Jamie Carpenter,
Regeneration & Renewal,
22 February 2010
England's regeneration quango is to wind up its skills arm, the Homes & Communities Academy, and instead run its work to improve the skills of housing and regeneration professionals from a new skills and knowledge directorate.
The directorate will be led by Gill Taylor, the academy's current chief executive, and will also take on responsibility for the Homes & Communities Agency's work to ensure that publicly-funded housing schemes boost employment and skills opportunities.
"The academy as a name will cease to be," she told Regeneration & Renewal. "It will now become the skills and knowledge directorate (within the agency), with an expanded role."
The academy was set up by the Government in 2006, when it was known as the Academy for Sustainable Communities. It changed its name to the Homes & Communities Academy when it became part of the Homes & Communities Agency in December 2008.
Taylor said that the move to drop its current name would take place with immediate effect. The academy's team will move over to the new directorate, she said.
Taylor said that the new directorate would review all of the Homes & Communities Agency's capital programmes with a view to rolling out requirements on developers to create apprenticeships as part of those initiatives.
