Communities and neighbourhoods

The Academy for Sustainable Communities

The Government has established the Academy as a national centre of excellence to improve the skills, knowledge and behaviours needed to deliver and maintain sustainable communities across the country. The establishment of a national skills centre was a key recommendation of the Egan Review of Skills for Sustainable Communities, to drive forward a new, integrated approach to skills development.

The ASC has been set up to address the skills shortages and lack of understanding across professions, by helping people to work more effectively and efficiency. The ASC will challenge the tendency to adopt an isolated approach to working, recognising that greater cross-profession and cross-organisation working is vital for delivery of sustainable communities.

ASC focuses particularly on broader, generic skills such as project management, planning for the future, communication, partnership working and community engagement. It is not a major training provider, rather looking to influence other providers and to lead the market where gaps exist.

Through the establishment of a information and resource hub, it will inform and spread best practice across the range of sustainable communities' issues and professions.

ASC is also working with partners in the EU to identify generic skills gaps across Europe, and share good practice between Member States. It will host an International Skills Symposium in Leeds in November 2006.

Based in Leeds, the Academy has initially been sponsored by Communities and Local Government and is hosted by Yorkshire Forward (Regional Development Agency).

ASC's purpose

Its overarching objective is to inspire and facilitate people across different fields to work together in coherent and farsighted ways. It will achieve this by:

Providing a high profile national and international focus for sustainable community delivery skills
Establishing a learning framework in partnership with local, regional and national skills providers to increase availability of generic skills
Developing an information and resource hub to improve access to the skills and knowledge for individuals, organisations and communities
Promoting an interest in sustainable communities' careers

Key audiences

The Academy's key audiences are:

Young people - to capture the interest of young people, raise their awareness of sustainable community issues and encourage them into sustainable community careers;
Professionals - to ensure that a co-ordinated programme of integrated learning and skills training is delivered to those working with sustainable communities to improve their skills and awareness;
Communities - to raise awareness and understanding of sustainable community issues and support the building of capacity and capability to deliver them.