MEMORANDUM FROM THE EMPLOYMENT SERVICE
(RU46)
CONTENTS
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
1. Introduction
2. Improved Services for Employers
3. The impact of the initiatives implemented
by the Employment Service aimed at building more effective relationships
with employers.
4. The role of pre-employment and post-employment
services in improved retention rates and whether the existing
menu of services provided by the Employment Service and other
intermediaries is meeting the needs of unemployed and low income
jobseekers.
5. The applicability of demand-led strategies
to the work of the Employment Service.
6. The relationship between the Employment Service
and the range of private and voluntary sector intermediaries,
including those who will receive financial support from the Innovation
Fund.
7. The implications of the creation of the "New
Modern Agency" for further moves towards employer focussed
intermediation by the public employment service.
ANNEXES
1. The Employment Service Large Organisations
Unit.
2. Employment Service Case Studies.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This Memorandum from the Employment Service
seeks to respond to the questions asked by the Employment Sub-Committee
as part of their inquiry into recruiting unemployed people. The
Memorandum puts forward six key propositions:
(1) that the Employment Service, while by
no means the only player in enabling the recruitment of unemployed
people, is uniquely placed as a key and central player because
of its size, scope and ability to operate on both the demand and
supply sides of the labour market;
(2) that to fulfil its role the ES needs
to give equal priority to the needs of unemployed people looking
for work and of employers looking to fill their vacancies;
(3) that the ES has substantially improved
its service to employers, but still has further to go in this
respect;
(4) that the ES believes a demand led strategy
is right, but to deliver it effectively requires partnership,
particularly with the emerging intermediary organisations. No
single organisation on its own can deliver the complete end to
end service required for a fully demand led approach to operate
successfully;
(5) that the ES has a key strategic role,
working in partnership with the new Learning and Skills Council,
to ensure that employers' needs for people with specific skills
can be matched by the availability of learning provision to enable
unemployed people to develop those skills; and
(6) that the new Working Age Agency needs
to be work focused and to deliver a service to employers at least
as good as—and ideally substantially better than—that
which the ES has been developing over the past three years. The
Prime Minister's announcement, in March, created the foundation
upon which this can be built.
The following Chapters set out the Employment
Service's more detailed views on these questions as follows:
Chapter 2 Improved Service for Employers
Chapter 3 The impact of the initiatives implemented
by the Employment Service aimed at building more effective relationships
with employers.
Chapter 4 The role of pre-employment and
post-employment services in improving retention rates and whether
the existing menu of services provided by the Employment Service,
and other intermediaries, is meeting the needs of unemployed and
low-income job seekers.
Chapter 5 The applicability of demand-led
strategies to the work of the Employment Service.
Chapter 6 The relationship between the Employment
Service and the range of private and voluntary sector intermediaries,
including those who will receive financial support from the Innovation
Fund.
Chapter 7 The implications of the creation
of the "New Modern Agency" for further moves towards
employer focused intermediaries by the public employment service.
The Memorandum includes case studies which illustrate
the way in which the ES delivers its services both to people who
are unemployed and looking for work and to employers who are looking
to recruit. Case study summaries are included in the main body
of the document and more detailed accounts are included in Annex
2.
Chapter 1 Introduction
1.1 The Employment Service welcomes the
opportunity to contribute this Memorandum to assist the Committee
in its inquiry into Recruiting Unemployed People.
1.2 The overall aim of the Employment Service
(ES) is "to help people without jobs to find work and employers
to fill their vacancies." This puts the ES in a unique position
as the principal Government Agency operating on both the supply
and demand sides of the labour market.
1.3 Not only is the ES uniquely placed as
a player in the GB labour market, it is also by far the largest
player. In 1999-2000 the ES placed more than 1.3 million unemployed
people into work, exceeding its target for the year by seven per
cent. Of this total more than 220,000 were people who had been
out of work for six months or more. This success, which has helped
to reduce unemployment amongst this group to its lowest level
since 1977, was achieved against a background of a tightening
labour market in which the ratio of unemployed people to vacancies
has halved in three years.
1.4 The ES is also the only organisation
in Britain which offers a service to every unemployed person nation-wide.
It is at the heart of a system which helps most people to leave
unemployment quickly; over three quarters within six months. It
has contributed to a significant improvement in the length of
time for which people are unemployed; currently, of the just over
one million Jobseeker's Allowance (JSA) claimants, only 22 per
cent have been unemployed for more than a year. This compares
with 36 per cent five years ago, and 43 per cent 15 years ago,
when the overall level of unemployment was also much higher.
1.5 Even though levels of claimant unemployment
have fallen to their lowest since 1980, we continue to deal with
very large numbers of unemployed people. In the last year alone
the ES undertook more than three million initial interviews with
people claiming JSA and held almost 30 million fortnightly reviews
with jobseekers already receiving JSA—thus maintaining the
regular and intensive contact which has, for many years, been
at the heart of our efforts to help unemployed people into work
and check that they remain eligible for benefit.
1.6 Through the New Deals and other programmes
the ES also works on an individual basis with unemployed people
who are at a particular disadvantage in the labour market in order
to build their employability and increase their chances of finding
work. Last year, for example, the ES placed 111,000 long-term
unemployed young people into work through the New Deal for those
aged 18-24, exceeding the Agency's target by 11 per cent and putting
the Agency well on the way to achieving the Government's pledge
to place a quarter of a million young people into work through
the New Deal.
1.7 The ES is also working increasingly
with new groups of people—not only those on JSA, but others
of working age who are out of work and claiming benefits—to
bring more of them into the active labour market. By helping them
both to appreciate that work is a real option and to overcome
the barriers to finding and staying in employment we are also
able to provide employers with access to a wider range of potential
recruits with skills in demand in the labour market. In 1999-2000,
for example, the ES placed 26,000 single parents into work through
the New Deal for Lone Parents, exceeding the Agency's target by
over 70 per cent.
1.8 The Agency is also a major player in
helping employers, who are its key customers along with jobseekers,
to fill their vacancies. In 1999-2000 the Agency filled more than
1.4 million vacancies for employers, with a median time for filling
vacancies of between seven and eight working days. We believe
that we continue to receive around one third of all vacancies
in the economy.
1.9 These figures demonstrate the ES's leading
role in helping unemployed people to find work and employers to
fill their vacancies. But they do not describe how the ES seeks
to do so. Over recent years the Agency, through a fundamental
change in its approach, has sought to drive up the levels of service
which it provides to both jobseekers and employers to the point
where they are at the leading edge of those provided in either
the public or private sectors. At the heart of this change have
been the Employment Service Values which the ES introduced in
March 1998 to provide the framework for improvement throughout
the Agency's business.
THE EMPLOYMENT
SERVICE VALUES
Achievement
We will focus on our people, on service, on partnership
and on quality to achieve the results which Ministers and the
community want from the Employment Service.
Service
We are here to serve the public and will always
do our best to meet the individual needs of jobseekers and employers.
Partnership
We will work closely with partners, meeting
our objectives whilst helping them to meet theirs.
People
We will value our people and recognise that
the Employment Service's success depends on them.
Quality
We will strive continuously to improve what
we do and the way we do it.
1.10 As this memorandum makes clear the
ES remains currently some considerable way from its ambition to
be at the leading edge of service delivery. Nevertheless, there
is good reason to believe that both the range and quality of its
services are on an upward trend as evidenced by:
— the introduction of new products
and services, such as:
— the "ES Direct" telephone vacancy
service (paragraph 2.9)
— the ES's "Webvacs" vacancy
internet web-site (paragraph 2.10)
— the "Job Bank", the ES's soon
to be launched internet based national vacancy database (paragraph
2.15)
— the "Job Point" touch screen
kiosks which will be installed in all Jobcentres to enable jobseekers
to access the Job Bank (paragraph 2.15);
— rising levels of satisfaction amongst
jobseekers. Our target for this year is 90 per cent measured independently
through our "Mystery Shopper" programme. Between June
and September this year we exceeded this by 2.4 per cent;
— increasing levels of satisfaction
amongst employers. In 1999 84 per cent of employers who had used
our services expressed themselves as either "satisfied"
or "very satisfied" with the general standard of the
service they received from the ES. 38 per cent of employers say
that they are more likely to recruit unemployed people through
the ES following their experience of New Deal, with only seven
per cent less likely to do so;
— recognition of quality service delivered
by the ES in many parts of the country, with 44 ES Districts and
3 Disability teams now holding the Charter Mark award. The ES
as a whole has been recognised as an Investor in People for the
third time; and
— increasing belief amongst its own
staff that service levels are rising, with almost 80 per cent
of ES staff believing the ES to be committed to customer service,
putting it ahead of many public and private organisations.
1.11 The challenge now for the Employment
Service is to maintain this momentum through the transition to
the new Working Age Agency into which it, along with the working
age part of the Benefits Agency, will be integrated in the summer
of 2001. The final chapter of this memorandum describes in more
detail the potential offered by the new Agency to improve further
the services offered currently to both unemployed people and employers.
Chapter 2 Improved Service for Employers
2.1 There is a wide range of approaches
which public employment services can and do take to recognising
and meeting the needs of employers. At one end of the scale is
the view that, given the social and economic importance of the
labour market, the state should provide a vacancy filling service
to all employers, and to everyone in the labour market—employed
or unemployed, including those with higher level or specialist
jobs. At the other end is the approach which is almost totally
centred upon unemployed clients. This would hold that a public
employment service should concern itself solely with protecting
state benefits and ensuring that unemployed welfare claimants
should seek work as actively as possible. The former approach
requires comprehensive public services to employers, often accompanied
by restrictions on private sector alternatives; the latter implies
a much more limited, minimal role, leaving most employers' recruitment
needs to the market.
2.2 Historically, the UK has never been
completely at either end of this spectrum, although in the 1970s
it moved more towards an employer focused model and in the 1980s
more towards an unemployed client focused model, with the restricted
employer services which that implied.
2.3 With the introduction of New Deal, Government
policy and Employment Service operational decisions have focused
on the development of a more balanced approach which gives equal
importance to working both with unemployed people looking for
work and with employers as the best way of achieving the transition
from welfare into work. As the Employment Service's overall aim
makes clear, our key role, as a public employment service, is
to maximise the number of jobs available to unemployed people
and improve their chances of competing successfully for those
jobs. But in practical terms we cannot achieve this successfully
without developing strong relationships with employers, understanding
their needs and working with them to recruit from the people available
in the labour market, many of whom are unemployed.
Where we are
2.4 Last year the ES took, directly, 2.7
million vacancies from employers, giving it a very substantial
share of the market. Almost six out of 10 employers in this country
use the ES for at least some of their recruitment. More than 77,000
employers had signed New Deal employer agreements by the end of
August this year. In general levels of employer satisfaction with
our services are high. In the last year, 84 per cent of the employers
who used our services to recruit were either satisfied or very
satisfied with the service the ES offered them.
2.5 However it is also true that employer
expectations of our service have, historically, often been quite
low. Equally, whilst almost two thirds of employers use the ES
some of the time, most do not use us for all of their recruitment
needs.
How we operate
2.6 Since the inception of Jobcentres in
the early 1970s, employers have been able to have their vacancies
displayed in them and to receive advice on how best to meet their
recruitment needs. Since 1996 these vacancies have been entered
onto the ES's computerised Labour Market System. Vacancies are
displayed in Jobcentres and people looking for work, unemployed
and employed, can select those for which they would like to apply.
Jobcentre staff can also help by searching through the system
for details of jobs in other locations.
2.7 The ES is also experienced at handling
large scale recruitment exercises. Employers moving into an area
or undertaking a major development often ask the ES to assist
with their particular requirements. Using its unique position
in the local labour market the ES is generally able to tailor
its services in a way which provides the employer with a single,
comprehensive end to end service.
VIRGIN CALL
CENTRE—WILTSHIRE
Virgin Mobile was investigating potential sites
to set up a new Call Centre, of which Trowbridge was one. The
local Jobcentre worked with the District Council to present the
economic case for locating the Call Centre in the town. When Trowbridge
was chosen the Jobcentre worked with Virgin to produce detailed
recruitment plans which involved ES staff across Wiltshire.
— ES staff handled telephone enquiries,
working extended hours on weekdays and Saturdays. They dealt with
almost 5,000 enquiries over eight weeks.
— To date almost 400 people have been
placed into work in the Call Centre.
— Virgin Mobile has expanded its workforce
in Trowbridge to over 700 and the ES continues to recruit for
the company. It has now been asked to fill 350 vacancies for the
Christmas period.
2.8 Similarly, in the case of large-scale
redundancies, which often severely affect local communities, the
ES is able to deploy its locally based Rapid Response Units to
support the efforts of its local Jobcentres.
DEWHIRST—KINGSTON
UPON HULL
130 employees of this clothing manufacturer,
from machinists to warehouse staff, were to be made redundant.
The local Jobcentre worked with the company and:
— set up a "mini job-shop"
on site;
— contacted 35 companies to "market"
the employees facing redundancy and obtain vacancies for them;
— entered discussions with a company
which was opening a new factory in the area and arranged funding,
with the local Economic Development Agency, for a conversion training
package;
— conducted preliminary interviews
for the new employer for 35 potential applicants.
Almost all of the staff were successful in finding
new jobs. The ES placed 20 people in jobs in the new factory,
and placed 10 with other employers.
More recent developments
2.9 In recent years the ES has made substantial
progress in using new information and communication technology
to provide both employers and people looking for work with easier
and more flexible access to labour market services and information.
The introduction in January 1999 of Employment Service Direct
means that people looking for work can now ring a single national
number, charged at a local rate, to find out about job vacancies
nation-wide. The service currently receives between 50-60,000
calls and regularly places around 1,500 people into work each
week. In total ES Direct has now placed over 110,000 people into
jobs, benefiting not only them, but also employers whose vacancies
are filled more swiftly and effectively as a result.
2.10 In a parallel development to Employment
Service Direct, the ES established, in 1999, its first major Call
Centre—at Peterlee—which now enables employers throughout
the North East of England to notify their vacancies through a
single telephone number or by e-mail. From its introduction up
to the end of August, this year, the Call Centre had received
more than 180,000 vacancies and had filled more than 88,000 with
unemployed people. The most recent survey, conducted by Harris
Research, has shown that employer satisfaction is high with "at
least 85 per cent being satisfied overall". As set out in
paragraph 2.15 below, similar Call Centres—based on the
Peterlee model—will be introduced to cover the whole of
Great Britain during 2001. In parallel, the ES has extended its
internet website—"Webvacs" at www.employment.gov.uk—so
that it offers a range of job vacancies as well as information
about its programmes, services and performance.
2.11 In order to lead this programme of
change, the ES established, in 1998, a dedicated "Employer
and Marketing Services Division" with the aim of drawing
together national, regional and local ES resources in delivering
a consistent and co-ordinated approach to improving and developing
its services to employers.
2.12 Other key elements of this programme
to improve services to employers have been:
— the formation of a consultative group
of leading national employers to advise the ES on the development
of its services to employers;
— the release of the ES's first ever
national strategy for marketing to employers, "Marketing
Means Business";
— the introduction of account management
for 800 national and major regional employers, underpinned by
specialist account managers, a database and agreed action plans.
More details of the ES's work in this respect are set out at Annex
1.
— the development of a sector-based
approach to meeting employers' needs, working with employers and
their representative organisations in hospitality, retailing,
construction, health, the civil service, local government and
security to tailor our services and improve recruitment practices;
— working with the New Deal Task Force,
and Employer Coalitions in major urban areas, particularly in
relation to increasing the involvement of employers in New Deal,
but increasingly to help us in the development of our services
to employers more generally; and a major drive to equip staff
in Jobcentres with the knowledge they need of the labour market,
employers' businesses and their recruitment needs.
The introduction of the ES's "Employer Service
Commitment"
2.13 As a fundamental underpinning of these
developments the ES launched its Employer Service Commitment in
September 1999 setting out a set of minimum standards to be met
in every Jobcentre, every day in respect of every vacancy received
from an employer.
OUR SERVICE
COMMITMENT
As a customer of the Employment Service you
are very important to us. We are committed to providing a professional
and helpful service to help you to find the right person to fill
your vacancy.
Whenever a vacancy is placed with the Employment
Service we will:
— provide a named contact who will
handle your vacancy;
— advise you about the services we
can provide;
— confirm with you your minimum requirements;
and
— keep in regular contact with you
until your vacancy is filled.
2.14 To underpin this commitment, Ministers
have in 2000-2001 included for the first time in the ES's Annual
Performance Agreement a specific national performance target for
employer service based on the Service Commitment standards and
measured by independent survey in all ES Districts. The first
results will be available at the end of October for Quarter 2
of 2000-01.
Continuing improvement
2.15 A further major stage in the improvement
of the ES's services to employers is being delivered through the
Modernising the Employment Service Programme. Key elements of
the Programme, which will come on stream during the course of
this year and next, include:
— The introduction of a comprehensive
internet based "Job Bank" which will enable unemployed
people to access all of the ES's 300,000 plus job vacancies, plus
those of a number of private employment agencies:
— through some 9000 "Jobpoint"
touch screen kiosks in Jobcentres which will replace the traditional
vacancy display boards and offer far better access levels;
— through the internet, from either their
own or public access PCs and, later, through touch screen kiosks
in other locations such as public libraries;
— over the telephone, via ES Direct;
— through our Personal Advisers and front-line
staff, who will have access to the Job Bank.
— "Employer Direct", which
will build on the success of our Peterlee call centre by creating
a national call centre network for employers. As a result employers
will be able to notify their vacancies using a single national
telephone number and later, if they so choose, by direct input
over the internet. The call centres will be backed up by the introduction
of Vacancy Services Managers in every Jobcentre who will manage
the process of recruitment for each vacancy taken.
2.16 These developments, along with the
other improvements already described, will lay the foundation
for the continued development of employer services in the new
Working Age Agency.
3. The impact of the initiatives implemented
by the Employment Service aimed at building more effective relationships
with employers.
"The Jobcentre's tailored recruitment service
and knowledge of the local labour market has given our recruitment
exercise a real boost. The Jobcentre has been excellent and I
have been extremely impressed with the range of services they
offer. This has been critical to our successful establishment
as a major city employer."
"I was willing to trust your organisation
with my business and had the service been delivered effectively
would have been a satisfied customer who would have talked about
my experience to my clients urging them to use the Jobcentre to
recruit . . . but this is not the case and I will not encourage
my clients to use Jobcentres."
3.1 These two recent quotes from employers
show that the biggest problem we face remains the inconsistency
of our service levels to employers. There is no doubt that when
we are at our best we offer a very high quality service to employers
which they value and which results in them using us in future
recruitment exercises and, often, for a wider range of their vacancies.
The case studies which we have attached as appendices to this
memorandum represent a small sample of the many occasions when
we have met and often exceeded employers' expectations of the
service which we can offer. But the second of the two quotations
shows that, while we believe that their number is falling, there
are still too many occasions when we fail to meet employers' legitimate
expectations.
3.2 That is why, based on the Employment
Service Values, we are seeking to instil a culture where, in working
with employers to fill their vacancies, we aim to start from a
far better understanding of employers' business need to find the
best available people to fill their jobs. It is easy, but generally
unproductive, to blame employers for having unrealistic expectations
of the people they would like to recruit; some do, but what we
are seeking to do, and increasingly succeeding in achieving, is
to understand employers' needs better and then meet them as closely
as possible, providing realistic advice based upon thorough knowledge
of local labour markets.
BIG W—CORNWALL
The Big W Store, part of the Kingfisher Group,
opened in Pool, Cornwall on 20 October. The local Jobcentre met
with the management team and offered help with recruitment. The
Jobcentre:
— set up a dedicated recruitment team;
— organised local marketing and interviews;
— held an open day for potential applicants;
and
— arranged extended opening hours for
the local ES Direct call-centre, which handled 1,500 enquiries
200 Vacancies were advertised. To date the Jobcentre
has placed 181 people of whom 154 were unemployed.
Current employer satisfaction levels
3.3 The most recent evidence of employer
satisfaction levels with ES services comes from the "Employers
As Customers" Survey, conducted for the ES in 1999 by the
Institute for Employment Studies. This found that satisfaction
among employers who were current and former users of Jobcentre
services was high. 84 per cent said they were "satisfied"
and, of these, half were "very satisfied" with the overall
level of service provided. Satisfaction was highest amongst establishments
with a smaller workforce, and those in the public sector. The
main criteria that employers applied in arriving at their assessments
of our services were:
— whether the Jobcentre showed an understanding
of their needs, acting speedily to meet them and providing plenty
of candidates to choose from; and
— whether the Jobcentre provided appropriately
selected candidates who matched the employers' requirements and
stayed in the job.
3.4 The Survey also asked for the views
of employers who used Jobcentres about ES staff and compared its
findings with a previous survey conducted jointly by the CBI and
the ES in 1995. This showed:
— 96 per cent of employers felt that
Jobcentre staff had dealt with them in a professional manner,
compared with 86 per cent in 1995;
— 70 per cent felt that Jobcentre staff
had a good knowledge of the labour market, compared with 67 per
cent in 1995;
— 58 per cent felt that Jobcentre staff
had a good knowledge of employment legislation, compared with
47 per cent in 1995.
3.5 It is also clear that the New Deal has
been a key factor in influencing employers' attitudes, particularly
in relation to working with the Employment Service to recruit
people who were previously unemployed. A recently published survey,
conducted by the National Centre for Social Research, of employers
who had recruited at least one person into subsidised employment
through either the New Deal for Young People or the New Deal for
the Long Term Unemployed found that about two fifths of the employers
who responded were now more positive about recruiting unemployed
people as a result of their experience. More than eight out of
10 felt that the recruits met their job specifications in full
or in part. Only 7 per cent were less positive about recruiting
unemployed people as a result of their participation in New Deal.
"TYRES R US
"
Alex Park approached Ayr Jobcentre because he
was setting up a small company, "Tyres R Us". He had
been unemployed for sometime himself and wanted to know how he
could place a vacancy for staff. The Jobcentre:
— looked at how New Deal and Work Trials
could help;
— advised on recruitment, provided
application forms and conducted an initial sift of applicants.
— provided an interview room and an
experienced member of staff to sit on the interviews with applicants.
Two New Deal participants started on a Work
Trial with Alex and one was subsequently offered full-time employment.
The company now employs 12 people and has expanded to two outlets,
and this person has now been promoted to be manager of one of
them.
The distinctive role of the ES
3.6 The ES is not, of course, the only organisation
which can help employers fill their vacancies. Private employment
agencies, with whom the ES seeks to work increasingly in partnership,
are also prominent. But where the Employment Service has a particularly
strong role to play is in putting forward to employers people
who are out of work and working with individuals to overcome the
barriers they face in securing employment so that employers can
successfully recruit them. In doing this the ES is helping to
add to the available pool of labour, rather than add to the competition
between employers to recruit people who are already in employment.
The role of the ES in this respect is evidenced in the latest
Labour Force Survey (Spring 2000) which shows that nearly two
thirds of jobseekers who had used private agencies as their main
jobsearch method were already in employment compared with less
than a fifth of those who used Jobcentres.
4. The role of pre-employment and post-employment
services in improving retention rates and whether the existing
menu of services, provided by the Employment Service and other
intermediaries, is meeting the needs of unemployed and low income
jobseekers.
4.1 The issue of retention is complex, particularly
when considering the relationship between retention and progression
for people who move from unemployment into work. From the perspective
of the employer, an employee who leaves for a better job with
another company generally represents a loss to that employer.
But from the perspective of the Government's wider labour market
policy (and inevitably, therefore, from the perspective of a public
employment service) retention is also about an individual remaining
and making successful progress in employment, even if this involves
the individual in job-changing. Nor is it always the case that
a previously unemployed person who loses a job after only a short
time in it is worse off as a result.
4.2 That said, it is clearly desirable that
those placed into jobs through the ES should normally remain in
those jobs for a reasonable period. The ES is able to influence
both the sustainability of employment for the people it places
into work and the retention by employers of the people it places
with them in three ways:
— by making the match as good as possible
between the potential applicant and the employer;
— by working with individuals to help
overcome the barriers to their successful retention in employment;
and
— by providing an "aftercare"
service for more of the people we place in employment.
Getting the match right
4.3 The ES's aim is to get the match as
right as it can between employers' requirements and the skills
and qualities that people looking for work have to offer. We look
to achieve this by:
— improving access for employers to
the full range of potential applicants, and for people looking
for work to the full range of vacancies available; and
— providing people looking for work
with advice and guidance based upon labour market knowledge, access
to provision designed to help them prepare for and secure suitable
employment (for example, through out network of contracted Programme
Centres) and by brokering placements with employers (for example,
for those who are eligible, through our Work Trials initiative).
4.4 The ES also looks to provide good quality
information both to help people match themselves to vacancies,
using our self-service or telephone facilities, and to help our
Advisers match their unemployed clients with potential employers.
As well as investing in its Labour Market System (LMS—see
paragraph 2.6), the ES has worked closely with the Office of National
Statistics to introduce the new "SOC 2000" occupational
classification system which, through LMS, will enable Advisers
to be more effective in identifying suitable vacancies for the
people they are helping.
4.5 Further planned steps to bring about
better matching and thereby achieve better placing and retention
rates include:
— the "Job Bank", to be introduced
from this Autumn (see paragraph 2.15), which will help to ensure
that vacancies are exposed to the widest possible audience, increasing
and improving the range of candidate for employers. The search
and match facilities on the site will be very advanced, allowing
matching against a range of factors, including key words. This
matching will be underpinned by the new "SOC 2000" classification
system;
— the forthcoming "Employer Direct"
service (see paragraph 2.15) which will be supported by the latest
technology to help record employers' requirements from the outset.
Experience with the Regional Call Centre at Peterlee has shown
that quality can be significantly improved by centralising vacancy
taking in this way. Employer Direct staff will also systematically
check with employers the results of our handling of their vacancies
to see what more can be done to meet their needs;
— the introduction of Vacancy Services
Managers in every Jobcentre who will be responsible for securing
the best match of applicants for each vacancy.
4.6 The ES Large Organisations Unit is also
working with a number of sector based employer organisations and
champions to improve both recruitment and retention in their areas.
The key sectors involved are retail, hospitality, construction,
security, and vehicles; and in each the aim is to provide a more
coherent service for a number of employers in the same sector
by ensuring that employer and sector specific requirements are
designed into a sector specific recruitment model. In each model,
promoting increased retention through better matching of jobseekers
to vacancies is a critical part of the design. Key elements of
the model include a sector focus in designing job preparation
courses, better targeting of clients, greater employer involvement
from the outset in the design of the model and sector based skill
mapping to help with identifying suitable clients.
AUTOMOTIVE SECTOR
STRATEGIC ALLIANCE
(ASSA)
To assist Nissan in their recruitment of 800
production operatives, the Employment Service Northern Region
worked in partnership with ASSA, Nissan and its suppliers for
2.5 years to develop and run a New Deal Full Time Education and
Training option for 18-24 year old trainees. Over 750 people have
entered the programme and, of the 431 who had completed it by
August this year, the Employment Service and ASSA have placed
321 into jobs in the automotive sector. Many of those who did
not enter employment directly with automotive industry employers,
were found jobs with other local manufacturing employers.
Overcoming employment barriers
4.7 Most of the unemployed people who use
the ES have the skills they need to look for and to find work.
In a typical month around 100,000 people who have been unemployed
and claiming benefit for less than six months find work and leave
the register.
4.8 Others, however, need more help from
the outset. Some groups—such as people with a health condition
or disability, people with poor basic skills, lone parents, people
affected by large scale redundancies, ex-armed forces personnel,
people released from prison and others—already qualify for
additional help such as referral to Programme Centres from day
one of unemployment. For other people the critical stage will
be when they become eligible for support under one of the New
Deals and, at that point, have a Personal Adviser assigned to
work with them on a personal basis. For people who are at a real
disadvantage in the labour market, one of the factors which can
influence their success in finding work and their ability to remain
in work is the extent to which the barriers which prevent their
employment can be removed or overcome. These barriers can either
be directly employment related (jobsearch skills, basic skills,
job related skills) or can be problems not directly related to
work (financial, housing, family) which prevent someone taking
or staying in a job. ES Personal Advisers have become increasingly
skilled in assessing the needs of their individual clients, in
identifying means of overcoming the barriers which stand in the
way of their clients securing employment, and in organising appropriate
provision to help clients in this process. The Industrial Society's
recently published report "A Great Deal Better: Reforming
the New Deal" found that "The position of the New Deal
Personal Adviser is one of the key innovations and good personal
advisers (who can direct people to the right Gateway experience)
are vital to the success of the scheme."
DIXONS—SHEFFIELD
The ES in Sheffield in working with the Dixons
Stores Group to fill permanent and temporary vacancies at its
new Contact Centre in the city. The ES District concerned has
set up a dedicated team to work full-time on the project to recruit
up to 2,000 people over two years. The team is:
— providing enhanced recruitment support
and administering psychometric testing for New Deal candidates
for the jobs;
— interviewing candidates against Dixons
standard interview criteria;
— conducting guided tours around the
Contact Centre for candidates.
So far the ES team has handled 2,900 enquiries,
filled more than 400 vacancies and placed 290 unemployed people,
including 25 New Deal clients into unsubsidised jobs, with the
company.
In addition the ES's Large Organisation Unit
co-ordinated training of 300 New Deal Personal Advisers in Dixons
Stores' requirements and recruitment package and worked with the
company and local training providers to set up job preparation
and work-related training courses.
4.9 One of the widely reported successes
of New Deal is that many Personal Advisers have not only built
relationships with their unemployed clients, but have also built
relationships of trust with local employers, enabling them to
market their clients successfully.
Aftercare
4.10 The Employment Service places some
25,000 unemployed people into jobs every week and it would be
impractical and unnecessary to attempt to maintain contact with
them all subsequently. However, for many people at a particular
disadvantage in the labour market we do maintain contact after
they have started in work in order to help in smoothing over difficulties
which may arise and which, if unresolved, may prevent them from
remaining in employment.
4.11 Under the New Deal for Lone Parents,
for example, Personal Advisers regularly provide in-work support
to help lone parents resolve issues which could otherwise become
barriers to their continuing employment, such as:
— unresolved benefit or child maintenance
problems;
— concerns over other financial difficulties;
— health or disability problems;
— child-care problems; and
4.12 In providing this support Personal
Advisers do not attempt to provide expert advice in specialist
areas, but rather act as co-ordinators of help from other agencies
such as the Benefits Agency, Child Support Agency, Social Services,
local debt counselling services and others. In some cases a Personal
Adviser may work jointly with a lone parent and their employer
to help resolve a particular work related issue.
4.13 In the New Deal for Young People Personal
Advisers keep in active contact after their placement with people
who take subsidised jobs as part of the employment option. In
addition, whenever they can, they provide informal in-work support
to employed clients who contact them. Two projects are being supported
through the New Deal Innovation Fund (in Scotland and in Yorkshire
and the Humber) to test whether more intensive continued in-work
support—either from our Personal Advisers or from external
mentors—will improve the proportion of previous New Deal
participants who successfully make the transition into work and
remain in employment. Extended follow-through is also a key feature
of the New Deal for Disabled People pilots and has been identified
as a significant factor in the successful retention in work of
people with disabilities, by overcoming the barriers to their
continued employment.
4.14 A further key issue for people who
have been out of work for any length of time is making the transition
from reliance on benefits to increasing independence on an income
from employment. To help in easing this transition, in-work benefits,
in the form of Tax Credits and Work Incentives, are available,
but it can often be difficult for a person to work out what their
total income in work is likely to be. To help with this ES advisers
are increasingly able to offer calculations of likely in work
income. This advice is available when our Advisers meet with people
considering employment at any stage, including people working
part-time who wish to understand the impact of increasing their
working hours.
4.15 This year, for the first time, we have
agreed with Ministers that we will pilot, in Wales and our Northern
Region, a target for the percentage of long-term Jobseeker's Allowance
claimants who remain off benefit 13 weeks after starting a job.
It is too early to draw firm conclusions, but the case study,
summarised below, shows a number of the ways in which working
with employers and people looking for work to achieve more sustainable
employment can have very positive effects.
SUSTAINED EMPLOYMENT
PILOT—WALES
As part of our people development one of the
Barry Jobcentre team visited projects in Holland and the USA.
She is now leading the pilot and has developed, with local companies,
a "Service Needs Assessment" to enable Jobcentre services
to be tailored to the needs of individual companies and reduce
levels of turnover. Projects include:
— Work Trials for New Deal clients
with a local employer. Two candidates started on work trials for
one vacancy, but the employer was so impressed he recruited both.
— Long term work with a company to
reduce its turnover of employees. The Jobcentre has helped in
drawing up a company recruitment strategy and also arranged pre-interview
presentations for applicants. All the company's recruitment is
now done with the Jobcentre and retention rates have improved.
5. The applicability of demand-led strategies
to the work of the Employment Service
5.1 From an economic perspective, the fundamental
objective of a public employment service is to improve the functioning
of the labour market. The Employment Service has a unique role
in bringing together both sides of this market. In addition, as
a Government Agency, the Employment Service has a social responsibility
to help unemployed people into work, including those who are at
a particular disadvantage, and to promote their employment with
employers. Providing a high quality of service to employers and
meeting their recruitment needs is critical to obtaining a good
supply of vacancies, which can be assessed by unemployed people
looking for work.
5.2 Against this background, the Employment
Service is supportive of the definition of a demand led strategy
put forward at a recent UK/US seminar on Welfare to Work, [1]namely:
"The more an employment and training programme
meets employer workforce needs, the better its ability to help
jobseekers succeed in the labour market. And what goes for a particular
programme is true for the system as a whole: a system that satisfies
employers will be a system that is better able to meet the needs
of jobseekers for quality jobs, sustained employment and advance
in career."
5.3 As noted earlier in this memorandum
(paragraph 3.2) the starting point for a demand led strategy must
be a better understanding of employers' needs, even if these sometimes
seem not to support sustainability of employment. We have to recognise
that there will be instances, for example where businesses are
working in contracting markets or an employer has a short-term
need, perhaps to fulfill an order, for relatively unskilled workers
to start as soon as possible. In such situations the appropriate
demand led response is most likely to be to advertise the vacancies
quickly and widely to attract as many applicants as possible.
5.4 But we also need to recognise the many
occasions when there are opportunities to work with employers
to develop tailored recruitment strategies which better meet their
needs for people with the necessary skills and aptitudes and which
can be linked with programmes to bring forward, as potential recruits,
unemployed people at a disadvantage in the labour market. Earlier
chapters of this memorandum have set out the many steps, both
already taken and planned, which aim to enable the ES to deliver
an increasingly high quality service to employers. Even though
we are a national organisation dealing with high volumes of business
we are increasingly able to tailor our services, as the case studies
appended to this memorandum show, to meet the needs of local employers
and local labour markets in ways which match many of the features
of a demand led approach.
5.5 At the same time we recognise that delivering
such services is, inevitably, resource intensive and the ES is
not in a position to mount labour intensive recruitment programmes
for all of the vacancies it receives. We therefore recognise and
welcome the role of intermediary organisations who are able to
work intensively with us and with groups of employers to assess
their needs, broaden their recruitment strategies and then link
these to tailored programmes to enable groups of unemployed jobseekers
to compete better for jobs with the employers concerned. Where
such intermediary organisations are in place we seek to work in
partnership with them and, where they are not, we week to encourage
their development, for example through the New Deal Innovation
Fund.
NORTH EAST
MICRO-ELECTRONICS
INSTITUTE (NEMI)
NEMI was set up to look at ways of assisting
and promoting the micro-electronics industry throughout the North
East of England. It brings together a consortium of some 40 companies
in the region with partners including the ES, local authorities,
Further Education Colleges and others. In preparation for the
anticipated recruitment to be undertaken by the major international
company which has taken over what was previously the Siemens Plant,
NEMI is supporting the training of technicians to fill vacancies
which will be created in local firms as a result of experienced
staff moving to the new employer. The training is taking place
at North Tyneside College and funding for unemployed delegates
is being delivered through Work Based Learning for Adults, the
Single Regeneration Budget and the local Training and Enterprise
Council. The first course of 12 unemployed delegates has started
and more will follow.
As a result of the ES's involvement in NEMI
it has secured agreement with the new company to handle the recruitment
of some 1,200 people over the next four years.
5.6 Where such intermediaries are able to
form strong links with employers a further benefit to the Employment
Service comes in the identification of vacancies which might not
in other circumstances have been notified to it; and in the improved
willingness of employers to recruit unemployed people, together
with the increased likelihood that those people will remain and
progress in employment.
5.7 The ES cannot lead a fully demand led
approach on its own. We can and are moving to improve the focus
and quality of our services to employers in the ways which have
been set out earlier in this Memorandum, but we need to work in
partnership with a wide and increasing range of public and private
sector intermediary organisations which are able to complement
our services and provide highly tailored demand led recruitment
strategies for individual employers and groups of employers. This
is not necessarily an easy process, nor a cheap one, but the payback
can be very considerable.
FINANCE SECTOR—MANCHESTER
A joint initiative was set up between the ES,
the Manchester Employer Coalition, the Co-operative Insurance
Society (CIS) and the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS). It was run
through an intermediary organisation, Standguide Training.
— Standguide designed a two week Gateway
course, leading to guaranteed "work tasters" and job
interviews, based upon sample selection tests and interview questions
supplied by the two companies;
— 15 long-term unemployed young people
went through the course;
— Four people were placed in unsubsidised
jobs and five in subsidised jobs with the two companies. Two more
were placed with other companies.
— Of the 11 who were placed in work,
five came from ethnic minority backgrounds.
6. The relationship between the Employment
Service and the range of private and voluntary sector intermediaries,
including those who will receive financial support from the Innovation
Fund
6.1 Working in partnership—one of
the five ES values—is now a feature of almost every aspect
of the ES's operation, both in the delivery of services to its
customers and in the development and running of its own internal
services. While New Deal undoubtedly provided an impetus for the
step change that has taken place in the ES's approach to working
with partners, we have continued to develop this change in all
aspects of our business.
6.2 There is now a wide range of partnerships
in place at the local level who are supporting the delivery of
New Deal. Our partners in local authorities, the voluntary sector,
providers of education and training, the wider business community
and a whole range of other representative organisations, including
those representing ethnic minority communities, have worked extremely
hard to help ensure that New Deal is a success in their area.
The lessons learned from the partnership approach have been reflected
in the way in which we are developing and delivering our services
outside New Deal.
6.3 Of the multitude of partnership, and
intermediary, relationships which now characterise the work of
the ES, we have chosen to illustrate four for the purposes of
this Memorandum:
— the New Deal Innovation Fund;
— the New Deal Task Force;
— closer links with private sector
employment agencies; and
— "Working Links"—a
new approach to public/private partnership.
New Deal Innovation Fund—moving ahead with
intermediaries
6.4 The New Deal Innovation Fund was established,
with £1.5 million, in 1999 to finance innovative approaches
to delivering New Deal locally and encourage innovative use of
the employer wage subsidy. It was subsequently extended, with
total funding of £9.5 million over three years, and Ministers
decided that for 2000 the bulk of the money available should be
targeted at developing intermediary provision. The aim is to encourage
the emergence of successful intermediary organisations who can
work closely with employers in identifying their needs and then
working with them to design provision to meet those needs. A successful
intermediary will recognise that employers are seeking employees
who will contribute to productivity and profitability. It will
also offer post-employment support to both clients and employers.
6.5 The Innovation Fund is currently divided
into three parts. Part 1 (which comprises £5 million over
three years) is intended for the development of intermediaries
in those 11 areas of the country where there are already New Deal
Employer Coalitions. Parts 2 and 3 (for which £4.5 million
is available over three years) are aimed at developing intermediaries
in the rest of the country and at testing other forms of innovation
focused on placement and retention in jobs.
6.6 One of the key criteria for successful
bids is the involvement of employers from the outset—not
just in terms of having vacancies which they wish to fill, but
also in terms of their being part of the partnership and contributing
to the design of the project. Successful projects should also
be based on a thorough analysis of local labour markets, including
the scope for working with employers to meet demand in those sectors
with the most potential for employment.
6.7 A further criterion for the selection
of intermediary projects via the Fund is that they should be aiming
to place unemployed people into good quality jobs. In many cases
these will not be entry-level jobs but those at the second or
third level.
6.8 Ministers recognise that most providers
in this country will need to develop as organisations in order
to play this role. Therefore, money has been provided within the
Innovation Fund for capacity building.
6.9 Following the first round of expressions
of interest, 25 organisations have been invited to develop full
proposals for consideration by the National Assessment panel.
They have until 31 January 2001 to submit their proposals, but
can put them forward at any time before then. The second round
of expressions of interest had a closing date of 29 September.
The panel are confident that they will have a number of exciting
and innovative projects that will be successful in the final assessment
stage.
The New Deal Task Force
6.10 The ES works closely with the New Deal
Task Force, which was established in 1997 and whose role has been
extended to encompass all of the New Deals, Employment Zones and
ONE. The Task Force draws on a wide range of business representatives,
practitioners, academics and community groups in making recommendations
for developing and improving the New Deals. It is an advocate
for innovation and for ensuring that the programme meets the needs
of employers as well as individual clients. The ES has also been
working with the Task Force's Ethnic Minority Advisory Group to
address the needs of ethnic minority jobseekers and businesses.
The New Deal Task Force brings an independent and objective viewpoint
to assessing New Deal performance and is a strong supporter of
the ES's programme of continuous improvement within the programme.
6.11 More recently the ES has worked closely
with the Task Force on its "Business On Board" study.
This study—which examines the relationship between the ES,
its providers and local companies—is helping the ES to re-examine
its own strategy for engaging with employers and to consider how
best to work with employer-focused intermediary organisations
to achieve the benefits which can flow from demand led strategies.
Closer links with private sector agencies
6.12 The ES's working relationships with
employment agencies in the private sector have developed over
many years. Throughout, the ES has worked closely with the Recruitment
and Employment Confederation, which represents a large proportion
of the private sector agencies which operate in Great Britain.
More recently, this has developed into a more formal Accord which
we have entered into with the Confederation and which builds upon
our long-standing agreement that the ES will accept and display
private employment agency vacancies on its display boards in jobcentres.
Many local jobcentres have developed very productive relationships
with private agencies as a consequence.
6.13 The recent Accord will enable the ES
to build upon this foundation of good relationships and to play
to the respective strengths of the private agencies and ourselves.
We see the private sector agencies as complementing our client
led approach and we welcome the opportunities of working more
closely with partners who are able to take work ready and nearly
work ready clients and support them in presenting themselves successfully
to employers.
6.14 To build upon the Accord the ES and
the Confederation intend in the near future to publish a "Good
Practice Guide" on partnership working between the ES and
private employment agencies. This will pave the way for the inclusion
of private sector agency vacancies on the forthcoming "Job
Bank" (see paragraph 2.15), thus substantially improving
the access of unemployed people to the wide range of employment
opportunities in the labour market. It will also give private
agencies much greater access to people who are looking for work.
Working Links—an innovation in public/private
partnership
6.15 In response to the Government's developing
Employment Zones[2]
policy, the ES gained the agreement of Ministers to joining an
ES/private sector partnership—now trading under the name
"Working Links"—which was set up to compete with
other organisations to run the first group of fully fledged Employment
Zones. Working Links, alone or in partnership, was successful
in being awarded nine of the 15 Employment Zone contracts.
6.16 Working Links combines the strengths
of three partners—the Employment Service; Cap Gemini Ernst
and Young; and Manpower. We believe that Working Links is the
first commercial venture of its kind to be formed by a public/private
sector partnership. While it is too early to assess its success—the
first Employment Zones began operation only in April this year—all
the signs are that the company has got off to a very encouraging
start.
Future development
6.17 By its very nature, partnership is
dynamic and not static, and the ES has a strategic responsibility
both to initiate and support the development of new partnership
relationships to meet the future challenges of a continuously
evolving labour market. The ES is already re-positioning and broadening
its partnerships to support the introduction of new post-16 provision,
particularly Work Based Learning for Adults, for which the ES
will be responsible from April 2001. We are also seeking to build
upon our relationships, which were established with the Careers
Service companies, so that we can support the introduction of
the new "Connnexions" service which will replace them.
6.18 At a strategic level the ES has begun
to work closely with the new Learning and Skills Council (LSC)
with the aim of establishing common national, regional and local
arrangements to:
— share labour market information;
— map the supply and demand for labour
and skills; and
— conduct joint research with partners.
The aim will be to enhance and regularly update
information on employers' skills needs and shortfalls in supply,
together with comprehensive information on the characteristics
of unemployed people looking for work. This will provide the basis
for joint planning between the ES and the LSC on the development
of learning provision to help equip people looking for work with
the skills that employers are looking for. This will be a key
role to be taken forward by the new Agency.
7. The implications of the creation of the
"New Modern Agency" for further moves towards employer
focused intermediation by the public employment service
7.1 As the Committee is aware, in March
this year the Prime Minister announced that during 2001 a brand
new, modern Agency will be established drawing together the Employment
Service and those parts of the Benefits Agency which support people
of working age.
7.2 The new Agency will have a clear focus
on work, a new culture and new values based on work for those
who can and support for those who cannot. It will provide a proactive
and responsive service to employers, helping people to find jobs
and helping employers to fill their vacancies with the right people.
The new Agency will be uniquely placed to help employers access
new sources of labour including lone parents—a major advantage
in the current tight labour markets.
7.3 Feedback from ES staff indicates that
the great majority have welcomed the decision to set up the new
Agency. Experience within the Employment Service suggests that
drawing together employment and benefit services for working age
people "under one roof" is a welcome and logical next
step in the process of welfare reform. Our experience in implementing
the New Deals, Employment Zones and, more recently, the ONE service
also indicates that a work-focused approach, from the outset,
has a positive effect in helping people who are unemployed to
move back into work. Importantly, the creation of the new Agency
will help to improve the service provided to all those of working
age—not only employers and jobseekers but also those who
are currently some distance from the labour market.
7.4 Relations with employers will be critical
to the success of the new Agency. One of the key criteria on which
it will be judged will be its performance in helping people into
work, just as the Employment Service is currently judged in this
way. To be successful, therefore, maintaining and improving the
current service to employers will need to be at the heart of the
new Agency's culture and ways of working. As key customers of
the Agency employers will expect and will need to be offered an
ever more professional service to help them to fill their vacancies
swiftly and effectively.
7.5 This Memorandum has outlined the measures
which the Employment Service has already introduced, or is currently
developing, to provide a more modern and effective service for
employers to fill their vacancies; for example setting up the
Large Organisation Unit, launching the Employer Service Commitment
and establishing the dedicated employer call centre at Peterlee
as a forerunner to creating a national call centre network for
employers. In the coming months, we will continue to take forward
and build upon these initiatives which will provide many of the
foundations for the new Agency's work with employers. As part
of the more immediate implementation planning work for the launch
of the Agency in the Summer of 2001, we are working with a group
of major employers on how we can best inform employers about the
new agency, explain what it will mean to them and ensure that
their recruitment needs are met.
Employment Service
October 2000
1 "Overview of Welfare to Work Developments"
Paper prepared for the Welfare to Work: New Solutions for the
New Economy US/UK Symposium, 20-21 September 2000. Authors Richard
Kazis and Marlene Seltzer, Jobs for the Future. Back
2
Employment Zones offer a new approach to helping long-term unemployed
people move from welfare into sustainable work. They are areas
of concentrated long-term unemployment in which the contracted
delivery organisations have increased freedom to develop and apply
local solutions to meet local needs. Back
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