Crossrail opportunities

Maximising employment and skills opportunities for Londoners from the Crossrail project

On 20 April 2010, London Councils and Crossrail held a meeting with London boroughs on maximising employment and skills opportunities for Londoners from the Crossrail project.

Valerie Todd, Talent and Resources Director and Claire Perry, Head of Industrial Training from Crossrail gave a presentation on the project, the contractual obligations on contractors and their supply chain and how Londoners would be able to access employment and training opportunities, through the Jobcentre Plus network.

Key points included:

• Crossrail is the biggest rail infrastructure project in Europe, with a partnership budget of just under £16 billion
• The Crossrail Act 2008 embedded two clear responsibilities with regard employment - employ local people and work with local authorities
• Crossrail will safeguard or create 14,000 jobs and will employ a total of 70,000 people over the lifetime of the programme; It will create 400 apprenticeships - contractors will commit to create one apprenticeship (or equivalent) for every £3 million of contract worth
• Jobcentre Plus (JCP) is a key partner in providing contractors with applicants for vacancies. Crossrail has a Memorandum of Understanding with JCP and via them, local brokerage services. Every vacancy available through the supply chain has to go to JCP for a minimum of 48 hours for skills matching - so case loading JCP databases will be critical. This is an contractual obligation for supply firms
• A Tunnelling Academy will also be developed, supported by the Skills Funding Agency
• Next step for Crossrail is to profile the jobs in scale and scope carefully and project how many of those jobs will be 'vacant' i.e. assuming contractors bidding for work will already have up to 95% of the personnel needed to fulfil the contract - leaving 5-10% 'new' jobs

Dianna Neal from London Councils gave a presentation that outlined the following key messages:

• London boroughs will be vital to making sure Londoners can access opportunities from Crossrail, given their links with communities, businesses and local job brokerage services. London boroughs will need to work effectively with their local JCP manager to ensure their residents are well placed to take the opportunities available
• Data on people employed or trained through the Crossrail job brokerage should be available by borough
• Crossrail job brokerage should build on existing networks and training/employment infrastructure, not create new structures
• We need to learn the lessons from other major developments such as 2012, Westfield etc.

It was agreed to meet again in around six months time when forecasting data would be available.

The Crossrail presentations are available below: