Bradford’s groundbreaking Regeneration Academy will offer tailor-made training and development to council officers. Nicola Carroll was at the launch.
The Regeneration Academy Bradford Launch
The first 50 participants in Bradford’s new Regeneration Academy will need to get used to being in the spotlight.

As pioneers of the first programme of its kind in England, they will find all eyes are on them to see what this ambitious approach to skills development can deliver.

Judging by the mood when they got together for the official launch of the academy at the city’s Midland Hotel, the ‘academicians’ – as they have been dubbed – are ready to rise to the challenge.

The academy will provide bespoke training and development programmes to staff in the city council’s directorate of regeneration. It will focus on three key areas of learning within the context of regeneration and place shaping: project management, place shaping and leadership.

The emphasis will be on professionals at all grades and across all disciplines learning from each other. Participants will be encouraged to be creative, think differently and take risks.

The academy is a three-year partnership between City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council, the regional development agency, Yorkshire Forward, and Integreat Yorkshire, the regional centre of excellence in renaissance and place-shaping skills. It is seen as integral to the city’s regeneration.

‘This is not the icing on the cake – this is the cake,’ the council’s regeneration director, Barra MacRuairi, said at the launch event. He told the academicians: ‘It is up to you to be change champions.’

He said ‘confident and capable staff’ were key to the ‘transformational agenda’ under way in his directorate. He believes setting up the academy will help the staff in the planning, asset management, transportation, housing and economic development departments create an inter-disciplinary culture. ‘It is not just about learning, but about delivery, and through this programme we can have a broad spectrum of knowledge, talents and skills and cut across departments and directorates,’ he said.
Regeneration Academy Bradford Launch
Jan Anderson, executive director of environment at Yorkshire Forward, highlighted the importance of staff training and development in helping the region emerge competitively from the recession. ‘We are in challenging times. The region is likely to lose £2.5bn-3.5bn of its economy. But it is even more important than ever to invest in training and skills to develop a more flexible, added value workforce,’ she said.

‘Now there is a real opportunity to think hard about making learning an integral layer of everyone’s job. If we can help partnerships get into the right frame of mind and instil confidence in investors and businesses, that will place Bradford in a better position to take opportunities when the economy picks up.’

She added: ‘If this pilot is the success we think it will be, other agencies will want to copy it. People are looking at it not just in the region but nationally.’

York, Wakefield and Leeds have expressed an interest in the academy model, and Yorkshire Forward will decide whether to take other programmes forward in the autumn, depending on evaluation of the Bradford project.

The thinking behind the programme was well articulated by the participants themselves, who explained why they wanted to get involved. Dan East, senior marketing officer at Invest in Bradford, said: ‘I don’t want to move on from the council, but the only way I can move forward is by learning new skills and taking on new projects.

‘We all want to learn more about other departments and other people’s jobs. Rather than having little disconnected groups, this works as a web where everyone is connected. We want to take it out through the rest of the council so it builds a much bigger web.’

Roger Richardson, senior engineer in the Bradford West highways team, hopes taking part in the academy will give him a wider perspective on his work. He said: ‘I know what I do is important, but it is easy to get lost in the day to day detail and not see the bigger picture. This is a way of becoming less myopic. I hope it will restore in me a broader vision, inspire me and encourage me to go about my work with renewed vigour.’

Alun Preece, a manager in street lighting, is enthusiastic about the academy’s potential. His clerk of works is one of the first 50 participants, and Mr Preece believes that enabling his team members to develop in this way will bring valuable skills back to projects carried out in his department.

The timing of the academy fits well with the next stage in Bradford’s regeneration. David Shepherd, assistant director, housing, who has directed the academy project for the authority, explained: ‘We have fantastic examples of regeneration in Bradford, but we need consistency to give confidence to investors and the staff are the key to that.

‘We wanted a quality product, not just another training programme. This is comprehensive and clear. It fits in with where we are at: the next stage for Bradford is the physical transformation that is about to happen over the next five years.’

Mr Shepherd believes what is learned needs to be applied to real projects. Creative thinking was not just about large, iconic projects. ‘It is important the detail is not lost and we want to change small things too,’ he said.

Stacey Jobson, Regeneration Academy project manager at Integreat Yorkshire, is now based at the council’s offices two and a half days a week. She said her organisation had made a significant investment in the academy because it showcased ‘embedded learning, multi-disciplinary working, sharing good practice, and creative thinking, working and learning – all of which are key Integreat themes’.

Evaluation is built into the programme and the first 50 participants are being encouraged to provide feedback both informally and through focus group sessions and a reference group.

Regeneration skills are at the heart of the council’s sustainable communities strategy, and as such the academy has the backing of politicians, particularly the leader, Cllr Kris Hopkins, and the executive member for regeneration, Cllr Adrian Naylor.

The academy’s work is running alongside the council’s existing corporate training programmes. Most of the first 50 participants have now been through skills needs analysis to identify their personal development plan and the first training sessions will start in early June.

The training will be backed up with elements such as practice forums, learning lunches, ‘rhubarb rhubarb’ social networking events on particular topics, and masterclasses.

The bid to deliver the programme was won by Winning Moves, Re’new Leeds and North Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce. Lee Jones, creative director at Winning Moves, is upbeat about the academy’s potential to transform both the regeneration directorate and the city: ‘The Regeneration Academy is a creative space and that will give licence to express creativity. It is a huge opportunity to do something really interesting and exciting and ask questions in different ways.’

He sees the academy as a chance to developing new thinking: ‘This means looking at “inspiration and challenge” rather than “leadership and governance” and “continuous re-invention” rather than “continuous improvement”…We have to stand out from everyone else and take a few calculated risks and that will bring powerful results.’

Richard Motley, Programme Director at Integreat Yorkshire, said: ‘This is a very exciting initiative and one we are proud to work in partnership to develop. It’s more important than ever that councils and communities get best value from the services they provide, and there’s no better way to do that than by ensuring staff are highly skilled and motivated.’

Regeneration practitioners will no doubt be watching Bradford to see what those calculated risks entail, what results they bring and just how significant embedding skills development into the core of regeneration activities can be.