Emanuel Whittaker has a long and proud history of serving clients in the north west of England, dating all the way back to 1837

The Whittaker family were building in Oldham even before 1837. The father of Emanuel Whittaker’s founder is0 credited with building the Oldham Lyceum, the Greaves Street Gas Works and many of the cotton mills that dotted the town during its industrial heyday.

Following a management buyout in 2004, the company continues to offer the same high levels of service that have made it such a success, and although it may no longer be a family business in the strictest sense of the word, it still offers the same personal approach and emphasis on forging successful relationships with clients that have got it where it is today, while members of the Whittaker family's younger generation can still be found on the company payroll.

Says Clive Newton, managing director, "We're in a position now where our partners and customers take the quality of workmanship, service and customer satisfaction for granted, and we're able to spend more time considering our corporate social responsibilities, putting something back into the communities in which we work and encouraging things like women in construction, training initiatives, and leading in areas of equality and diversity"

The company first received national recognition by winning the inaugural Equality and Diversity award in the presence of Trevor Phillips, then the head of the Commission for Racial Equality.

Then, earlier this month it won the Best New Starter award at the Women in Construction Awards, in the person of Mariam Arshad. Additionally nominated in the Outstanding Performance Award was Pauline Hodson who has been a site manager at Whittakers for over ten years.

All this success has been helped by the move to working in partnership.

"The longer time periods associated with partnering contracts mean we have the time to offer not only apprenticeships which we have always done, but we can support schemes like ‘Train to Gain’ which helps qualify employees without formal training, ‘Step into Construction’ a CITB ConstructionSkills initiative and ‘Youthbuild’ an Elevate East Lancs funded initiative that encourages various groups into the industry across Pennine Lancashire."

The company also supports e2e (Entry to Employment) which helps place youngsters who maybe didn't fulfil their potential at school into the industry, in February a 16-year-old female apprentice bricklayer joined the company via this route. Many other schemes are actively supported by the company.

Newton explains. "You couldn't do this with the old short term contracts, because you'd finish the job and there was nowhere for the trainee to work locally. Now we're in a number of partnership arrangements with several longstanding customers, and they support us with additional work whilst we support them by contributing to creating sustainable communities."

Emanuel Whittaker's partners include First Choice Homes Oldham, Calico Housing Limited, Parkway Green, Stockport Homes, Trafford Housing, Villages Housing Limited, Burnley and Blackburn councils under the banner of the Elevate East Lancashire pathfinder, GM Procure, Hyndburn Homes and Oldham's Regeneration Department.

Although the company works across a variety of sectors the majority of income is generated by the Decent Homes Programme, a programme which he envisages keeping the company busy beyond the original 2010
deadline, probably until about 2012. The longer partnership contracts which have become common under the programme, meanwhile, have enabled it to take on seven apprentices this year, of whom two arewomen, and all of whom have been employed from within the local area in which they are working.

Indeed, it is not only within the trades themselves that Emanuel Whittaker has been providing training and apprenticeships. Newton and contracts director John Gallagher have also identified resident liaison as a crucial area in which employing local labour can benefit all parties. Using someone recruited locally to liaise between residents and contractor can ensure that customer service is wholeheartedly embraced, since the liaison officers themselves are aware of local concerns.

Beyond its apprenticeship programmes, Whittaker's is providing a mentoring service to subcontractors, in partnership with GM Procure, Parkway Green and Trafford Housing, offering training, advice and guidance on issues such as health and safety to smaller companies who perhaps do not have the necessary manpower or expertise to offer this in-house. Newton explains that his own organisation is taking employees from smaller contractors, training them up in the required fields and then returning them to the contractor's workforce equipped with new skills.

Whittaker’s in-house joinery workshop is rare in the modern sector, employing around 40
specialist staff and offering a variety of bespoke joinery products such as windows for clients like the burgeoning inner city mill conversion industry, which is currently transforming the centres of many inner cities in the north west in particular, as well as conversions and repairs in the mansions of the leafy suburbs of Cheshire. They also manufacture staircases of the highest quality and complexity.

Whittaker's joinery workshop is one facet of the business that should ensure it a continued income beyond the end of Decent Homes as Whittaker's, like many in the sector, looks towards life beyond the current glut of funding. As with any sensible business, Gallagher and Newton have one eye on the future: "We'd envisage further pressure on councils to outsource responsive repairs moving forward," says Newton. "But more than this, we'd see our future in carrying out external and environmental works that maybe didn't form part of Decent Homes, but are none the less vital to creating decent, desirable, attractive communities."

Whittaker is already working on contracts with its partners to improve fencing, security lighting and parking, as well as programmes to meet Secure by Design standards, and is conscious that the current drive to combat antisocial behaviour could see such areas becoming a major recipient of funding in the post-Decent Homes lull. The company is a sponsor of the Respect Our Community Awards programme in Oldham, which provides support for projects that will help develop a sense of community and drive down anti-social behaviour.

With projects underway including a complete rebuild of a community centre in Oldham, the capacity to undertake more new build projects is clearly a possible route to follow when the doors, windows and kitchens dry up, and of course the refurbished properties that Decent Homes spawns will still require regular maintenance, and further upgrades in future.

Having worked closely with the pathfinders in Oldham, Rochdale and East Lancashire, the two are also keenly aware that a lot of demolition has taken place in the private sector while, as yet, replacement homes have not been forthcoming.

With this in mind, it seems that new build, whether as one of a group of contractors providing specific services to developers or even as the sole constructor on small new build schemes this is an area that the company may soon find itself moving into, and, notes Gallagher,: "It's not like we'd have to start from scratch to undertake new-build. We already have all the trades and skills in-house and are more than capable of undertaking new build. It's not an area we're active in at the moment, because for some years Decent Homes has provided us with all the work we need.

"That's not to say we lack ambition - we're keen to grow, but at a sensible, organic rate. There's no rush to grow unrealistically - we're more concerned with doing a finite number of jobs well than taking on too much and losing our enviable reputation"

Of course Whittaker doesn't have a crystal ball. The end of Decent Homes, coupled with an apparent slowing of the economy generally, will doubtless mean that contractors will face many challenges in the years ahead. However, with a wide range of skills at its disposal, a pragmatic attitude to growth and a healthy commitment to quality over profit, Emanuel Whittaker looks well placed to build on its 170 years of tradition.