The ‘Employment in the Neighbourhoods’ project: A local economic development experience in Catalonia

Introduction

The current socioeconomic context for Catalonia is similar to that of other developed areas facing a period of crisis. This is not only an economic crisis, but also a social and institutional one. Considerations and doubts have arisen about the future of the public sector, and by extension, the future of active labour market and local development policies, that are managed by the Employment Service of Catalonia (SOC).

The current local development model was created during the late 1970s and early 1980s and nowadays is being questioned in academic, institutional and social fields, with severe changes foreseen in models of service provision. These models should be more integrated, flexible and adjusted to territorial and population needs. Vertical and horizontal cooperation between stakeholders should be taken into account in this respect.

The main purpose of this article is to outline the experience gained from the ‘Employment in the Neighbourhoods’ project in local economic development and urban regeneration. This project was started by the Employment Service of Catalonia in 2007 and aims to inspire the configuration of future active labour and local development policy models in Catalonia.

A new framework for territorial policies in Catalonia

In 2004, due to the growing number of increasingly deprived neighbourhoods and urban areas in the region, the Generalitat de Catalunya (Government of Catalonia) decided to introduce a number of policies focused on addressing the physical and social degradation of these areas and improving the living conditions of their residents. This broad intervention, known as the Neighbourhood Law, was passed by the Catalan Parliament on May 2004 and covers many different aspects of urban regeneration, such as physical rehabilitation, environmental sustainability and social and economic development.

The Neighbourhood Law’s main goal is to overcome the problems of deprived urban areas with traditional sector-based programmes. This has been an integrated approach with a combination of cohesive actions and policies encompassing different fields such as urban planning, labour, local development, housing, health, environment and social services being tackled together. During the first two years activity was confined to urbanism and housing and was developed by the Department of Public Works and Territorial Policy. Work in other fields would be introduced progressively in the following years.

In order to implement the Neighbourhood Law, the Generalitat de Catalunya created a budget to fund inter-departmental collaborative measures between the Department of Public Works and Territorial Policy, the Department of Health, the Department of Social Services and the Department of Labour. Under this system local authorities present project proposals on an annual basis with the departments then approve funding for the integrated activity.

In 2006, the Department of Labour, through the SOC, carried out pilot projects in 13 neighbourhoods and urban areas that had already been participating in the Neighbourhood Law since 2004. These complementary employment and local development measures were carried out through agreements between SOC and the relevant local authorities. These projects had a €5m budget and over 1100 residents benefited from measures including assisting residents to achieve professional qualifications, local development programmes and plans to boost temporary employment.

‘Employment in the neighbourhoods’

In 2007, after the success of these pilot projects, the SOC developed a major project entitled ‘Employment in the Neighbourhoods’. This project seeks to help increase employment and local economic development, complementing the Neighbourhood Law.

This project seeks to empower local authorities in economic development processes in their territories based on the idea that they have a greater depth of knowledge concerning strengths and weaknesses of their areas and of their inhabitants. It was therefore important to strengthen their political and institutional capability enhancing their role as leading actors fostering employment promotion and local development.

It has been crucial to create a cooperative and collaborative relationship between the different stakeholders which influence the economic and social development processes in the neighbourhoods. It is through these relationships that local development interventions in neighbourhoods can be achieved as an integrated whole and thus have the greatest impact in improving the lives and living condition of the inhabitants.

In addition to this, local and territorial cooperation has had to exist not only between public stakeholders such as local authorities and the Generalitat de Catalunya but also between other organizations such as non-profit sector and business organizations as well as other groups representing the people themselves. To achieve success their work has to be able to induce change and achieve improvement in functional matters such as diversification of economic activity, labour mediation and employment management, technological challenges and the renewal of infrastructure. The main goal of these processes is to boost the territory’s potential, creating new development structures which can generate economies of scale and improve the quality of the services supplied to the population.

The project’s key themes

The viability of this project rests on six key themes, some of which have been introduced in the above sections. We want to emphasize their importance in achieving the project’s goals. They are:

integration

The ‘Employment in the Neighbourhoods’ project incorporates 16 different types of activity covering employment promotion and local development in one single territorial intervention programme. It must coincide with other policies or programmes tackling social deprivation. The integration of this activity has enabled us to reach and support people in a multiplicity of different ways.

The project covers a wide range of employment promotion and local development activity including those in other Departments of the Generalitat de Catalunya. Collaborative and partnership working between departments, with the local authority taking the lead, is vital for success, with, for example, programmes involving gender, age and diversity themes being incorporated in the activities being carried out in deprived neighbourhoods and areas.

There has to be flexibility in the timing, coordination, planning and execution of these actions, or effective integration would be very difficult to achieve.

There has to be a direct intervention from local authorities in order to have a better response to the population’s demands. Subsidiarity has to be shown as the projectshave to be executed with the closest territorial proximity possible, and at the level of administration which is going to be most effective. Public-private partnership may be an effective model for project governance.

The project provides tools to facilitate adequate strategic planning of the public sector activity which is planned. Strategic planning has to combine short- and long-term issues such as activity aimed at tackling social exclusion directly and those that try to prevent it for the future.

The project includes a number of different job creation and local development activity through start-up innovation projects which involve a range of support measures for disadvantaged groups.

The project’s goals

The ‘Employment in the Neighbourhoods’ project seeks to drive actions in the fields of increasing employment and local development, within the Neighbourhood Law’s framework, in deprived neighbourhoods and areas where the Department of Public Works and Territorial Policy integrated project has been working over the last few years.

Specifically, the project seeks to:

respond to the diverse social, economic and cultural realities and needs of these neighbourhoods, considering the different levels or stages of execution of the activity;

Methodological approach: The ‘Charter of services’

The project includes six different action lines, and 16 different types of activity that are included in the project’s ‘Charter of services’. This document establishes generic lines for intervention that have to be included in the local authorities’ project. Therefore, the Employment Service of Catalonia makes the Charter available to the local authorities enabling them to diagnose, plan, programme, coordinate, communicate and integrate all the proposed measures and actions in the project’s framework.

This Charter sets out the requirements for the scheduling of the annual call for projects. Its goal is to allow the local authorities to design and plan their actions in order to establish the ones that are more appropriate to their neighbourhood or area. The document contains the categories of activity shown in Table 1.

OPEN IN VIEWER

Table 1.

‘Employment in the Neighbourhoods’ ‘Charter of services’ action lines.

Helping to facilitate the hiring of specialist professionals by Local Authorities, ranging from architects to economic developers, in order to assist them in implementing the various activities covered by the project. Programmes of intensive and comprehensive support for disadvantaged groups. Equal opportunities and gender support programmes. Programmes to help people achieve professional qualifications, and to assist people into employment. Provide work experience. Provide support for local authorities in areas such as planning and financial management through workshops and seminars, support in experience-sharing seminars, and study visits between neighbourhoods in the region or abroad.

The ‘Employment in the Neighbourhoods’ project aims to enhance living conditions for groups facing social exclusion, such as:

women that have suffered gender violence

Results

After five years of implementation, some results can be shown from the project (see Table 2).

OPEN IN VIEWER

Table 2.

‘Employment in the Neighbourhoods’ data results.

	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010
Budget	€5m	€12m	€20m	€20m	€30m
No. of neighbourhoods	11	56	80	93	113
No. of municipalities	11	47	64	72	90
No. of action lines		6	6	6	6
No. of actions	6	17	16	14	15
No. of measures	47	274	382	419	601
Beneficiaries	–	3091	5929	6157	8507

In the 2007 annual call 47 municipalities took part in the ‘Employment in the Neighbourhoods’ project and 56 neighbourhoods and 3091 people benefited from the project.

In the 2008 annual call 64 municipalities took part in the ‘Employment in the Neighbourhoods’ project and 80 neighbourhoods and 5929 people benefited from the project.

In the 2009 annual call 72 municipalities took part in the ‘Employment in the Neighbourhoods’ project and 93 neighbourhoods and 6157 people benefited from the project.

In the 2010 annual call 90 municipalities took part in the ‘Employment in the Neighbourhoods’ project and 113 neighbourhoods and 8507 people benefited from the project.

As for funding, there has been substantial growth. In 2010 the project had a €30m budget in comparison to the €12m budget for 2007. It is worth mentioning that the ‘Employment in the Neighbourhoods’ project receives European Social Fund (ESF) co-financing. It has been chosen as a good practice example. This has been for its innovative approach focused on a change from sectoral implementation to territorial implementation of economic development policies, for strengthening local and territorial cooperation between stakeholders, for strengthening and recognizing local authorities’ role as main actors in employment promotion and local development policies, as well as for its ‘Charter of services’ that integrates several active labour market measures and actions into a single project.

Some lessons learned

The main purpose of this final section is to describe some considerations that have arisen from day-to-day experience in the implementation of this integrated project and experience gained in other local economic development projects. Additionally, other considerations and discussions about local economic development are being brought up in Catalonia concerning the SOC (as the main resource provider for employment promotion and local development policies in Catalonia), as well as local authorities, as actors in charge of delivering services and coping with the population’s needs.

Active labour market policies and local development policies should be planned and implemented in a ‘bottom-up’ methodology and adjusted to territorial needs and demands.