for the residents.