Employment of People Living in Rural and Coastal Communities: A General Debate on Employment of People Living in Rural and Coastal Communities

The LGA commissioned by Pragmatix Advisory have released their latest report suggesting that National economic Growth can only be achieved if every local economy is firing on all cylinders, and councils need the right powers and adequate long-term funding to play a lead role in unlocking the labour market, creating jobs, plugging skills gaps, and delivering for all our communities. 

Key Findings 

• Employment opportunities: Rural and coastal areas have a fundamental role in trade and commerce, and financial pressures on local government are limiting the ability of these local authorities to regenerate and support their towns. Additionally, while SMEs are the lifeblood of communities, in rural and coastal areas they can struggle to access suitable office space and a properly skilled workforce. 
• To address youth employment, the Government should appoint a Youth Minister to work across Whitehall to coordinate the various representatives of government departments, local government representatives, including the LGA, business and other representative organisations. This will allow for a co-ordinated and cross-departmental approach to deliver an integrated funded offer for young people. 
• Careers education, information, advice and guidance: At present, CEIAG is patchy and fragmented, many councils are working to ensure an inclusive service for all. 
• Green jobs: LAs have great ambitions to achieving net zero, however, this can only be achieved if there is the skilled workforce and availability for good jobs. There’s a huge opportunity for local communities to create green jobs that can help tackle inequalities, support people through the CoL, as well as levelling-up ambitions. Some of the systemic barriers delaying the development of green jobs and skills include: the lack of long-term certainty for local businesses; short-term and fragmented funding; capacity; and fragmentation of career pathways.
• Regional Disparities in digital connectivity: 17% of rural residential premises and 30% of rural commercial premises still do not have access to superfast broadband. With the shift to home and hybrid working, residents in these areas face a particular disadvantage in the labour market. To truly level up communities across the country, Government must commit to continued transparency on contingency measures for those residents who are in deeply rural and hard-to-reach areas. 
• Digital Exclusion: The top 10% of district/unitary local authority areas enjoy full fibre coverage of over 60%, while the bottom 10% have less than 10% of premises able to access these services. 
• There is often a disconnect between the levels of coverage mobile network operators claim to provide and the real-life experience of residents. We are also hearing from councils that the ongoing cost of data and higher levels of unreliability severely reduce the viability of ‘stop gap’ interim solutions. 
• Rural Transport: In rural areas, transport is key to helping maintain access to vital amenities and services. For benefit claimants, their barriers to employment are compounded by whether or not there is suitable public transport at the necessary times, as well as the cost of travel. Reductions in funding for local public transport have led to many supported services being withdrawn, as have those services which were operated commercially but which were found to be unviable. Providing longer term funding stability and predictability for buses and local transport would allow authorities and operators to plan their actions and deliver them in a controlled manner. 

You can read the full report here.