London’s Anchor Institutions’ Network lead the way in creating jobs, supporting local businesses and driving down carbon emissions.
Today (8 February 2024) members from London’s 22 Anchor Institutions met at City Hall to reflect on a year of success, to build connections and look ahead to 2024.
Discussions for the day focussed on; accelerating plans to achieve net zero, developing fresh ideas for buying more from smaller and diverse businesses, connecting council services, healthcare providers and training to close the gaps on local NHS employment and understanding the barriers to working parents caused by childcare.
London’s Anchor Institutions’ Network (LAIN) is the first ever city-wide initiative, that brings together some of the city’s biggest, most influential organisations and commits them to work together.
Members of LAIN are from across the public, private, faith-based, education and cultural sectors. The network, convened by the Mayor in 2021, is tasked with working together towards shared goals addressing London’s long-standing social, economic inequalities and the growing climate emergency.
In the past 12 months, the Network has been focussed on maximising its procurement, recruitment and estate management capacity for social and economic benefit, including:
• More than £1.75bn worth of contracts signed with micro, small and medium-sized businesses within two years, exceeding the group’s original goal of achieving £1.17bn of spend over a 3 to 5 year period;
• Living wage commitments uplifting over 7,200 staff’s pay;
• Transferring over £2m in apprenticeship levy to small and medium sized businesses so they can create apprenticeships;
• Over 4,000 apprentices supported by anchor institutions;
• Over 5,200 staff trained in carbon literacy or environmental sustainability, ensuring organisations understand the specific threats to London and their own organisations, embedding a sense of collective responsibility to reduce their carbon footprint.
• Saved over 2.1M tonnes of carbon emissions since 2021 through new infrastructure, retrofits and changes to operations
London’s Deputy Mayor for Business, Howard Dawber, said in his opening address at the conference this morning: “London’s Anchor Institutions’ Network is the catalyst helping London’s public sector leaders to tackle problems together. With vision, leadership and humility, the Network is challenging outdated policies and procedures, sharing best practice and advocating change.
“I’m excited to join these brilliant city leaders to identify more barriers to break, inspire new ways of thinking and commit to taking further action as we work to build a better London for everyone.
“The success so far shows that by working together on common goals, it is possible to help more SMEs get access to contracts, ensure more staff get paid the London Living Wage, support more people into work, and make a significant impact on our net zero targets.”
Professor Wendy Thomson CBE, Vice-Chancellor of the University of London said: “LAIN’s annual conference is an important event for the members of the Network. It’s a great opportunity to reflect on what has been achieved and inspire everyone to deliver more of the social, economic and environmental changes in their organisations that will make life better for Londoners. Together we are creating a fairer and more resilient city.”
The idea is that by working together towards shared goals – tackling inequalities, supporting inclusive economic growth and taking action in the face of climate change – the Network can make a bigger and more positive change than any organisation would by working alone.
The impact of LAIN’s work is felt most at the heart of London’s communities from offering supported internships for neurodivergent Londoners and those with learning difficulties; working with training providers to help prison leavers into employment; and supporting refugees to find jobs; to carbon-retrofitting grade 2 listed buildings and procuring London’s most diverse and entrepreneurial businesses. Championing on the job learning through apprenticeships, maximising the use of apprenticeship levy funds and creating mentoring programmes that better support future generations to succeed in the labour market.
View pictures from the event in our gallery here.