Severn Trent's Big Boost For Brum and the Good Jobs Project
Big Boost For Brum
Severn Trent is the water provider for the West Midlands region. Last year they laid out a 10 year plan to move 100,000 people out of water poverty. This is where the cost of water and sewerage is more than 5% of a household’s disposable income. This is a hugely ambitious target. Why? Because even though they directly employ a huge number of people in the region, and even more when you consider their supply chain, they still only employ a fraction of the 100,000.
That means that they can’t do it alone, which means that it has collaboration built into it by design.
This 10 year plan is well aligned with the Good Jobs Project. The Good Jobs Project’s ambition is to help close the vacancy gap, which remains stubbornly high, through the intentional and targeted recruitment of people who are commonly marginalised. Those who would be most likely to be closer to water poverty.
While the Good Jobs Project doesn't have regional boundaries, we believe that the West Midlands is a great place for things to happen. We are now working with Severn Trent and others to see how we can help to normalise the recruitment of marginalised people with a place-based approach. This will only be successful with collaboration, where the impact of the collective action will be greater than the sum of its parts.
Andy Street, the Mayor of the West Midlands region, closed the event and reiterated the opportunity in the West Midlands. He provided great reflections on the West Midlands Combined Authority's ambition for growth and skills development.
Here’s some information about the West Midlands
There is a greater proportion of people out of work in the West Midlands than the national average. Birmingham in particular, the UK’s 2nd city, has a low employment rate, more than 5 points lower than the national average. Yet at the same time, 17% of the economically inactive say they would like to work. This means there is a potentially sizable potential workforce that is not being tapped.
There is also a great need from the employers, which is where the potential win-win comes from. As part of the original Good Jobs Project research, we surveyed 500 employers across the UK. In the 12 months before our survey roughly the same proportion of businesses were recruiting here as the national average, however, twice as many said that they couldn’t fill their roles. By twice as many, that’s 30% or recruiters that said they couldn’t fill their roles.
The key takeaway we are highlighting here is not about how bad the situation is.
It’s the opposite.
We are highlighting the opportunity to be had!
The conditions are ripe for innovation!
What are we doing
And so we are forming a steering group of employers in the region to carry forward a pipeline of ideas that can bring businesses together and encourage more recruitment targeted to people that are often held back from accessing good jobs.
We have a vision where, through coordinated work and commitment by employers, the region can be known for its innovation in recruitment approaches. We want to take the stories of success to the central government, to champion things that will make it easier, and for the West Midlands to become an inspiration for the rest of the UK.
Following our presentations we had the amazing opportunity to meet many business leaders. The overwhelming message we heard was “I'm in. How can I help?”.
Thank you for hosting us, Birmingham. It was a genuine pleasure and we can’t wait to be back!
Some Kind words from a few of the attendees
“The BIG BOOST and its commitments around work experience blew me away, reminding me how executives and their visionary commitments can gamechange outcomes.” Joanna Birch, Birmingham City University
“Harry Brown gave an impassioned call to arms for progressive minded businesses to sign up to ReGenerate and put their words into action.” Mark Whitehouse, DWP
