David Lepper

Labour Party | Brighton Pavilion

A place at the table

A conference on Corporate Social Responsibility supported by Brighton and Hove City Council, the Sussex Learning and Skills Council, European Social Fund, Business Link and SEEboard Energy

26th June 2003

Hove Town Hall

Thank you for inviting me to take part in this important conference on corporate social responsibility.

I have been asked to say something about the social costs of exclusion and while I will do that I will also say that looking at the programme for today I am pleased to see that before we get to the coffee break we will already be concentrating on inclusion rather than exclusion.

I was interested just a couple of days ago to hear Jim Braithwaite, the Chairman of the South East England Development Agency explain the importance of inclusion as a theme for the Agency, and I welcome the fact that the conference will hear from a SEEDA speaker this afternoon.

However, it took the French to give a name - Social Exclusion - to a phenomenon that most people were already aware of but which often seemed an inevitable part of the scenery rather than something to be altered - that complex process that creates not just one but multiple barriers preventing some citizens from participating in their society.

Barriers to do with education, housing, health, unemployment -creating a cycle of disadvantage.

Speaking in March this year Barbara Roche MP, then lead minister on equalities issues, said -

“Poverty accounts for a lot of problems. But it does not explain the cycle of disadvantage, the way these problems work together to limit the horizons and expectations of excluded people. There are no easy answers, but if we fail to break this cycle, then both individuals and society as a whole will play a high price… Nor should statistics and policy obscure the potential threat that such deprivation poses to our wider society and its values, if allowed to continue unabated.”

What is the price society as a whole will pay?

Most obviously high expenditure on welfare bills coupled with the loss of tax revenue to fund public services -and a deskilled society.

The social price we pay is what arises from that disconnection or alienation between individuals and their communities, the disconnection of communities within communities showing itself sometimes in vandalism, crime and drug misuse - and most important of all the price that is paid in terms of the potential of individual people not realised.

Today's conference will, I believe, concentrate on what employers can do about this – to replace exclusion with inclusion.

I am here as an MP.

What can governments do?

Government can attempt to break into the cycle as this government has through a number of strategies.

For example, through the 1999 Disability legislation disability discrimination was put on the same footing as race and sex discrimination and the Disability Rights Commission has the remit to help people secure their rights and provide help information and advice to employers. From last September money became available to schools to help them fulfil their duties under the Act.

The government has produced the first National Childcare Strategy and provided funding for a major expansion of childcare, helping many parents who wanted to work overcome a barrier that kept them out of the labour market. Some employers have long recognised the importance of childcare as part of a package they provide. Government intervention can only help that cultural shift.

Crucially through economic policies and the New Deal for Unemployed people with its emphasis on personal advice tailored to the individual government has helped 1.5 million more people into work than in 1997, focussing first on the under 25s, then on older long term unemployed adults, on those with disabilities who has often been written off and consigned to welfare dependency, single parents who need special support to gain the confidence to return to work. And, important in an area like ours, people aged 50 plus who often made redundant in the late eighties or early nineties had special retraining need.

That cycle which 15 or so year ago as a teacher I saw - students with no one in their family in regular work themselves leaving school for unemployment - is less likely to happen. And, on average because of the National Minimum Wage and the system of tax credits the poorest families now £2,400 pa better off than 1997. People are more likely to feel they have a stake in the society in which they live.

This year's budget included funding for a £100 million package to help single parents into work through cash incentives, Housing Benefit disregards and mentoring. It also included funding for Jobcentre Plus to help people from minority ethnic populations into work.

Jobcentre Plus has been given greater flexibility to provide local solutions to local employment problems through a new annual £20 million discretionary fund.

At the time the Secretary of State Andrew Smith said “Increasing labour market flexibility is about getting the right people into the right jobs at the right time. The package will give local managers the flexibility and discretion to provide innovative, tailored solutions to local labour market problems, working with local employers to help more people move off benefit into work.”

But – to adapt the famous dictum of Bill Clinton - “It's not only the economy stupid.”

That's why government intervention in education has been important as well concentrating in part on areas of low educational attainment through, for instance, the programme of Education Action Zones just coming to an end in East Brighton. Through adult literacy programmes, through UK On Line projects like those at the Brighton Friends Centre and Community Base giving internet access to those who might not otherwise have it.

And intervention in the longer term by providing for all children wherever they live, in those first few infant years in school the benefits of smaller classes and a new emphasis on literacy and numeracy which those with the cash have always been able to buy for their children. In Brighton and Hove we have seen the number of 5-7 year olds in classes of more than 30 drop from over 3,000 in 1997 to zero at the start of this school year.

These are important foundations for building a society which is inclusive - and are not just about creating a more skilled workforce for the next generation.

For, don't let any one tell you that the literacy and numeracy programmes stifle children's' creativity. That's the tired old line of defenders of privilege who believe that the excluded will always be with us.

To see it's a lie visit Middle Street Primary School in Brighton City Centre and see the marvellous work the children inspired by Gina Hutchings and her team do in that Beacon School which has just gained the Arts Council' s Goldmark Award.

Underpinning much of this is the work of the Social Exclusion Unit set up in 1997, now under the wing of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, to examine those barriers to inclusion and, on a cross departmental basis in Whitehall, come up with action plans for removing them.

How successful has that been – well as Chou En Lai or was it Mao Tse Tung said in the late 1940s when asked his view of the importance in history of the French Revolution of 1789 – “It's far too soon to tell.”

What the Unit has done is produce action plans and secured funding for Neighbourhood Renewal and the New Deal for Communities, for example, in East Brighton, Bates Estate, Saunders Park Estate and Hollingdean, Sure Start schemes like those in central Brighton, Grove Hill and Hollingdean to support families with young children, providing not only cash but the training to ensure that decisions about what happens with it are made by local people.

The Unit produced reports and took action on -

• Truancy and school exclusion – which dropped by 1/3 in 1999 - 2000
• Rough sleeping – down by 2/3 since 1998
• Teenage Pregnancy
• 16-18 year olds not in education, training and employment – out of which has come the Connexions Service for 14- 19 year olds and the Education Maintenance Allowance piloted in some areas and to be extended nationally in next year to help remove some financial barriers to going on into further education at 16 plus, and a revival of Modern apprenticeships.

Currently the Unit is looking at raising educational attainment of children in care.

Dealing with exclusion – the Unit's 10 year National Action Plan is expected later this year.

Meanwhile – two new projects for the SEU – are both employment based

• to examine existing polices for unemployed particularly in areas where unemployment is still high and linked with that developing policies to remove the barriers to enterprise and business creation.
• to examine social exclusion among adults with mental health problems.

Let me give one recent example of the results of a Unit report – that on Transport which showed -

• 12% job-seekers say lack of available transport prevented attendance at interview
• 18% of people living in low-income areas say they have not applied for a particular job in the last 12 months because of transport problems
• 37% of young unemployed people said poor transport was the biggest barrier to finding work
• of the 20% of households with the lowest income, 63% do not have access to a car.

Out of this came “Making Connections” launched, incidentally, at Varndean College in February by Barbara Roche and John Spellar MP, then the Transport Minister, which nationally provides £14m to help fund transport to college and which requires, in each area, Accessibility Planning on policies to ensure low income does not prevent people getting to school, college, hospital, and to ensure transport information is available in Jobcentre Plus offices.

Action is also being taken to extend the Travel to Interview Scheme, to provide a DWP £5m Action for Jobs scheme to focus on transport and to work with local crime and disorder reduction partnerships to reduce crime and the fear of crime around public transport.

I imagine that the emphasis of today will be on the workplace, on what Corporate Social Responsibility means in terms of -

• Recruitment
• Work environment
• Training and development
• Communications
• Contracting for goods and services
• Dealing with Customers
• Delivering to customers

What many employers have discovered is that those who work for them can sometimes open up new opportunities by helping to develop a new customer focus arising from their own experience and insight – of age, cultural or ethnic background, gender, sexual orientation, physical difference, etc.

Let me give one example.

In England 9% of those over pension age still in work and some companies have realised the benefits of an older workforce.

A couple of years ago B and Q told me of one of their top shopfloor salesman in his early eighties. Doing so well because his experience was trusted by those he served.

Label-graphics, one of the leading suppliers of graphic labels in UK, has a young design and production team but all its external sales team is now 50+ - the company feels their experience and maturity make them better at dealing with customers.

Shaw Homes housing association in Wales recruits older nurses and care workers who have retired from NHS, who appreciate the flexible hours and part-time work and who have a sympathetic understanding of clients needs.

In conclusion, it seems to me obvious that Making A Place At The Table is not only about removing the barriers which I began by discussing but at its heart, has one basic principle - recognising the particular contribution which each individual can make not only to our businesses but to our society.