Area Profile: Local Context and Challenges‌ Sample Clauses

Area Profile: Local Context and Challenges‌. The Impact of the Changing Economic Climate Over the period that this Single Outcome Agreement (SOA) has been developed, the economic climate has deteriorated significantly – globally, nationally and locally. In December 2008, the CPP Board discussed the impact this will have on the achievement of this SOA, in particular within the Working and Training Priority, but also in relation to our overall Vision of ‘North Ayrshire – A Better Life’. There is no doubt that the economic downturn will negatively impact on the numbers in employment, but the knock-on effect of this will be felt across all of our Community Plan Priorities. Communities affected by rising unemployment and economic insecurity will consequently face a higher risk of poor physical and mental health; homelessness linked to housing arrears and repossession/ eviction; alcohol and drug misuse; higher crime rates; fewer opportunities for learning to lead on to employment or promotion; fewer positive alternatives for young people not in education, employment or training; and more run-down environments suffering from less community investment and community pride. This is an extremely challenging time for North Ayrshire which, as this Area Profile will demonstrate, is already in a position of acute disadvantage compared to Scotland as a whole. The recession has and will continue to shed local jobs, including the high value, high wage jobs we are seeking to retain and to grow; and the manufacturing jobs which have already been in decline for some time. There will undoubtedly be an impact on the employability and wider regeneration programmes we have underway. For example, large scale redundancies continue to be announced which offset our achievements at getting people into work; our clients (who are traditionally further from the labour market) will increasingly have to ‘compete’ with the newly unemployed for a shrinking pool of jobs and training placements; smaller companies are struggling to cope with the tightening of bank lending; contractors will prove less willing or able to meet our requirements for ‘community clauses’ offering additional employment and training opportunities to unemployed clients; public sector revenue budgets continue to be squeezed, whilst capital programmes have had to be revised; and our physical regeneration plans require to be reassessed as markets shrink and the large scale investment we need becomes scarcer and less attractive, at least for the foreseeable future. Howe...