Select Committee on Office of the Deputy Prime Minister: Housing, Planning, Local Government and the Regions Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 117-119)

17 SEPTEMBER 2003

RUSSELL GARD, TERRY SCUOLER, DR PETER WHITE, TERRY MORAN, AND CHRISTINE HEATON

  Q117  Chairman: Welcome to this session of the Committee's inquiry into social cohesion. Can I invite you to identify yourselves for the record?

  Dr White: I am Peter White, Director of Strategy at the North West Development Agency.

  Mr Scuoler: My name is Terry Scuoler. I am Managing Director of Ferranti Technologies. We have a major business in the town.

  Mr Gard: I am Russell Gard. I am the Divisional Commercial Director of First; that is the bus company, and I am the Chairman of Oldham United.

  Mr Moran: Terry Moran, Director of North West Region for Jobcentre Plus.

  Ms Heaton: Christine Heaton, District Manager of Jobcentre Plus.

  Chairman: Thank you very much. We always give witnesses the chance to say anything by way of introduction, although we are usually happier if we go straight to questions. Does anyone have a burning issue they want to tell us about before we start? If not, we will go straight to questions.

  Q118  Chris Mole: As you say in your submission, the Chairman of the Oldham inquiry said that if he could wave a magic want the one thing he would do would be to give everyone in Oldham a job. What role are your organisations playing in creating employment opportunities in Oldham and Burnley?

  Dr White: The Development Agency operates at two levels in a sense. We are a regional body responsible for producing the regional economic strategy and trying to ensure that conditions in the region as a whole are favourable for economic growth. At the individual local authority level we work closely with other partners through the Local Strategic Partnerships trying to create conditions for that particular locality, so we have a dual role, if you like, in the process.

  Mr Scuoler: We have an electronics company here in the town. We respond clearly to market stimuli. Over the last 12-18 months I am delighted to say that we have been in growth mode and we recruit where we can and that would not only include Oldham but also the Greater Manchester area. We are driven in the main by the competences we require, which are highly skilled electronics technicians. If I say that with some hesitancy, it is because I have to acknowledge that we struggle at the moment to get those skills from all elements of the town of Oldham.

  Q119  Chairman: Is it worse in Oldham than it is in other parts of the country where you recruit?

  Mr Scuoler: Yes, indeed. We struggle to get the key skills that we require in Oldham and it is not uncommon for us to have to go wider afield. It is something we would love to remedy, of course.


 
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