Nottingham City Council is committed to ensuring its workforce is truly representative of the communities who live in the city. In order to achieve this, the authority has formally adopted an over-arching action plan, known as the Local Jobs for Local People (LJ4LP) action plan.
This is an approach designed to help local people from disadvantaged community groups to gain access to training and employment opportunities in the City Council, recognising that assisting local people into employment is not only beneficial to the individual, but also tackles social exclusion and promotes prosperity in the city as a whole.
The action plan covers a wide range of initiatives including pre-employment training opportunities, Work Experience, PATRA placements, Corporate Pool Recruitment, Community Recruiters Scheme, the Tap the Gap Scheme, apprenticeships and a new city residency requirement for all of our level entry jobs e.g. clerical assistants, cleaners, gardeners and cooks.
- Corporate Pool Recruitment
As part of the Local Jobs for Local People approach we piloted a Corporate Pool Recruitment scheme to appoint a group of Admin/Clerical assistants. The scheme aimed to harness local talent and to tackle worklessness in some of the city’s most disadvantaged areas. Of the appointable candidates 92% were city residents, 30% were from the Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) communities and 15% were disabled. The success of the pilot has lead to discussions around the future widening of the scheme to target other employment opportunities across the authority, such as care assistants.
In also supporting the Local Jobs for Local People agenda it was agreed in 2004 that priority would be given to city school children and children looked after when offering work experience opportunities. During the academic year 2004/05, 386 placements were provided to young people from across the city and with continuing commitment this year we hope to offer a further 335 placements. Work experience opportunities span the whole authority from spending time in Nottingham’s local sports and leisure facilities to getting an insight into the work of our Architects.
In addition to work experience, we also work closely with PATRA (Positive Action Training and Recruitment Agency). PATRA aims to encourage young Black people to build their confidence and their ability to access the job market across a range of occupations. Nottingham City Council supports this by providing extended work experience placements to young Black people, who are part of the PATRA programme. We have committed to supporting 32 PATRA placements this academic year.
- Community Recruiters Scheme
The Community Recruiters Scheme is an employment based initiative to improve diversity within the workforce. It aims to recruit and train people from Nottingham's BME communities to take part in the city councils recruitment and selection process.
Community Recruiters play a vital role in ensuring a balanced approach to recruitment is taken. They actively contribute to the whole recruitment and selection process; promoting the City Council as an employer; making sure Person Specifications and Job Descriptions are non-discriminatory; helping to shortlist interview candidates; sitting on interview panels; and assisting with the decision-making process around the appointable candidates. They also act as ambassadors for the City Council within their communities.
So far we have successfully appointed 8 Community Recruiters from a variety of ethnic backgrounds.
This programme is offered by Nottingham City Council with involvement from the Millennium Volunteers and Nottinghamshire’s Black Police Association. It offers Black and Minority Ethnic students in Year 11 the opportunity to gain four weeks voluntary work experience in a variety of areas including museums, libraries, sports and leisure facilities and play. The placements take place during the school summer holidays and require each student to complete a minimum of 100 hours work over the four weeks.
For further details:
Contact Joanne Ratchford, Social Inclusion Officer, on 0115 56555 or email joanne.ratchford@nottinghamcity.gov.uk
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