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With less than 200 Days to go to the Olympics and Paralympic, the focus of the media is now firmly on Games time.  Expect lots of worries about security and travel chaos alongside the sporting excitement.  However, with the Olympic Park infrastructure built and temporary recruitment well under way, there will an increasing focus on life after the Olympics.  Famously, the Games were won for London at least partly on a regeneration ticket.  Local people and politicians will now be thinking about how the impetus made by the Games can be maintained.  Evidence from other Olympic hosts is that you can expect some economic growth almost regardless.  The local area will be improved, more people will want to live in the area, house prices go up, small businesses pop up to serice the needs of a growing and more affluent population.  This is likely to happen in areas around the new Park, bolstered by Westfield, the new Media Centre and (hopefully) the development of the Olympic Village for mixed ownership. 

However, we know from other regeneration schemes that existing local communities do not always benefit.  To do this will need a more pro-active approach that harks back to past approaches such as the Thames Gateway, Economic Development Corporations, and even the London Docklands Development Corporation.  My worry is that without a overarching body to pull the six Olympic Host Boroughs together around legacy issues, parochial issues will tend to dominate the agenda, to the detriment of the area.  To take the example of local employment, recruitment to LOCOG jobs has been a credit to inter-Borough and inter-agency cooperation.  But can you a see a local Mayor or Council leader being as cooperative if a major employment growth opportunity comes up just in their area?  No, me neither, and you cannot blame them for wanting the people they answer to to get first dibs on local benefits.  Westfield was an example of that.

Yet compromises on local recruitment could lead to gains all round if brokerage resources and labour market information can be pooled effectively. There seems no reason why a prioritisation exercise cannot be done that focuses on immediate residents followed by residents of the wider areaa.  Apart from costing less, this approach will encourage employers by having a coordinated approach to a wider group of potential workers.  I argued here that the Work Programme needs to be factored into local networks, and a strategic approach like this would surely help the Programme to succeed.  From the NHS point of view, being a national service,  we work across the patch as a group of employers and hence do not have a local axe to grind.  At the same time, we know the needs of specific communities with suffering from chronic ill health or with disabilties, so can help with effective targeting. Moving on to other strategic aims, such as transport infrastructure,skills and education and economic development, the advantages of linking up must be obvious.  Without this joint working the impact of the Olympics is going to be restricted.