APPENDIX 17
Memorandum from the Croydon Partnership
(JG 23)
1. The following summary is the collated response
from private sector and education members of the Croydon Partnership
who we invited to comment on the above consultation. Those responding
represent key stakeholders in the Croydon economy from across
the education, skills, property, law, accountancy, engineering,
manufacturing and business sectors.
The following points were raised in response
to the paper:
2. Small and medium sized businesses—State
they are finding it increasingly difficult to recruit staff of
the right calibre. It seems that despite the reduction in unemployment,
there are still potentially high numbers of people whom employers
perceive do not have the appropriate skills, aptitude and motivation
to be employed.
3. Engineering and manufacturing—New
Deal has not begun to close the employment gap in these fields.
4. Call Centres—Within Croydon and
Bromley area there is a need for Call centre operators due to
the expansion of this trading and the volume of large employers
based in the area. The New Deal 2 week Call Centre training programme
positive and successful.
5. Catering—There is a clear supply/demand
gap here associated with low pay, unsociable hours, low skills
and no career progression. The funding models of New Deal and
the Tec do not support the input that is required in both time
and monetary value or support the increasingly necessary support
of clients' language needs.
6.1 Skills and Learning—The full-time
education option at Croydon College (pilot) experienced a mismatch
of expectations between the pilot and clients. Clients continued
to be unemployed or took up second training option and in general
demonstrated no apparent intention to seek employment.
6.2 Croydon College supports the New Deal
six months employment option including workshops and in-house
training, although it is not clear that employers have been encouraged
to give structured training or prioritise a job opportunity at
the end of the six months.
6.3 Traineeships and Apprenticeships—Croydon
College's experience over three years is that this mentoring has
been an effective use of government funding to support vulnerable
young people in transition. It also provides benefits to employers
including finance, support, and the availability of recruitment
and testing support.
7.1 Accountancy, Law and Professional Services—Employers
are demanding an increasingly high level of skills due to the
specialisms in their particular fields and their skills becoming
more and more focussed. As a consequence, there is increasingly
less mobility between the sectors and a polarisation of remuneration
between those in/outside employment, as salaries rise to recognise
skills and specialisms.
7.2 This sector is experiencing a shortage
of high level IT skills and again there are still potentially
high numbers of people whom employers perceive do not have the
appropriate skills, aptitude and motivation to be employed.
8. Generally respondents found the range
of government and European employment initiatives too vast, unconnected
and confusing and the language used to describe them too technical
and too full of jargon to easily engage members of the business
and private sector.
Helen Mason
Economic Programme Manager
Economic & Strategic Development Unit
Croydon Council
October 1999
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