Agenda item

1.            Mr Hobbs advised that he left P& O in 1987 as their Marketing Manager, having spent more than two decades in the cross Channel Industry. He subsequently operated his own marketing consultancy for 7 years and then enjoyed a 3 year spell with the Health Education Authority, managing their Workplace Health unit and launching a nationwide Health Awards Scheme.

2.            He then joined the Training & Enterprise Council for South London (SOLOTEC) in 1997 as Senior Development Manager and worked closely with private and public sector partners in the recruitment drive for the Millennium Dome. He joined Channel Chamber as Chief Executive in March 2000.

3.            The Chamber is independent and non political and its core business is supporting the East Kent business community.  Recruitment and skills were key within his agenda.  He had experience of the government’s Future Jobs Fund, engaging 69 unemployed young people of 18-24 years old in East Kent with 6 months employment.  He advised that few if any programmes involved 6 months employment; the majority were for a few days or weeks. The students were employed in the chamber offices in Dover, Ramsgate and Folkestone.

4.            This was a unique opportunity for those who had not worked, in some cases for 6 years.  At the end of the 6 months the chamber was aiming to make everyone job ready.

5.            Mr Hobbs stated that he had learnt a great deal about the student’s backgrounds and capabilities. 120 interviewed had been to recruit the final 69.  There were no more than 10 students in this age group from grammar schools who were unemployed. 

6.            He explained that it was the programme’s aim to get everyone employment ready. Due to the close and sustainable relationships the Chamber enjoys with local business it was able to introduce local employers to the students and arrange many work placement opportunities.  He was delighted with the results so far and mentioned that 10 young people recently left the programme and Job Centre Plus had announced that 9 of them had not signed on for Job Seekers allowance  after one month of leaving the programme. 

7.            Mr Hobbs advised that during the interviews few young people could articulate their any career ambitions or what vision they had for their future.  They had few monitory ambitions.  15% of those that he had interviewed expressed a desire to enter the animal care sector.  Following further enquiries it seemed that they were asked by a Careers Advisor - what do you like doing? Since they had mentioned a

fondness for animals/pets, they were encouraged to book on a course on animal care without any real hope of securing a job in this sector.

8.            In response to a question, Mr Hobbs voiced his opinions that FE colleges and schools were dedicated to educational qualifications to the detriment of any practical workplace skills.

9.            Mr Hobbs explained that Kent and East Kent in particular was dominated by micro employers. They recruited many young people annually and regularly reported their concerns to the chamber about this lack of skills.  He felt that many young people did not have the resources/tools or the appropriate attitudes to secure a job.  He gave the comparison of a young person he met recently from New Zealand who had been taking jobs in local restaurants, cafes and bars to obtain the necessary range of skills and experience for her to become an assistant hotel manager. She did not posses a university degree but felt that she could demonstrate her capabilities for a management post through her practical experiences within the industry. He felt that few of the young people he had met in East Kent were likely to consider this approach and yet many small employers were constantly seeking recruits like the young New Zealander.

10.       Mr Hobbs reminisced about the local Education Business partnership network in Kent which was responsible for district wide work experience in schools. His local EBP also managed a group of volunteer business mentors, which did a great deal to help some of the more ‘challenged students’. A great deal of work was managed for little money.  The EBP worked closely with local businesses to understand what the challenges were. 

11.       He was concerned about the future and in particular the risk of losing volunteering and help from the local community.  He felt that it served the greater need of the local community where meetings were held to discuss the common goals that embraced health, crime prevention and employment and skills, talking to schools, police etc to make improvements locally.

12.       The Chairman advised that Kent Works has passed on to Connexions and asked how we get back to that golden age of EBP.

13.       Mr Hobbs advised that as a chamber of commerce and an employer, there were a whole range of organisations who were trying to make contact with him on a regular basis; These included several schools, colleges, universities, work providers and broadly, disadvantaged people.  In fact there could be up to 16 different organisations trying to get hold of any individual employer all ‘selling’ the idea of recruiting a young person. It seems imperative that these organisations be encouraged to collaborate in order that business can better understand the benefits that are available.

What is the glue?

14.       Mr Hobbs considered that the district-wide communities have an important role.  And there was a need for more collaboration particularly in the education sector.  He gave an example of universities, colleges, training providers and schools, all appointing individual ‘employer liaison’ personnel each selling their individual needs to the same employers.

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How do you feed back your successes?

15.       The Jobs Future Fund programme had been a real opportunity to make young people work ready.

16.       Mr Hobbs advised the Select Committee of a recent interview with a young person. The young person’s handwriting was extremely poor, like that of a 5 year old with separate letters, no joined up writing.  He discovered that the Job Centre Plus had written the CV for the young person.   Employers did not want to be deceived in this way.  Most small employer simply wanted to hear that the young person was keen and willing to work for them, that they were punctual and wanted to learn about the work and skills involved..

17.       Mr Hobbs gave the following examples:

·        15-20 young people were told two weeks in advance about a visit to TESCO, on the morning of the visit 5 telephoned him saying they were sick, and only one turned up.  The group’s daily time keeping was very poor. He felt that this stemmed partly from secondary schools not having any sanctions on their time keeping.

·        5 pupils (14yrs) from Folkestone Academy were given the opportunity to engage with older people and use their IT skills. One girl after being in the office for 6 hours said that she did not like it there. . At 4pm, when she was about to leave she announced she would not be coming back as her mother had got her another placement at a local primary school.  Mr Hobbs said that he phoned the school and they advised that the mother had rung the school and that she would be going to the local primary school.  He felt this said a lot about our society letting a child dictate where she wanted to be without any acknowledgement to the employer.

18.       Mr Lees mentioned that when he was at school at Key Stage 4 there was numeracy test and each child was given a certificate which they could take to an employer.  The county could operate a similar endorsement.

19.       Referring to the EBP system, Mr Hobbs explained that this had been a national network with many tiers. It had worked well at a local level with relatively low costs.

20.       The Chairman said that the Select Committee had to describe a solution – The Locality Board agenda could be used to pull everyone together, with education as the single most important topic.

21.       In response to what he felt about a Careers Mentoring Scheme, Mr Hobbs responded by explaining that most jobs in small/micro businesses were fairly basis but presented opportunities for young people to start on the road to work.. Schools need to better understand what their local employers want form young people..

22.       A view was sought from the Work Experience student present. He considered that it should be compulsory after finishing GCSEs to have work experience.  He was advised by Mr Hobbs that you could not force employers to take students.  No one had sold the idea of apprenticeships to employers.   In his opinion the Apprenticeship Scheme was also a potential disaster and had not been marketed effectively to employers. He considered that the employers had to be sold the benefits of apprenticeships.  Schools were not currently involved with the Apprenticeship Scheme.

23.       The Chairman reminded the Select Committee that KCC had a commissioning role.  In some areas it was working well.

24.       Mr Hobbs suggested that the Select Committee looked outside Kent for examples of how this could be achieved.  The Chambers in other northern counties were successfully delivering the Apprenticeship Scheme on a large scale.. 

25.       The Chairman and Select Committee thanked Mr Hobbs for attending the meeting.

26.       The Committee thanked Roy Manuell for attending and agreed that it would be useful to have a student in attendance at future meetings as his comments had been helpful.

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