Pinnacle expert tackles worklessness and sustainability at national conference

Pinnacle's best practice in combating worklessness through improving local employment opportunities and promoting environmental sustainability were profiled at a national sustainable communities event last week (6 November).

Pinnacle is one of the leading deliverers of housing, facilities management and worklessness services to communities across the UK. Pinnacle's External Affairs Director, Ian Keys, addressed over 400 senior executives who attended the Sustainable Communities Summit, which was hosted by Sir Bob Geldofs production company, Ten Alps, and held in Westminsters Church House Conference Centre on 6 November 2008.

In his presentation, Ian Keys partnered with Clive Tritton from East London regeneration organisation, Renaisi, to highlight how, through innovation, massive improvements can be made to improve lives and places, using Pinnacles work in Hackney and Newham as examples.

Ian said: Sustainable communities are about improving the lives of the people who live in them and ensuring that places and the planet are in a fit state to be inherited by future generations. That mission needs to involve everyone and every organisation that is able and willing to make a contribution.

Our experiences working within the London boroughs of Newham and Hackney, and with other communities across the UK, have proven that, under public sector leadership, partnerships spanning the public, private and third sectors can deliver the sustainable community outcomes and sustainable places that people want.

In Hackney, as part of the Department for Work Pensions City Strategy Pathfinder, an innovative pilot scheme called Ways to Work was launched to support, train and help social housing residents find work on targeted estates in the borough. Through this scheme, which is partly managed by regeneration company Renaisi, participants are identified by local housing partners, including Pinnacle. The scheme is different from other worklessness schemes as it reaches those not engaged with the mainstream employment offer and who are thus missed by the state. Since it was launched six months ago, the scheme is ahead of its targets, enrolling 950 residents, providing active employment support to 489 and helping 258 into jobs.

In Newhams Canning Town area, Pinnacle is delivering substantial local employment results as part of a 25-year Housing PFI contract. Their approach is four-fold: stimulating local work initiatives by actively hiring local labour for the majority of our work and taking on many local apprenticeships; encouraging and supporting local groups to bid for work; capturing local resident aspirations in context of national & local policy; and engaging and empowering residents.

Visit Pinnacle's website for more information.