Local Enterprise Growth Initiative (LEGI)

Coventry’s LEGI Programme uses enterprise as the key driver to regenerate some of the city’s most deprived areas. To this end, £12.6 million has been secured to put in place an ambitious programme of activity that will help transform Coventry into an enterprise city.

Through the LEGI Programme, individuals and businesses will be able to access a range of integrated, high quality services that will enable them to start up in business, grow an existing enterprise or move into employment.

One of the underpinning values of the LEGI programme is to deliver integrated partnership based services. Therefore, the employment opportunities you will find here are offered by range of local partners. If you are interested in the opportunities available, then please look at the Job Descriptions and additional recruitment details that you will find here.

Coventry is one of ten areas across the country that has been successful in securing LEGI resources which will fund a programme of activity for the period 2006-9.

LEGI is ultimately about improving the quality of life of people. It aims to do this through increasing income levels in the target areas by finding creative and locally owned ways of promoting and supporting enterprise and investment.

At present there are parts of the country where enterprise is under-developed and whose communities are experiencing deprivation.

The LEGI agenda can be summarised into three nationally set core objectives:

· To increase total entrepreneurial activity among the population in deprived local areas

· To support the sustainable growth – and reduce the failure rate – of locally owned businesses in deprived local areas

· To attract appropriate inward investment and franchising into deprived areas, making use of local labour resources

Coventry's LEGI Programme

Values underpinning Coventry's LEGI Programme

Coventry has taken a value-based approach to the delivery of LEGI. The whole LEGI programme in Coventry is built on ensuring that these values underpin all aspects of development and delivery.

Coventry has a historical trend of relatively low levels of enterprise and compared to neighbouring areas this trend is exacerbated within the traditional deprived areas of the city.

As part of the development of Coventry's LEGI bid, the LEGI team looked at the propensity towards entrepreneurship across the city and commissioned the 'Coventry Entrepreneurship Monitor'. The findings of the survey indicated that:

· Only 2% of respondents in the most deprived areas were self-employed, compared to 7% in the rest of the city

· The Total Entrepreneurial Activity in the deprived areas is half the city average

· One-fifth (22%) people surveyed in the most deprived areas had considered starting an enterprise, compared to a third (32%) in the rest of the city

· 65% of those living in the most deprived areas felt that they did not have the skills to establish a business, compared to only a half (51%) in the rest of the city

· Overall, 91% of respondents did not plan to start a business within the next three years; but there was significantly less fear of failure from respondents in the most deprived areas

· 99% are not trying to start a social enterprise, but 81% identified a particular need in their community and 75% wanted to help people in the community

· Job seeker allowance claimants are higher in the most deprived areas at 5.7% compared to a city average of 2.9%

· One-third of all incapacity benefit claimants within the city live within the 10% most traditionally deprived areas.

The above findings support the scope for additional entrepreneurial activity in the most deprived areas of the city.

Key Barriers to enterprise and employment in Coventry

Most disadvantaged groups in deprived areas face a series of complex needs and suffer multiple disadvantages, leading to a wide range of actual and perceived barriers to enterprise activity requiring a holistic and individual-based approach.

Some of the key common barriers identified include limited aspirations, financial barriers, lack of entrepreneurial skills, lack of perceived opportunity, and lack of on-going & long-term support. Many existing business also face significant barriers to growth of existing businesses including problems with crime, lack of management skills and limited innovation and diversification.

Coventry's Model for LEGI

Coventry's LEGI Programme is designed to meet the aims of LEGI and change the existing landscape within key deprived areas of the City, through a holistic and transformational approach to developing enterprise and entrepreneurship, and is based around the following key "packages of activity":

· Business Start-Up Support

· Business Support to Grow

· Employment for Local People.

In addition, it will also tackle both the supply and demand side, to increase economic activity through these crosscutting work-streams:

· Inspire and Engage

· Developing New Business Opportunities.

Underpinning these five strands is the key objective of increasing local money flows in the most deprived areas of the city. By increasing the amount of money generated and spent within these areas (through increased employment and business activity), the local multiplier effect will help generate further wealth and economic activity, leading to a virtuous cycle of improvement.

For more information, visit the Coventry LEGI website

Email
Enquiries