The City Fringe Partnership

The London winner of the Enterprising Britain 2006 competition was City Fringe Partnership.

City Fringe Partnership (CFP) was recognised for its success in creating an all-inclusive strategy for enterprise. CFP has successfully brought together businesses and communities to aid regeneration in the deprived City Fringe areas of Hackney, Islington, Tower Hamlets and Camden.

CFP was established in 1996 by the City of London and the surrounding boroughs, in recognition of the fact that beside the wealth of the City lay some of the most deprived communities in the United Kingdom. The City Fringe is home to over 140,000 residents, with over 40 per cent from ethnic minority backgrounds - a higher proportion than in London as a whole. Although the unemployment rate in the City Fringe has fallen from 13.6 per cent in 2002 to 8.4 per cent in 2005, it remains higher than the inner London rate of 6 per cent, and in parts of the City Fringe rates are much higher, peaking at 14.3%. All of the four City Fringe boroughs are in the top 5 per cent most deprived in the country according to the government's index of deprivation.

One of the main barriers facing the unemployed in the surrounding boroughs is that their skills do not fit with the jobs on offer. The City's market attracts international employers and employees. It does not, however, always provide jobs suitable for residents of the surrounding boroughs and, although there are lower skilled vacancies available in the City, they represent a smaller pool of jobs.

The Partnership has carried out a wide range of imaginative projects with the aim of helping to bridge the gap between the wealth of the City and the deprivation of the communities on its borders. Many projects were specifically directed at developing small business sectors in the Fringe and overcoming the disadvantage experienced by residents through unemployment and lack of qualifications.

The projects provided sector-specific training; helped the unemployed and workers in entry-level jobs; prioritised minority ethnic groups, people with disabilities and young people; and provided business support and tailored workspace in specific sectors. As a result, they have managed to aid regeneration and given many members of the City fringes a path to employment.

'Working in the City' is a good example of a project that aims to help residents of the City Fringe by looking to raise the aspirations and awareness of students in inner city schools to opportunities within the financial and professional services sector. 'Gateway to Construction' is another example of how projects help the people of the City fringes. This project recruits those who would not normally meet construction apprenticeship entry criteria, and gives them the chance to join the industry.

Since the City Fringe Partnership began in 1996 it has successfully achieved or over-achieved its targets, levering in more than £78 million in match funding through the SRB programme. However, over the course of the SRB programme the CFP increasingly came to believe that, for regeneration programmes to be truly effective and sustainable, more attention needed to be paid to the 'demand side'. It was crucial to know if the skills training provided was really valued by employers. Further investigation showed that employers' requirements and the needs of businesses were rarely generic and usually depended on their sector of operation. It was, therefore, recognised that further involvement from CFP would need to be sector-specific and designed by businesses if it was to make a real difference. Business involvement became central to CFP.

This business-centric approach led to the partnership adopting its City Growth Strategy in 2003. CFP is the one of the first bodies to pilot City Growth, a US initiative in which clusters of businesses work together to advise on what training and support is needed to ensure growth will benefit both the businesses and the local community. Through CFP, the City Growth Strategy actively encourages industry involvement and has transformed the way it does business. City Growth is a private-sector led approach to regeneration, emphasising the competitive advantages of inner city areas, including strategic location, human resources, local market demand and clusters of related businesses and organisations in the same industry sector working together to achieve economic success.

Through the City Growth Strategy, businesses work with the Partnership to develop plans for the future success of their industry, bringing public and private sector investment together. To date this has been successful in pulling in more than £5million in funding for such industries as the jewellery sector, printing and health and social care. This approach has also allowed CFP to adopt a means by which long-term sustainable investment from the private sector is being marshalled via the public sector. This has been achieved by putting business at the heart of the enterprise drive in the City Fringe.

Creating Space for New Companies looked at the supply and demand for workspace for new and existing companies to set up in business in the area. Creating Space for New Companies found that there is a lack of appropriate space for businesses to set-up and grow in the City Fringe. The Partnership is addressing this by helping to develop new creative space across core areas in partnership with local delivery agents and the London Development Agency, allowing new business to start-up. The City Growth Strategy has helped to provide workspace for creative businesses from the jewellery, audio-visual, and music sectors, ensuring that new businesses have the right location, space and support infrastructure to contribute to the creative hub in the City Fringe. It gives businesses the space to grow.

Crucially, the Partnership is supporting major projects that will increase knowledge transfer and will improve the competitiveness of local businesses through bringing new technology and skills together. This is an approach being targeted at the creative industries - an essential part of the City Fringe economy - and the print industry alike.

A recent customised training and development programme, Pathways to Jobs, has enabled 90 creative freelancers, amongst others, to increase their marketable skills and to grow their business. Overall, the programme has supported over 670 people into work. Moreover, over 70 per cent of beneficiaries of the Pathways to Jobs programme have come from the area's minority ethnic communities; over 40 per cent were women, and over 6 per cent people with disabilities.

By taking this approach, The City Fringe Partnership is putting into practice a model of economic development and regeneration, which allows businesses themselves to lead the design and implementation of initiatives to increase the efficiency of their sectors.

Hilary Potter, Director of City Fringe Partnership, sums it up best:
"Our success in the Enterprising Britain 2006 competition reflects our achievements in encouraging enterprise. It is also a testament to the people and businesses that make the City Fringe such a unique part of the capital. We're delighted to have been chosen as the London regional winner."