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Inner-City Network Cases

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The Impact of Networks on Unemployment

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Abstract

Chapters 5 and 6 are similarly structured and report on network activity in two local authorities in different English regions operating similar, centrally funded network interventions with remits for tackling unemployment. At the outset, a sampling strategy identified the case sites, two ward clusters in each borough, both with persistent unemployment but different local cultures, socio-economic histories and structural conditions. Section 1 introduces the local authority and its economic problems. Section 2 compares ward cluster demographics, unemployment, environment, culture and politics, overall policies, and network culture. Section 3 profiles five cases of formal and informal networks, and includes attributes, activities and sociograms visualising network connectivity. The final section compares the factorial impact on cases. This chapter introduces Tower Hamlets, an inner-city London borough (Labour-controlled) in England.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    From nine case area neighbourhoods studied, six fell within the worst 2 % of Lower Super Output Areas (LSOAs) from 32,483 LSOAs in England (ODPM 2004). LSOAs represent the deprivation statistics of small areas (approximately 1000–3000 people) since ward-level data can mask issues and ward boundaries can change. Note: the Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) was published in 2000 and 2004, initially by the ODPM, thereafter by the DCLG from 2007. The third and fourth editions in March 2010 and September 2015 were based on 326 local authorities as opposed to 354, because of local authority reorganisation.

  2. 2.

    Over centuries, settlers in Tower Hamlets have experienced hostility; consequently perceptions of the Bangladeshi population are highly charged, and its place identity polarised ‘between City and East End, gent and cockney, nation and outcasts’ (Dench et al. 2006: 189).

  3. 3.

    Tower Hamlets has a long history of entrepreneurship. In the seventeenth century, French Huguenot refugees developed a silk industry there, later supported by Irish weavers. The port expanded international trade. From 1795, seamen’s homes were established to aid Asian seamen left destitute after delivering goods to east London. In the twentieth century, Bangladeshi men stayed to work in the clothing industry and find menial work in the area. Eastern European Jewish settlers, at the end of the nineteenth century, established a tailoring industry or became cabinet-makers. Before the First World War, many Germans had settled to work in local breweries and sugar refineries.

  4. 4.

    The main employers are the financial services sector, public services and Bart’s and London Hospital Trust.

  5. 5.

    The TH Community Plan 2002–2006 (LBTH 2002: 14) highlights the pressure on local enterprise.

  6. 6.

    In 2007 the youth unemployment rate is 19.4 % compared to London average 10.6 % (LBTH 2008b: 48).

  7. 7.

    Note: ward data reporting is restricted to the ward boundary changes; in place as at December 2002. Bethnal Green South was formerly Holy Trinity, St Peters and Spitalfields. Spitalfields/Banglatown was formerly Spitalfields. Ward boundary changes occurred again in May 2014 at the council elections under the auspices of the Local Government Boundary Commission for England. Bethnal Green was formerly Bethnal Green South. Lansbury was formerly East India and Lansbury. Consequently, data availability is sometimes inconsistent.

  8. 8.

    Segregation also refers to a generational and social control system over women (Aftab 2007: 141).

  9. 9.

    Community support services avoid the bleakest estates, as the author observed when carrying out the fieldwork.

  10. 10.

    The Localism Act 2011 replaced the LDA (established in July 2000 under the auspices of the Greater London Authority (GLA)) with a subsidiary corporation (the Greater London Authority Land and Property), and the Mayor of London is responsible for an ‘Economic Development Strategy for London’, with the power to create mayoral regeneration areas and mayoral development corporations.

  11. 11.

    The Tower Hamlets Employment Strategy (LBTH 2008b) would ensure the delivery of national agendas and initiatives, seek ‘flexibilities to allow national programmes to meet local need’, and commission research to find out about the barriers to employment. This required the DWP, LSC and LDA to build on the City Strategy approach, and coordinate in the context of the emerging Multi-Area Agreements and delivery plan of the ‘Prosperous Communities Community Plan Delivery Group’ (2008b: 25).

  12. 12.

    NRF ceased to exist on the 31 March 2008, replaced by a £1.5 billion WNF, announced on the 6 December 2007 with allocations from 2008 to 2011 (DCLG and DWP 2007: 10).

  13. 13.

    NRF granted the THP £19.8 million in 2002–4 and £15.7 million in 2004–5. The allocation to CSPG for 2004–6 was £4.5 million, to be spent on tackling worklessness.

  14. 14.

    N3 had networks supporting wards bordering the city in four local authorities including LBTH. They prioritised the development of a 3-year strategic plan, supposedly to join up the planning process and link with the London Development Agency’s Economic Development Strategy and the London Skills Commission ‘London’s Framework for Regional Employment and Skills Action’ (FRESA), sub-regional strategic plans for Business Link, and the Learning and Skills Council London East, the DTI’s City Growth Strategy and the local authorities local strategic partnerships. Some of the projects benefited Tower Hamlets residents, institutions, including schools, and a pathway to work in the finance and business sector, Weavers Restaurant Trust to help the socially disadvantaged to work in the service industry and the college’s raising of awareness amongst young people and structuring of progression routes to jobs in the public sector.

  15. 15.

    Employment zones are areas where private-sector providers take over job-search provision for unemployed people who have been claiming JSA for 18 months or more, or who are below 25 years old and have already had time in the New Deal for Young People.

  16. 16.

    A £150,000 LAP 7 underspend was spent across the borough after Tower Hamlets Community College withdrew from delivering an enterprise development centre. Some of the LAP 7 members were ‘extremely concerned’ that the money did not go to local organisations and community groups (THP LAP 7 May 2005b).

  17. 17.

    Floor targets are government targets used to measure the success of LSPs and raise the quality of services to an acceptable minimum, or ‘floor’ level.

  18. 18.

    Neighbourhood unemployment is likely to predict sustained area poverty (Kauppinen et al. 2011).

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  1. UK, UK

    J. M. Hurst

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Hurst, J.M. (2016). Inner-City Network Cases. In: The Impact of Networks on Unemployment. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-66890-8_5

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