Agenda item

The Board to review the aims and the action plan of the Aldershot & Farnborough Growth Partnership (action plan and prospectus attached).

 

Lee McQuade, Economy and Growth Service Manager and Tom Bircham, Economic Development Officer will be in attendance at the meeting to guide the discussion.

The Chair welcomed Mr Lee McQuade, Economy and Growth Service Manager and Mr Tom Bircham, Economic Development Officer, who provided further information in relation to the aims and the action plan of the Aldershot & Farnborough Growth Partnership. By way of context, the Board was informed that Rushmoor ranked highest in the UK for GVA (Gross Value Added) per hour worked and that, overall, productivity was 100.9% higher than the national average. The Borough boasted an employment rate of 85.6% which was significantly above regional and national benchmarks. Key sectors included aerospace, defence, digital and technical and professional services, with many major companies having a presence in the Borough, including Airbus, Boeing, Qinetiq, Gulfstream and BMW. It was noted, however, that the area also faced economic challenges, with pockets of deprivation, tired town centres and a growing challenge around talent and investment.

 

Turning to the Aldershot and Farnborough Growth Partnership, Members were informed that this was convened and chaired by Alex Baker MP and was a collection of the Borough’s key stakeholders combining forces to speak as a single economic cluster and promote the region’s strengths. The Partnership had identified three key priorities:

 

• Business Investment and Acceleration

 

• Skills and Jobs

 

• Renewing the Place

 

The Board was informed that the priorities were underpinned by a set of cross-cutting themes that shaped how activity was developed, coordinated and delivered:

 

• Improving awareness of collective business strengths and skills requirements

 

• Strengthening growth and connectivity between businesses and local partners to collaborate, share and learn

 

• Improving collaboration between businesses and schools and colleges on what skills business need and the varied career opportunities possible

 

• Developing a vision and action plan for town centre regeneration and business’ role in that

 

• Developing and promoting the growth and skills opportunity

 

• Establishing and promoting the Aldershot and Farnborough Growth Partnership brand, creating a clear, credible and consistent identity for the Partnership to unify activity

 

Members were informed that the establishing and operation of the Partnership was helping to address a number of key Council’s priorities, including the Delivery Plan priority of ‘Work with businesses to attract and retain jobs’, the Corporate Peer Review recommendations, including leveraging partners and to improve routine engagement between partners and businesses.

 

In discussing the content of the presentation, the Board raised the following points:

 

• Seems a paradox – statistics show great place to live and work in – but it doesn’t necessarily feel like that!

 

• Residents’ earnings are nowhere near the average earning shown in the figures as the Borough imports workers from affluent areas and exports the lower paid

 

• Need to address skills gap – connect businesses to schools and promote existing opportunities, such as apprenticeships

 

• Need to ensure that companies engaging with schools in a more coordinated way, where possible

 

• Mustn’t forget home-schooled children – some local home school groups exist

 

• Good communications are vital here

 

• Qinetiq has done some great work with veterans – any others?

 

• Careers events/days within schools and colleges are really important

 

• Feels like this applies more to Farnborough’s high tech industries than Aldershot – though the contributions of supply chain industries in Aldershot should not be overlooked

 

• Should stress Farnborough’s importance to aerospace and Aldershot’s importance to defence engineering in particular

 

In summarising the discussion, the Chair proposed and the Board agreed that the following recommendations should be made to the Cabinet:

 

• That the Partnership’s Action Plan should contain more specific, measurable (SMART) outcomes, such as KPIs; and

 

• That sufficient resources should be made available to the Council’s Economy and Growth team to ensure that, in terms of the priorities of the Partnership and the Council, the team is able to support this important area of work going forward.

 

The Chair thanked Mr McQuade and Mr Bircham for their input in considering  this item.