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The Local Area Agreement Story

Barking and Dagenham is on the edge of one of the most prosperous regions in Europe, but contains some of the most deprived communities in the country. Improving the opportunity available to local residents and businesses to tap into the prosperity on their doorstep is the overriding priority. We have identified a need to ensure that more residents have appropriate skills and qualifications, and access to good quality training and development [NI163]. This, coupled with measures to support people into employment [NI152], will have the maximum impact on the borough’s future, and especially focusing on those communities which are most excluded [NI153], or on those individuals who are finding the transition the most difficult [NI173].

Housing is a key concern for local residents, and with a community with one of the lowest household incomes in the capital, affordable housing is particularly important. By using innovative vehicles such as the Local Housing Company, we can ensure that these priorities are addressed and, in particular, continue to provide Council-managed social housing [NI155]. The borough has some of the largest undeveloped sites remaining in London and, therefore, the use of these sites to build new sustainable communities is central to the vision to expand housing provision [NI154]. Environmental impact is key to sustainability, and the Council is looking to deliver long-term leadership on both climate change [NI185] and waste management [NI192].

It is critical that the scale of building and regeneration activity described provides the maximum opportunity to local small businesses, and a robust job market can only be driven by sound businesses contributing to the economic health of the borough. Support for new businesses [NI171] sits alongside robust structures to support existing businesses to grow and take advantage of the emerging markets around the region [NI172].

Improving the economic health of Borough has also to be a long-term aim, with work starting early in life. It has been a priority for some time to improve the aspirations of young people in schools, in particular those at most risk through their non-engagement with formal education, training or employment [NI117]. It is essential that we tackle the root causes of this lack of engagement, such as teenage pregnancy [NI112], emotional well-being [NI51] or involvement in disorder or crime [NI111]. By doing so, we can improve the qualification levels of people leaving education [NI80] and, in particular, a range of interventions can ensure that those at most disadvantage have an equal opportunity to succeed [NI102].

Economic activity can only be fostered effectively where people feel healthy and safe. Residents in Barking & Dagenham have worse health than in neighbouring boroughs, and it is a priority to reduce premature death from heart disease [NI121] and cancer, which is largely due to high prevalence of smoking in the borough [NI123]. They cite crime and the fear of crime as their number one concern and so it is critical to target the crimes that cause most damage to the victims (serious acquisitive crime [NI16] and violent crime [NI15]). However, in order to do so a focus is needed on the causes of crime, such as drug use [NI40], and on those offenders disproportionately committing these crimes [NI30]. Rates of domestic violence are high in the borough [NI32], which continues to be a priority.

However, of crime and disorder issues that people see, and which drives their fear of crime, it is anti-social behaviour which needs our attention [NI21]. Barking & Dagenham has well-documented community tensions, many of which share a cause in the perception of the changing community, fear of that change and perceived competition for scarce resources. In particular, anti-social behaviour fuels concerns about how people treat one another [NI23]. More generally, people believing that those from different backgrounds get on well with each other [NI1] tracks the sort of feelings that exist around new communities joining long-established ones, and our work to involve people in decision-making, and to better inform them of the decisions being made, aims to address disaffection and alienation in the local community [NI4]. This work, coupled with substantial improvements to the environment around local estates and streets, aims to deliver a borough of which all residents can be proud and satisfied [NI5].

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The Indicator List