Land Securities

We don’t believe we have met this target yet, and we are unsure of our progress against it. In setting this target, we have discovered that we don’t record this information. We have set a target for 2011/12 to report this type of data to our local authority partners and will make progress towards finding out what our current rates are, and establishing what future rates should be.

Read more about Skills Academies in London|

By providing space within our properties, we will continue to support charities and encourage new business and young enterprise. This is done to support communities as well as promote art, design, fashion, innovation and culture.

For example, since September 2010, the Cabot Circus shopping centre in Bristol provided free space for the Start| Living Advice Centre, a national initiative of The Prince of Wales’ Charities Foundation that promotes and celebrates sustainable living.

"Environmental considerations have always been integral to Cabot Circus, from the overall design philosophy and its integration with the existing city centre, to waste minimisation, use of energy and water efficiency. We are therefore delighted to be able to assist this worthwhile project by offering free advice to businesses and individuals to help them to make positive behaviour choices."
James Bailey, Centre Manager, Cabot Circus

During 2010, we let retail units to 30 new businesses across the country, which exceeded our Retail target, but we didn’t meet the London-based target. This is mainly because fledgling businesses often only need a desk or two to start with, while the spaces we have available are better suited to larger-scale lets, which are likely to be more suited to larger-scale charity requests.

Read more about how we offer commercial space for charities |

At Cabot Circus in Bristol, for example, we provided the local Skills Centre with free space to run a job fair on-site in 2010. Among our retail occupiers, KFC was looking for 35–40 permanent, full-time and part-time staff, Wilkinsons hired six temporary employees for Christmas, and both Burtons and Rituals looked to fill Christmas vacancies as well as permanent roles.  

"The calibre of the applicants has been very good, and this has been an extremely worthwhile event. Having the facility to conduct interviews away from the store has been particularly beneficial as it allows us to focus exclusively on the recruitment process."
Caroline Russell, assistant manager, Wilkinsons

"I heard about the event through an advert at Jobcentre Plus. This was the first invitation-only event I have attended, after sending my CV in for consideration. I think I was more prepared because I knew that, in effect, I had already been shortlisted. I was only looking for a temporary position because I am a student studying architecture."
Fuiyuk Liu, temporary employee, Rituals

Two more fairs are planned in Bristol for 2011, although these will be held at a bigger site, to meet local demand. We also held a similar careers event in Livingston, again run by the on-site Jobcentre Plus.

Cabot Circus supports retail training We ran a number of free retail courses at Cabot Circus to help Bristol’s retailers to recruit permanent and temporary staff.Read more about this case study Cabot Circus supports retail training

We invest time and financial support in the local community’s own efforts, where they exist, to link people with local jobs. This not only avoids a duplication of effort, but also allows us to become a more integrated part of the communities in which we operate. And where such arrangements are not in place, we will work with local Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) to set up employment charters.

For example, the area around Land Securities’ One New Change in Cheapside is being positioned as the City’s newest retail and leisure destination, and the Cheapside Employment Charter will play a key role in providing a local workforce with the skills to meet demand. The Cheapside Employment Charter| was originally developed as a partnership between Land Securities and the London Employer Accord programme, part of the Greater London Authority (GLA).

The initiative will now be taken forward by the Cheapside Initiative and Jobcentre Plus, matching skills to job opportunities and coordinating training. We are one of the local employers that, by signing up to the Charter, will notify Jobcentre Plus when employment and training opportunities arise, thereby maximising awareness of the opportunities and delivering career pathways within the retail and hospitality sector for local residents. The Charter’s principles include equal opportunities, health and safety, and a commitment to employee development and training. The Employment Charters were mentioned as a best practice model at the London Employer Accord celebration event at the GLA in early 2011.

We were also the first corporate organisation to invest in the Victoria BID, which is designed to attract visitors, businesses and investment to SW1. Through a similar employment charter, training and employment opportunities are promoted to local people through Westminster Works and Jobcentre Plus. Because of the extent of development planned over the next 10 years, there is a particular focus on attracting construction apprentices and trainees to work with our contractors in the area.

Several of our people also provide BIDs with additional expertise and professional support by sitting on economic, marketing and homelessness sub-groups.

We now have Retail Skills Academies in Leeds, Cabot Circus, Liverpool and Sunderland, and are working towards opening two more in Livingston and Corby.

Although we have met our target, we need to work harder over the coming years to link those people who attend the academies with the jobs available with retailers in our centres and with our on-site service partners.

In our South Leeds White Rose shopping centre, we have also established a Learning Centre – supported by Education Leeds and Leeds City College. It provides an education resource for hundreds of school pupils, and meets training needs for adults. Leeds - White Rose Centre Watch a video case study.

In much the same way as the National Skills Academy (NSA)| for the retail sector, the National Skills Academy for Construction (NSAfC) helps young people to get training, an apprenticeship or employment in the construction industry.

Bovis Lend Lease delivered its BeOnsite scheme offering on-the-job skills training, as well as employment opportunities for successful candidates, at One New Change, our £540 million development in the City of London. It was a very successful scheme, providing 21 apprenticeships, seeing 141 contractor and subcontractor employees undertake NVQs at a number of levels, and also leading to a number of employees taking degrees in Commercial Management and Construction Management.

The programme also provided jobs and work experience opportunities for a number of long-term unemployed and ex-offenders, and working with the Mayor of London’s Time for Action programme, members of the Feltham Young Offenders Institute were able to visit One New Change to gain first-hand experience of what life is like on a large construction site. We had hoped that 100 people would have gone into employment across the supply chain as result of the scheme, but the total of 235 was way above expectations.

In the past, we have delivered projects under the NSAfC model. Building on this, we have developed our own model based on our new London-wide Employment Strategy. This will offer far more opportunities across all our developments schemes in the city, leading to a more strategic and collaborative approach.

Pre-employment pathway to construction employment and trainingOur employer-led approach offers a new pathway to employment and training opportunities in construction. Read more about this case study Pre-employment pathway to construction employment and training

2011/12: Promote and embed the Charters across the development supply chain, with a target of three main development contractors to be signed up.
2012/13: Promote and embed the Charters across any new development supply chain and property management service providers within the tendering process.

2011/12: Deliver the Land Securities pre-employment routeway into construction across three development sites.
2012–14: Ongoing delivery of routeway, embed into all S106 Head of Terms and Obligations for development pipeline.

2011/12: Understand our service partners’ programmes. Ensure each development runs a training programme partnered with appropriate training provider to deliver agreed job outcomes.
2012/13: Work with partners to align programmes with our own aspirations to incorporate apprenticeships, to train and recruit local unemployed and to up-skill existing workforce.
2013/14: Training clauses that are written into all relevant tender documents to become ‘business as usual’.