Agenda item

Please introduce yourselves and set out your roles and responsibilities.

(WG) I am the Interim County Manager of the Supporting Independence Programme (SIP). I used to work for Shell International in London in a social investment role.  Shell had a scheme which supported young people between the ages of 16 and 30 to start their own business. I then worked for Canterbury City Council in a Scrutiny role, and in KCC as a Staff Officer to the Communities Managing Director.

(LAB)  I am a social inclusion officer in the SIP.  I joined KCC 7 years ago as part of the graduate programme. Apprenticeships are a big part of the SIP, along with delivery, partnership working and welfare reform.  We run employment programmes for young people, including the delivery of the Future Jobs Fund, through which we found 6 month work placements for 890 long term unemployed young people.  We also run 9 work clubs in libraries in Kent, which offer IAG.  We work with Tomorrow’s People, a national charity which helps families who are out of work.

 

(LAB)  There is a draft Apprenticeship Strategy, which will go to Cabinet on 20 June.  This sets out plans for the next three years. We would like apprenticeships to be seen as the skill option of choice for the young people of Kent, and we need to raise the level of understanding of apprenticeships and what is involved. They are currently seen as a second class option.

 

We will support businesses so they are ready to take on an apprentice. Currently, only 3,500 of the 48,000 employers in Kent take apprentices, so we need to identify the barriers to them taking up this option. We ran a pilot to help employers to recruit young people, and this has been very successful. Employers have acknowledged this as a good service.

 

We support young people with IAG in what can be a confusing landscape. We help them to look at their options seriously and take on the commitment of training for and choosing a career.

 

We also have a Vulnerable Learners project, which has 80 places to support young carers, young parents, young offenders and young people with Learning Difficulties or Disabilities.  Our aim is to make apprenticeships more accessible to these groups.

 

Kent Success has been very successful, having supported over 400 young people and shown a 76% achievement rate. 87% of the young people who take part in this have gone on to full time employment.

 

We need to streamline our services and make them more efficient and seek to sell our innovative work to the rest of the public sector.

 

We are also looking to develop apprenticeship career paths in Kent where there is a skills shortage, such as social work, trading standards and health visitors.

 

We have a strategic development role, related to the National Apprenticeship Service (NAS) role in Kent.  This only works with companies which have more than 250 employees, so does not include small and medium sized businesses.  The message about apprenticeships needs to reach young people, however NAS does not do learner engagement.

 

(WG)  One challenge we have is to persuade employers to align their apprenticeship schemes to the academic year.  As young people look at websites to make their choices at 15 or 17, they need to be able to find out about and access apprenticeships so they can apply for these at the same time. Recruiting at the optimum time will mean employers will get the best young apprentices.  Parents need to be given a better image of apprenticeships, and examples can be used to show the possibilities, eg Boots train dispensing apprentices and offer a structure through which a young person can rise as they complete each stage of training, and each stage brings enhanced pay.

 

How many of the vulnerable young people which SIP works with achieve qualifications at Level 3?  The Wolf report says that English and Maths skills for this group need to be enhanced.

(WG)  Of 16 – 19 year olds last year, 2,000 studied at Level 2 and 800 at Level 3.  I find that employers ask for a GCSE pass at grade C in Maths and English, when what they are actually looking for is someone who is able to read, write and add up. They don’t recognise or understand other forms of qualifications.

 

Why is the IAG so confusing?

(LAB)  Young people do not seem to find IAG via school, so this does not seem to be covered by schools. Many young people find information via the Direct.Gov website. They need more information about the range of apprenticeships, and that many more subjects are available than hairdressing, plumbing and the other ‘traditional’ subjects.

 

Schools could be encouraged to promote apprenticeships as a positive choice.

 

What incentive is there for employers to take on apprentices? The word seems to put people off.

(WG)  The image could be improved by comparing apprenticeship to something like a junior doctor’s training, which could be seen as a type of apprenticeship. It is essentially ‘work-based learning’. In Germany, Apprenticeships are seen as an alternative to University, and in some ways are seen as being superior to a University course. 

(LAB)  In terms of incentives to employers, we cannot give them money, but we can encourage them to take on apprenticeships as a way of ‘growing your own workforce’ which will build in loyalty and allow them to train staff to best meet their needs.  Young recruits can take 2 to 3 months before they start being genuinely useful, so employers need to be encouraged to take a more long-term view.  Colleagues from my team liaise with employers to match them with the most suitable apprentices. If the Select Committee were to make a recommendation which supports this initiative it would be most helpful.

 

Could we make use of employers who have had apprentices to act as ambassadors for the scheme and encourage other businesses to take them on?  Spreading the workload would make better use of KCC resources.  We also need to work on persuading parents.

(LAB)  Yes, I agree that we could develop this mentoring role.  Perhaps an event like ‘speed-dating’ would be useful, to make initial connections between employers and young people. Employers could talk about what their company does and let young people ask questions and see if they suit each other.  We could make use of both these threads, as well as employers and successful past apprentices going into schools to tell them about their positive experiences and encourage others to try it.  

(WG)  We could help employers to see the financial benefits to them; for instance, how cheaply they could start employing an apprentice, and the benefits of training them in-house.  For the first year, an employer would only have to pay an apprentice £100 per week, but the second year would include subsidised training.  At the end of the programme, they would have no obligation to take on the apprentice, but for many it would not make economic sense to let go of someone in whom they have invested so much time and training, and who is contributing to the bottom line of the business.

 

Once in a company, what status would an apprentice have - would they count as ‘employed’ or ‘in training’?

(LAB) They would be employed under an apprentice contract .

 

Could the Freedom Pass be added to their employment package?

(LAB)  Yes, we could seek to add this to their first year salary.

 

Kent Works was good, but what is available now?

(LAB)   Education Business Partnership, but this is due to lose its funding so there is much uncertainty around its future and I’m not sure that it will survive. 

(WG)  There are different ways to access apprenticeships, eg via college, and 120 organisations in Kent deliver apprenticeships.  This system offers much flexibility to meet employers’ needs.

 

Can you tell us about the Future Jobs Fund?

(WG)  This was to help the long-term unemployed between 18 and 24. A large number of the group of young people who were referred through our Future Jobs Fund programme clearly had mental health issues.

What will be the KCC’s future role in apprenticeships – planning? directing?

(WG) This is an area of growth for Kent so it will develop a strategic role of leadership and guidance.  It will raise the level of understanding of the scheme (which the NAS will not do), identify gaps in delivery and try to fill them; eg providing support to small businesses.

 

Do we advertise successes?

(WG)  The ‘Kent Apprentice of the Year’ awards this year showed a very good standard, which raised the bar.  This success will breed more success.

 

It has been suggested that we change the name ‘Apprentice’, but I think we should keep it as people know the name, and it does have good connotations.

 

What do other European countries do in this sort of area?

(WG)  As we have said, in Germany, apprenticeships are seen as an alternative and even superior option to University.  Germany values vocational skills, and employers in companies and organisations over a certain size have to take on apprentices. Switzerland, Australia and Sweden also have good schemes.  Because some people in the UK see apprenticeships as being a second choice, this influences employers also to view them as a second choice. We need to rebuild the value of apprenticeships.

(LAB)  We are leading an INTERREG funding bid, including partners from France, Belgium and the Netherlands. We can send the Committee some written details of this.

 

Is there any industry in which apprenticeships are not appropriate?

(WG)  I am not aware of any, as young people trained to Levels 4 and 5 make good quality recruits. In some industries there are health and safety constraints, eg young people working on a building site or in a care home have to be over 18.

 

In the construction industry, there is not necessarily an age limit (employers tend to build those in themselves) but anyone working more then 16 hours a week on site has to have knowledge of health and safety procedures.

 

(WG)  Something else we have in Kent is a Vulnerable Learners project, which addresses the needs of particular groups who are more at risk of experiencing problems accessing work. For instance, 94% of those with learning difficulties are unemployed, as are 84% of young parents, 60% of young offenders, etc.

(LAB)  The confidence and aspirations of these groups need to be enhanced. Services, such as Catch 22, or the Young Parents Team, spend time with them and build them up, but once they are confident and ready they also need someone to support them through to the next stage, into employment, which is the part we are trying to put in place with the Vulnerable Learners Scheme.

 

What other initiatives could help to enhance young people’s employability?

(WG)  When I worked for Shell International, I was part of a volunteer mentoring scheme, working with a young man over the two years of his GCSEs giving him impartial advice and helping him understand what was needed to get into the world of work.

(LAB)  Pre-apprenticeship Level 1 support is also important.  Some vulnerable young people need extra support to develop confidence, and we could look at models of how this could be delivered.

 

What about interns?

(LAB)  These tend to be graduates, so are a different age group.

 

When we went around the county on regeneration visits (which led to the establishment of this Select Committee), we visited an industry in Thanet which employed mostly Eastern European workers.  When we asked why, we were told that UK workers tend to work there for very short periods – sometimes only two weeks – then get bored and leave.  Eastern Europeans have a completely different work ethic.

(WG)  Employers will always do what is best for their company, so they take on those whom they know will make a commitment, stay for a long time and do the job.  We need to address young people’s attitudes and work ethic and which jobs they see as being good to do.  We could encourage them towards the health and social care sector, for example, where we know there will be lots of growth over the coming years.  In the future, employers in Kent will also have to compete more and more with mainland Europe to recruit and keep hold of the best workers.       

(LAB)  Some young people are simply not job-ready and need more realistic preparation at school.

(WG)  There are other activities which can help them develop the skills they need to be ready for work, such as voluntary work and community activities which help to develop leadership skills and responsibility.

 

What can the Select Committee do to help with your work?

(WG)  Please support marketing and promotion as a vital part of the Apprenticeship Strategy!

 

 

 

 

 

 

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