Agenda item

The Chairman and Committee welcomed Ms Newton to the meeting and thanked her for the comprehensive written evidence she had submitted in answer to questions that had been forwarded to her in preparation for the meeting.

 

Ms Newton gave a brief introduction explaining that the Institute of Employment Studies (IES) was a charitable organisation and seeks to undertake research.  It often carried out work for government projects.  The IES had a small network of 15-20 companies.  The network had suffered in the recession.  Ms Newton said that her work area tended to be based on public sector policy. 

 

Q – Do you carry out age profiling in the public sector?

A – We do but I do not specialise in this area.   My work is based on young people engagement.  IES does 14-19 years and post 19 years level research.

 

The Chairman advised that KCC employees were currently an average age of 54 years.  The 24 years and under age group was dropping, which was never meant to happen.

 

Ms Newton said that she came into contact with KCC when she was doing a project on flexicurity (a concept which combines flexibility and security in employment for employer and employee) in the EU and she wanted to gather a case study.  She came across the apprenticeship scheme that KCC had been running and was aware of the actions that KCC was making to try and improve the situation for young people.

 

 Ms Newton explained that IES work expanded to unemployment, 14-16 element in schools and graduates and health and wellbeing. 

 

Ms Newton considered that Information, Advice and Guidance (IAG) was absolutely critical and needed to start at the earliest age possible.  In her opinion students should be thinking about the world of work from primary school. 

 

Q - What type of guidance can KCC give to that age group?

A – At that age it is more about opening their eyes to the world of work. Young people are influenced by their parents, if their parents do not have particularly wide horizons then neither would the child, by the time they hit their work placement at secondary age often that would be brokered through their parents unless they are affluent or well networked.  It was about opening their eyes to get the sense of what they needed to do to get to be say a nurse or doctor.  Do they know what stages that would take?

 

 

IES has explored intergenerational unemployment and its effect on young people and is also involved in reviews of the impacts of the changes introduced by the Employee Support Allowance (ESA) which replaces incapacity support allowance and seeks to transition ISA claimants to job seekers allowance should they be capable of work.  Ms Newton explained that she had been carrying out work on the Evaluation of the Activity Agreements, which were targeted at young people, where she had

encountered young people from intergenerationally inactive families.

 

Q – Moving from Primary to secondary how do you build this up?

A - It was about keeping the focus.  KCC needed to build its links with employers and have engagement with the curriculum which was very tricky.  She advised that she carried out did research for young apprenticeships and found that Taster Days were a very effective way of offering advice and guidance.  KCC may find that employers would want to come into schools and have a discussion about what their business was about.  Taster Days were to prepare the post 16 year olds transition. They had been making a choice to enter into vocational training at 14-16 years, which was equivalent to 5 GCSEs that they would do alongside the 13 other GCSEs that young people were encouraged to do.  Young people often would not have had experience of vocational qualifications and needed to know what they were about, what their equivalencies were and what it was worth to them.

 

Q – Would you do the Taster Days in a school setting?

A – Taster Days can be carried out a variety of ways. 

 

*Ms Newton agreed to send a paper with a toolkit of ways to hold Taster Days.

 

The Chairman commented that the Committee was hearing from organisations that were stretched in all directions and that the funding was not as good as it was.  A toolkit would be useful.  He considered that more businesses would be able to attend the school rather than students visiting the businesses.  Ms Newton advised that one business can come in and talk about what their business does and all the types of jobs needed to run the business.

 

Q - Does a Taster Day require external funding?

A – There was no funding, it was about forming relationships with the schools and businesses, trainers were useful in organising them.

 

Q – Were the schools interested or was it a time issue?

A – Schools varied, Those with a more academic focus tended to think “Do we need vocational training”.  Young people needed the information to be able to make a judgement on Further Education.

 

Q – How effective are Tasters Days?

A – IES had FE colleges that collected data.  The impact was that more students took up FE courses they had not previously thought of and retention in courses was improved.

 

*It was suggested that KCC could be a facilitator as it had huge contact with businesses and schools.

*The Chairman suggested that as Paul Carter, Leader of KCC was fully behind the apprenticeships scheme, if he wrote to SME companies to invite them to engage with certain schools they would go.  That was a way of marketing with the SME businesses.  There was also an issue of how best we use our officers and the best people to bring in to support this.  Ms Newton advised that IES had a document that may be helpful with preparing employers.

 

Q – What are your views on the advantages and disadvantages on recent national policies with regards to youth unemployment?

A - This was a rapidly changing environment.  There had been a focus on 16-18 year old NEETs, which had been a concern in Kent.  To address that there had been a number of actions that had been effective for the 16-17 year olds, resulting in the rates of NEETs fell. 

 

Q – Do you know about the NEETs that we can’t find?

The suggestion is that the known NEET rate was falling; the unknown NEET may be growing as a result of the disbanding of Connexions services, which would suggest stability in the people that are NEET.

A – Looking at the past 10 years in the 16 to 18 year olds. 16-17 year olds were staying in education and entering into employment but the 18 year olds were starting to fall through the gap because the unemployment services do not generally intervene prior to the age of 18.  The 16 to17years plus were receiving focus as a result of the EMA payment (although the new government has removed this), the September and July guarantees for education places.  We wait to see if the new targeted support works (this replaces EMA), but the evaluation did find that the EMA had been effective. 

Ms Newton presumed that the September and July guarantees were not under threat (information on the DfE website indicates the policy, if not the name, remains a priority).  Everything that the IES had looked at concluded that flexibility was key.  Having the January start would allow KCC to catch those that did not come through immediately as there was a lot of inertia amongst young people, they did not get on with applying through the Summer.  January starts were a good solution.  She felt that Apprenticeship expansion was key, saying that this was a huge commitment and achieving it was a big commitment but in order to think about expansion of apprenticeship places employers had to establish if there was a business case, was it within the current strategy.  For the companies they had to ask do I want to take on that additional person.

 

Q – The apprenticeship was becoming a more favoured route in testing out young people before businesses took them on.

A – That was an interesting point of using it like a talent spot.  Getting a blue chip apprenticeship was as competitive as getting into Oxford or Cambridge universities.  At the same time there were apprenticeships running for 6 months at level 2 in retail which were very different.

 

*Ms Newton referred to Fuller and Unwin Expansive Restrictive good practice model of apprenticeships which she agreed to forward to the committee.  This had a model of how best apprenticeships could be delivered, where it worked best and how it worked best.

 

The Chairman advised Ms Newton that the previous witnesses, KATO, were asked how many NEETs were satisfied with their jobs.   They advised 30% were satisfied.

Ms Newton felt that that was very interesting; she considered which apprenticeships were they doing and their relation to the expansive–-restrictive model.  She was concerned about what happened to students after the apprenticeship finished and whether there was the option for more training within the work place.  She felt there needed to be a career development structure if progression in training was to exist.  The question may be; does the company want the apprentice to go to the next level.

 

Q - A Member said that he had heard that some companies were offering apprenticeships at a level 4, degree level.

A – Ms Newton understood that 100 of those were delivered last year, particularly in Management/Leadership. 

 

Q - You mentioned that some of the university degrees were falling away since the cost of courses had risen.

A - The changes to fees will be implemented for the 2012-13 academic year so we don’t know their impact yet. It would be likely to depend on how well the fees were communicated to the students so that they realise that they would not be paying the loan back until they reached a certain salary point.  There was a debate on whether, in light of increasing participation in HE, graduates would attract a wage premium in the same way as they have in the past ie when we have large numbers participating, up to 50% of the cohort.

 

Q – Is there still a misunderstanding by the students on how the student fees/loans worked?

A – This had not affected anyone yet.  The government was trying now, with Martin Lewis, money expert, to communicate how the loans and financial support was going to work.   The salary point when they had to start paying the loan back was around the point when they had a salary of £23k plus, then 5% off top.  The higher their income the more they had to pay back.

 

Ms Newton advised that the Government was interested to explore views of student loans in FE colleges and apprenticeships.

 

The Chairman suggested that there could be a shift for people to attend the FE colleges instead of the universities because of the rise in fees.  This could create great competition.  If there was a fee for attending the FE colleges it would put everyone on an equitable basis.   Some of the FE colleges were now offering degree courses cheaper than the universities.

 

Ms Newton advised that the colleges were offering foundation degrees among their HE provision which often had a vocational focus.

 

*Ms Newton advised that the fees charged by FE for HE course could be roughly estimated at around ?rds of the fee for a course delivered in a university

 

Q – What are your views on the Wolf Report and its recommendations?

A - It is a very valuable report. The report highlights that vocational training was an essential offer.  It was important that students had qualifications of value.  It was useful to draw this together and to think about how best we offer vocational courses at Key Stage 4. There was a strong recommendation within the report on the aspiration that young people achieve A* to C in Maths and English, how you go about that for post 16 years and what that might do to an apprenticeship when you have applied numeracy and literacy within the scheme which was different to those in general education. 

 

 Ms Newton said that she had had discussion with a national employer body for an EU study on Apprenticeships where a point was made about how far employers would be to release a young person to achieve A*-C in these subjects ie about their willingness to make up for what they perceive to be the failures of the school education system. The interviewee referred to had also contended that this drive for the achievement of A* to C was the educationalists trying to take back the training agenda.

 

 

Ms Newton referred to the National Employer Skills Survey advising that it says that only 10-11% of employers recruited a young people straight from school or FE colleges.  Of those employers 66% believed that the16 year olds they had employed were well prepared for work, that figure rose to 75% for those recruiting 17-18 year olds and for graduates that reached to 85%.  She felt that this sent positive messages of how those employers that employed young people felt that they were prepared for work despite some of the negative press coverage on school leaver.

 

Q – The evidence on volunteering that you sent us put volunteering in another light.  Do you have any more evidence that might help?

A - I did a report on behalf of the National Young Volunteers Service, which was a comparative look at the Future Jobs Fund and volunteering opportunities, to look at the outcomes; whether volunteers would get certificates, build networks, employability and soft skills development.  She found that structured volunteering compared favourably with the future Jobs Fund.  The right volunteering gave young people skills, networking and employability.  Disadvantaged young people gained an opportunity to feel better about themselves and gained the ability to handle relationships – with peers and adults– better.  For graduates, along side their degree they were able to build on their experience. Volunteering in the relevant sector meant that they would have some insight as to whether this was a long term prospect.

Q - What sort of volunteering?

A – This was structured volunteering, either full or part-time. The full-time opportunities were with Public Sector bodies and FE colleges and there was financial support. V (the national youth volunteering service) was funding it; the funding was equivalent to an EMA, – Learning Support assistance and covered the expenses incurred by individuals.  Full-time volunteers got involved in doing level 2 qualifications which lead to a lot of them being rooted back into learning and some made of the transition into full time education. The study also looked at part time volunteering, it was structured and young people could gain a sense of leadership.

 

*The Chairman suggested that KCC could influence on this.

 

*A Member suggested that there was a need to look at where the funding it came from and whether it still existed as there was a need for financial support.

 

The Chairman gave the example of a school in a deprivation area that asked to speak with one of the Mums at the school gate, advising her that they needed someone to help in the playgroup and thought she would be the right person.  She now sings the praises of the school and had been part of a massive community drive.  It was about getting volunteers for the right reasons doing meaningful things.

 

* A Member suggested that parents should be invited in for Taster Days at schools. (Ms Newton noted that information about this was contained in the toolkit she would send).

 

 

Q – What should the Select Committee recommend to improve youth unemployment?

A – Ms Newton suggested the following:-

• KCC to offer leadership and facilitate between the school and employers/businesses.
• Work on breaking down the barriers with young people becoming more mobile. 
• Scope what people wanted, their routes through learning, training and their destinations. 
• IAG is critical from early phases and intensifying by KS4 particularly with vulnerable/disadvantaged groups. 
• Offer tailored/personalised training for the most vulnerable/disadvantaged. 

 

The Chairman and Committee thanked Ms Newton for attending the meeting and reminded her to forward the toolkit for volunteering.