Policy Recommendations
Future Capital - Policy Recommendations
Policy ideas raised during think tank discussions and shaped by Bidwells and Blackstock; with the potential to Grow, Advance or Supercharge Future Capital in the Arc.
Advance
- Training and work placement opportunities for young enterprise, discovered through regional science and technology competitions which major on commercialisation. As it currently stands, sourcing young entrepreneurs in the Arc requires employability and financial education charities to partner with local schools. Competitions are rare, and the prizes awarded do not emphasise the intergenerational transfer of skills and learning otherwise available through work experience and training opportunities.
- Make S&T apprenticeships mainstream as an alternative to higher education, providing specific funding for employers who have taken on employees aged 21 or below who have completed qualifying work and can demonstrate and justify experience, application, and career trajectory.
- Mandate meaningful ways for young people to scrutinise and direct local policy-making which affects them, including through presentations and workshops in schools and universities during the local plan-making process, and for feedback to be given weight at local plan examination.
Grow
- Adopt a people’s planning lottery to allow future generations to shape the communities around them, introducing a jury-service style planning application review system which is more representative and sentiment-led. A digitally led planning committee process widens participation and would result in a more objective system of examination.
- Create Youth Councils with the status of statutory consultees in the planning application process, making it mandatory throughout the planning consultation process to receive consent from representatives of younger residents prior to determination.