NORTH LONDON STRATEGIC ALLIANCE RESPONSE TO NORTH ...

The GLA must use its influence to ensure that central Government and its agencies areplaced to respond to London’s growth agenda.Skills developmentNorth London has 14% of London’s population but only 8% London’s jobs – and the gapis set to widen as population is projected to grow 3 times faster than its economy.However there is significant sub-regional variation, with Barnet showing strong growthand Waltham Forest projected to lose jobs. Sustainable development requires localjobs as well as access to employment elsewhere.The majority of the population is highly skilled but there are significant concentrations ofworklessness, particularly in the Upper Lee Valley and eastern Haringey and, to alesser extent, the Edgware corridor. Currently the sub-region has nearly 75,000 nonemployedpeople who want to work an average of 11% of the working age population.We can benefit from growth provided the right support is offered to ensure our residentshave the skills, aspirations and hope to succeed in the London labour market.NLSA includes the following comment from the North London Learning & Skills Councilon paragraphs 74-75 under Social infrastructure (Section 1E).The SRDF quite rightly identifies ‘skills development’ as a key issue. Skills levels inNorth London are somewhat polarised, almost a third of the population has achievedlevel 4 or above while over a quarter of the population have no or very low level skills.This illustrates the need to focus on basic skills that open up the employment market tothis group of the population. This is borne out by the higher than averageunemployment rate. However, this must be tempered with the findings of employers inthe sub-region who do not report a high level of vacancies and few ‘skills relatedvacancies’. The implication is that wider circumstances around transport, sectoraldecline, economic development and infrastructure lie at the heart of the unemploymentin the sub-region.Participation rates in further education are high, currently around 82%, which issignificantly above both the London and national participation rates. This would suggestthat improving participation rates would be best served by looking at alternativepathways rather than expanding the existing offering. A far more pressing issue is theimprovement of the current FE accommodation rather than new provision.Paragraph 78 is factually inaccurate. It should be deleted and replaced with:-78 A new 16-19 school is being established in east Haringey. It will be the sixth formfor four schools and is being jointly funded by the LSC and Local Authoritythrough ‘Building Schools for the Future’. The school will open in September2007.The final SRDF should make a clear link between the need to target skills developmenttowards sectors of employment growth and where employment opportunities are14