Clause 42
Housing and Regeneration Bill
10:00 am
Iain Wright (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Communities and Local Government; Hartlepool, Labour)
I am grateful to the Committee for bringing the issue to wider attention. My right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich is right: although the focus has been on the establishment of the HCA due to the merger of English Partnerships and the Housing Corporation, we should not forget the vital role of the Academy for Sustainable Communities in ensuring that we have real community engagement. I am excited by what the academy does, and there is a real opportunity in the Bill to expand its work.
To touch on what my right hon. Friend said about clause 41, the academy focuses on broader generic skills, such as project management, vision, communication, partnership working and community engagement, and following my response to him on that earlier clause, I anticipate that the academy will expand its role. The academy has identified three broad areas and three major audiences on which its work programmes will focus when it becomes part of the agency. The three major audiences include young people, because it will need to capture their interest, raise their awareness of sustainable community issues and encourage them to go into sustainable community careers. Having spoken to stakeholders, I know that there is a potential skills shortage, which may affect the number of people going into sustainable community careers, such as architecture and landscaping. I know, too, that my right hon. Friend is working hard on the issue.
We must work to encourage people to have a stake in their communities and to realise that quality of life and the built environment are important. People can become productively and positively involved in their communities by taking up careers as planning surveyors, architects or landscapers. I am really excited by that work and I would like to drive it forward, certainly at ministerial level.