Published Date: Apr 18th, 2023
Nine lone parents being supported by Fife Gingerbread have recently secured jobs with Fife Council and a number of local businesses have benefitted indirectly through council contracts thanks to a new approach called community wealth building.
Community wealth building is simply looking at what and who is available in our local communities first. By taking this more local approach, our towns and villages’ economies grow which means wealth is generated and circulated within the communities, benefitting everyone.
Councillor Altany Craik, Fife Council’s Spokesperson for Finance, Economy & Strategic Planning explains: “As a council we spend a lot of money in Fife on different things whether it’s food for school meals, meals on wheels, road repairs and wages. We have a wealth of people, produce and businesses on our doorstep and it makes sense for us to maximise our spending on this. We work with these businesses to employ local people so that we can get more from every public pound spent which can then stays in our local economy.
“The great thing about this approach is that it’s not restricted to just public sector organisations. Third sector, charities and private businesses can do the same and we want to work together to grow more wealth in Fife’s communities.”
Flexible recruitment and training opportunities help people into employment and out of poverty
We wanted to better understand how we could make the council a realistic and positive option for people in the most need, those looking for work so, over the past year Fife Council has been working with Fife Gingerbread, a voluntary sector organisation that provides advice and support to lone parents and families in need throughout Fife.
Our Facilities Management Service often struggles to recruit people as we need so many caterers, cleaners, janitors and maintenance staff to work in all the Kingdom’s villages and towns. So Fife Gingerbread hosted an information session for lone parents, a key child poverty family group, at which council officers described different facilities management jobs and vacancies.
The group discussed the barriers and challenges they faced when applying for the positions and following this session, Facilities Management simplified their recruitment processes, offered guaranteed interviews to lone parents working with Fife Gingerbread and took a more flexible approach to working hours so that posts aren’t restrictive.
To build on this success we’re planning a recruitment and induction programme, with open interviews held on set days for a mixture of our positions. And we’ll be providing six-month funded placements for 16–19-year-olds, as part of the Fife Council employability Open Doors programme, to give them the confidence, training and skills needed to transition into mainstream employment.
Find out more about community wealth building from CLES, the national organisation for local communities.