The success of a pan-London project that links social housing applicants to jobs and training was underlined by Mayor of London, Boris Johnson's aspiration to make it a mainstream service across the capital and a plan to roll out nationally. The service was officially launched to a packed audience at the CIH Housing 2009 conference in Harrogate.
HECS - the Housing Employment Connections Service - is an innovative solution that joins up training and job opportunities available to housing applicants when they start looking for a home. And, with more than one in two working-age adults in social housing without work its launch nationwide is expected to be of great interest to many RSLs and local authorities.
Demand for HECS is expected to be high because of its alignment with the CLG plans for an holistic assessment and provision of housing options, employment and benefits (known as Enhanced Housing Options).
HECS is a sophisticated gateway for the workless person (offered either via Choice-Based Lettings (CBL) or via a direct plug in to an RSL or local authority's website) to find locally matched jobs and training providers. It is designed to provide added facilities to mainstream provision and demonstrate how tenants can be given access to a range of information and advice on employment and training opportunities and in-work benefits.
The Greater London Authority selected Home Connections in May 2008 to design and deliver a groundbreaking project to link London's social housing tenants and homeseekers to jobs and training providers. Within nine months the HECS project went live across several London boroughs and employment service organisations.
Over 20,000 jobs were advertised and over 2,000 homeseekers sought help with jobs and training. The project was monitored and evaluated by Dr Michael Jones of Cambridge University. The service dovetails perfectly with the enhanced housing options trailblazer programme launched by Communities and Local Government.
Helen Cope (Author of tackling Worklessness: A toolkit CIH/CLG/TSA 2008) said:
"We know that social housing contains too many workless households and that that this situation has only worsened in the last few decades. The solution lies in trying to ensure that housing, employment and skills services are interlinked, especially at the front-line.
Services such as HECS offer the opportunity to broaden the housing options offer and by replicating the best, rather than reinventing the wheel, social landlords can transform their response."
