The commission's recommendations

The recommendations of the Tower Hamlets Brexit Commission are outlined below, divided into the three themes that guided its work.

Local economy

Regulations

The Tower Hamlets Partnership should support existing campaigns around financial regulations, and set up a separate lobbying arm with stakeholders, given the importance of the finance sector to the local economy. (Tower Hamlets Partnership)

Businesses

The council should work with partners to support local businesses, including access to business rate relief for small businesses. (Tower Hamlets Partnership)

Immigration

Business sectors should work with Tower Hamlets Council and London Councils, alongside the Greater London Authority, to form consortia and lobby central government to consider the impact of reduced levels of immigration for all workers to business and the local economy. (Businesses, Tower Hamlets Council, Greater London Authority)

Skills

The Tower Hamlets Partnership should continue to focus on supporting more Tower Hamlets residents into employment. (Businesses, Tower Hamlets Partnership)

Businesses should work with the Tower Hamlets Partnership to explore options for sector led access to work schemes, such as a commitment to ensuring ‘entry level’ roles are first advertised for Tower Hamlets communities. (Businesses, Tower Hamlets Partnership)

Employers should define ‘job readiness’ and invest locally to better prepare Tower Hamlets residents to access job opportunities, particularly in low skilled work, should labour decrease in certain sectors. (Local employers, Tower Hamlets Council)

Public services

Staffing

The council and the Tower Hamlets Partnership should use existing information and tools available on the EU Settlement Scheme and publish this information on their websites. This is to be circulated widely among local employers. (Tower Hamlets Council, Tower Hamlets Partnership)

Skills

Organisations already carrying out individual analysis of their skills needs should provide future proofing for any deficits over the subsequent five to ten years. (Public sector organisations)

The Tower Hamlets Partnership should work with businesses and regional researchers to produce a post-Brexit borough-wide information pack on the skills needs of the local economy. This should include considerations of any London-wide skills strategy developed by the Mayor of London and London Councils. (Tower Hamlets Partnerships)

Public sector organisations should work together to lobby the Mayor of London and central government to devolve any skills budget, including unspent Apprenticeship Levy funding, as locally as possible. (Public sector organisations, Tower Hamlets Council)

Tower Hamlets - a place of excellence

Tower Hamlets Partnership to lobby government to continue funding Horizon 2020, Erasmus and English as a second or foreign language (ESOL) as they add significant value to local people and students. (Tower Hamlets Partnership)

The council should work with London Councils and lobby the Mayor of London and central government to provide clarity on European Social Fund (ESF) funding post-Brexit with more detailed information on the proposed UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF), in order to sustain ESOL and other funding, as well as the basic skills provision that is central to cohesion and employment in the borough. (Tower Hamlets Council, London Councils, Mayor of London)

Funding

Public sector organisations should map funding they receive from the EU, plan for the future of this funding, and work with London Councils to lobby central government to secure future funding from the UKSPF. Voluntary and community sector (VCS) organisations and the council should monitor the development of the UKSPF and feed into any relevant government consultations. (Public sector organisations, Tower Hamlets Council, voluntary and community sector)

Supply chains and procurement

Public sector organisations should carry out detailed supply chain mapping. They should identify where their supply chains are procured from in the EU, and carry out contingency planning, or look at alternative forms of procurement, such as sourcing goods/services locally or from within the UK. (Public sector organisations)

Public sector organisations should work with representative bodies or boards to enable collective contingency planning and support. (Public sector organisations)

The Tower Hamlets Partnership should lobby central government to minimise the negative impact on local people relating to the movement of goods and services procured nationally from the EU. (Tower Hamlets Partnership)

Civil society

Migration

The local VCS and the council should place a particular focus on informing ‘hard to reach’ groups of their rights under the EU Settlement Scheme. (Tower Hamlets Council, voluntary and community sector)

Voluntary and community sector

The Tower Hamlets Council for Voluntary Service (THCVS) should undertake a mapping exercise to understand what funding the borough receives from the EU, the services that are impacted and the availability of replacement funding post-Brexit. (Tower Hamlets Council for Voluntary Service)

Organisations should monitor the Greater London Authority’s 'Brexit hub' to understand emerging plans for locally devolved funding. (Tower Hamlets Council, voluntary and community sector)

Social cohesion

The Tower Hamlets Partnership should promote positive messages on the careful use of language in the context of Brexit, noting the role that language can play in maintaining or disrupting community cohesion. (Tower Hamlets Partnership)

The council to work with its partners to encourage residents to come forward when reporting hate crime. (Tower Hamlets Council, Community Safety Partnership)

Tower Hamlets Partnership should work with the council to positively encourage community cohesion in the borough, by creating a sense of place-based pride among residents. New York City should be explored as an example. (Tower Hamlets Council, Tower Hamlets Partnership)

Staffing

All voluntary and community sector organisations, public sector bodies and businesses in Tower Hamlets should support their staff and volunteers by providing guidance on the EU Settlement Scheme, in addition to wellbeing and emotional support where necessary. (Voluntary and community sector, businesses and public sector organisations) 

Partnership working

The commission’s report should be presented to all partnership boards and groups to ensure all organisations give due regard to its recommendations. (Tower Hamlets Council, Tower Hamlets Partnership)

Read the Tower Hamlets Brexit Commission report. 

Read the commission's key findings.