Audit Commission

The five Tees Valley councils and partner organisations have worked well together to tackle the effects of the recession. Despite a good track record of collaboration on economic development, joint working over recent years has not sufficiently improved higher skill levels, increased the number of new businesses, or reduced unemployment across the Tees Valley - and strategies have not always been turned into effective action. These are the key findings of an independent Audit Commission report published today into Jobs and Skills in the Tees Valley.

Inspectors looked at progress made by the councils and their partners over the past five years to create jobs, raise skills and get people into work. It also covered Tees Valley-wide and individual council strategies for the future - to recover from the recession and tackle long standing employment problems such as the number of people with low skills or people on incapacity benefits.

The Tees Valley inspection report is published with an appendix for each individual council, including a scored judgement of each council’s performance, and prospects for improvement (see p3 of this press release).

The report concluded that although the Tees Valley councils and their partners have successfully attracted considerable investment in key sectors, the scale and pace has not been enough to narrow the gap with other parts of the region and country. Skill levels have improved, but not at the top end (Level Four qualifications and above) or for those with no qualifications, and there is no clear strategy to address this.

Initiatives are helping individuals, families and communities get back to work but they are not of a sufficient scale to make a difference to the overall levels of worklessness. Although partners understand the barriers and issues, and have developed a framework for action, implementation has been patchy.

The councils cannot demonstrate that their economic development services generally deliver value for money because not all work is evaluated and comparisons
are not always made. Joint working arrangements within Tees Valley Unlimited have been slow and there is an urgent need to move from strategy to implementation, which is proving frustrating to the private sector.

Audit Commission senior manager Philippa Corner said:

‘Individual councils have generally developed good working relationships with local employers. They have worked well together across the Tees Valley on some issues, such as responding to the recession, which meant far fewer people than anticipated became redundant.

‘However, there are underlying economic challenges and skills issues which require a more joined-up strategic approach and more rapid, targeted action. Tees Valley performs poorly in comparison with other ‘city regions’ on a number of key economic indicators. It needs 5,000 more businesses and 20,000 more jobs to meet national averages - and to achieve this requires a major improvement in how the councils work together.’

Inspectors made a number of recommendations to the councils, including:

• Working more effectively together with businesses and other partners, ideally through a Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP), to create the conditions for more private sector jobs growth.
• Develop a sub-regional framework that allows economic development decisions to be taken and implemented more quickly.
• Provide more coherent support to existing or potential start-up businesses; and to individuals seeking work through developing strong links with the emerging DWP ‘welfare to work’ programme.
• Identify the skills needed by the private sector and the most effective way of equipping local people with the right skills.
• Improve partnerships with business, further and higher education to develop more Level 4 skills as needed in the current and future local economy.
• Improve value-for-money and effectiveness of economic development activity by ensuring there is a clear understanding of local and sub-regional objectives, and the impacts of all initiatives are properly measured.
• Learn from each others’ experiences and from councils across the country about what is working well and use this knowledge in their future plans.

Individual Jobs and Skills inspection reports for the councils assessed their performance on a scale of zero to three stars, and prospects for improvement:

• Darlington Borough Council - ‘good’, two stars; with ‘promising’ prospects for improvement
• Hartlepool Borough Council - ‘good’, two stars; with ‘uncertain’ prospects for improvement
• Middlesbrough Council - ‘good’, two stars; with ‘uncertain’ prospects for improvement
• Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council - ‘good’, two stars; with ‘promising’ prospects for improvement
• Stockton Borough Council - ‘fair’, one star; with ‘promising’ prospects for improvement

Copies of the reports are available from Darlington, Hartlepool, Middlesbrough, Redcar and Cleveland and Stockton councils or at: www.audit-commission.gov.uk

Notes to editors

1. The Audit Commission is an independent watchdog, driving economy, efficiency and effectiveness in local public services to deliver better outcomes for everyone.
2. Our work across local government, health, housing, community safety and fire and rescue services means that we have a unique perspective. We promote value for money for taxpayers.
3. On 13 August 2010 the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government announced that he plans to disband the Audit Commission.  His intention is to have new arrangements in place for auditing England's public bodies by 2012/13.

For more details about the role of the Audit Commission visit www.audit-commission.gov.uk.