Legacy

Certainly the aspiration set out in Singapore for employment was clear and, I believe, we have put in place a strategy to address that. We cannot require local employment but what we can do is intervene. The barrier to local people getting local jobs is not postcode; it is actually skills. So what we have put in place, with the job brokerage programme with the five boroughs, is a 48-hour window of jobs we identify, which have become available from our contractors, and give preference to local people for 48 hours. Over the course of the last few years that job brokerage programme has resulted in 500 local people getting jobs on the project.

The second side of our whole strategy is about skills, so, again, over the last three years, over 2,000 people have been trained on the site and that started with a training facility up at Eton Manor, to get it up and running straightaway. That has now migrated down to the new facility at Galleons Reach, part of the overall Construction Academy and that, together with the training course on Construction Skills Certification Scheme (CSCS) accreditation, has resulted in just over 2,000 people having skills. It is all about skills and ensuring we make skills that are suitable for the workforce at that particular time. That early intervention in getting certificates was a very successful programme and we continue to roll that through.

We have particularly focused on traineeships and apprenticeships as well so we have got a lot of work to do on that and we continue to focus on that.

Dee Doocey (AM): I understand it is not easy to do. You cannot just wave a magic wand. At the same time, we are not talking about having lots of engineers on the Park who were previously unemployed. We are talking about a pretty low level skills base. We are talking about people who would learn to be bricklayers, for example. I am not saying it is not a skilled job but it is not something that is particularly difficult to train for, I understand.

My concern is that in the four boroughs that surround the Park there are 46,000 people unemployed. I am sure you are aware of this. On a project where you have direct control and where you have got 4,500 people working, you have only taken 112 people who were previously unemployed from the local boroughs. I really do not think that that can be called a legacy of jobs. You mentioned apprenticeships but, again, from a workforce of 4,500 people you have only got 69 apprenticeships and I think that is pitifully low.

I have seen your latest figures, which is what I am quoting from, and you are saying that you have reached your targets but I would suggest your targets are far too low. I understand that one of the problems you have had about the apprenticeships is that it was not written into any of the contracts that they were required to give apprenticeships and that this is going to be rectified when Crossrail goes out to tender. I really do think you should be doing much, much more, first of all, to get local people jobs - much more than the 112 you have got out of 4,500 who were previously unemployed and much more than the 69 apprenticeships which I think are really pitiful.

David Higgins (Chief Executive, Olympic Delivery Authority): The 69 I talked about are apprenticeships on the Park itself, excluding the Village of course. The average --

Dee Doocey (AM): Sorry, 69 out of 4,500 or 4,600, just to be clear.

David Higgins (Chief Executive, Olympic Delivery Authority): That is absolutely right. The average in the industry is between 1% and 1.5%. We are typical of the construction industry across London.

Dee Doocey (AM): Sorry, the construction industry did not promise a legacy of jobs for local people. That is the point. I am not saying that you are not typical. I am not saying you are not working. I am just saying we are not getting the promised legacy.

David Higgins (Chief Executive, Olympic Delivery Authority): No, no, I am just talking about apprenticeships. From an apprenticeship point of view, we should be having, of those 4,500, roughly 45 apprentices on the site. What we cannot do is build the whole project, obviously, with twice as many apprenticeships. We need to work with the industry. So, yes, we have set ourselves a higher target on apprenticeships and we are working with our contractors.

We have put targets in to our contracts now. Into our latter contracts. No previous Government contracts did have targets. We have worked with the various Government agencies, including the GLA, to recommend that they put minimum standards of around 1% to 1.5%, perhaps 2% even, into apprenticeships; so we have a long way to go on apprenticeships. We are at or above the industry average and we are working with the various contractors to increase that.

As for local employment, 500 local people have got jobs through the brokerage alone. That survey I spoke about in the earlier question to Jenny [Jones] was, of the 1,700 people we independently randomly surveyed, that confirms 20% of our workforce, people that live locally, work on the site. We have got much greater confidence in those figures now, which is a much higher figure than the figure you spoke about.

Dee Doocey (AM): Yes, but we are talking about two different things. In terms of workers on the Park I am talking about people from the five host boroughs who were previously unemployed. Of the 4,600 there are only 112. Let us just be clear. Of the same number there are only 69 apprenticeships. What I am asking you to do is can you do everything in your power to vastly increase those? Just ignore the fact that you are as good as the national average. I think that is irrelevant. Try to do everything you can in order to encourage or cajole or whatever you need to do, employers, to take on more people who were previously unemployed and to produce more apprenticeships.

David Higgins (Chief Executive, Olympic Delivery Authority): Of course we will do that. The way we have done that is by the brokerage programme which we think has been very successful and should be developed further, and on our skilling programme. We have put in a huge amount of effort by starting the training programme. It did not exist beforehand. We started it. We incubated the whole training and skills programme. Now it is translated into a permanent facility down in the Royals [London's Royal Docks] and that is going to be a permanent skilling programme there.

The hope is that other Government contracts now use that skilling programme we have put in place. That is the essential thing. We cannot force contractors to hire local people that do not have the skills so we will continue to work on that programme of ensuring that we have the skilled workforce and continue work on the apprenticeships. The key thing is making sure you get the skills into the existing workplace. The reason there are those figures you quote of 40,000 people is all about skills in the area.

Dee Doocey (AM): Thank you.