Memorandum submitted by Groundwork (ES
04)
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Groundwork is a federation of 46 locally-owned
Groundwork Trusts in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, between
them working with over 100 local authorities to deliver "joined-up"
solutions to the challenges faced by our most deprived communities.
Groundwork is one of the leading deliverers
of environmental training through the Environment Task Force (ETF)
option of New Deal and intermediate labour market (ILM) schemes.
Groundwork's ILMs offer extensive, long-term support to provide
the basic work skills lacking in many communities while providing
valuable work training to move the long-term unemployed closer
to the job market.
Groundwork's ILMs offer a number of key advantages:
They provide an excellent mechanism for engaging
the `hardest to help' in mainstream employment training provision.
They are well suited to building close links
between training providers and employers.
They enable a range of schemes to be operated
together creating mixed-age teams which encourage mentoring and
reflect real workplace dynamics.
They deliver multiple outcomes addressing social
exclusion and delivering basic skills, neighbourhood renewal and
sustainable development.
Groundwork's ILMs are specifically targeted
at the hardest to help groups in society and aim to provide support
and new opportunities to those with drug, debt and alcohol problems
and an increasing number of ex-offenders.
The economic slowdown will mean that the core
of people furthest removed from the labour market will find it
increasingly difficult to access employment.
Transco Green Futures was a Groundwork
ILM initiative supported by the Lattice Foundation and launched
by the Prime Minister three years ago. The programme's primary
purpose was to enhance the performance of the Environment Task
Force (ETF) option of the New Deal for unemployed 18-24 year olds.
Through the scheme up to 50 per cent of participants
moved into full-time work in target areas such as Manchester,
North Nottinghamshire and South Yorkshire. This is substantially
higher than the basic ETF national average of 11 per cent (January
2001).
ILM initiatives are expensive compared to traditional
training models. However, Groundwork has demonstrated repeatedly
that they perform four to five times more effectively in terms
of sustainable job outcomes and can provide valuable physical,
social and economic benefits to those communities most affected
by economic slowdown.
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Groundwork is a federation of 46 locally-owned
Groundwork Trusts in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, between
them working with over 100 local authorities to deliver "joined-up"
solutions to the challenges faced by our most deprived communities.
1.2 Groundwork has 21 years experience of
engaging and involving communities in practical projects to improve
quality of life and promote sustainable development. Last year
Groundwork supported 4,500 projects encouraging volunteers of
all ages to give up 300,000 days of their time, provided 43,000
weeks worth of training and created 1,300 jobs.
1.3 Groundwork is one of the leading deliverers
of environmental training through the Environment Task Force (ETF)
option of New Deal and intermediate labour market (ILM) schemes.
Groundwork's ILMs offer extensive, long-term support to provide
the basic work skills lacking in many communities while providing
valuable work training to move the long-term unemployed closer
to the job market.
Groundwork and the New Deal
2.1 The New Deal has been widely recognised
as a success because it has helped move a large number of people
into work quickly. However, this has left a smaller core of much
harder to help people, with a wide range of needs and disadvantages,
such as those with a drug or alcohol dependency, literacy and
numeracy problems, people with a difficult childhood spent in
care and ex-offenders.
2.2 It has been well documented that many
of those forwarded for the Environment Task Force option of the
New Deal represent "the disadvantaged and the disenchanted"—those
with the greatest number of problems and furthest removed from
the labour market.
2.3 The impact of the economic slowdown
means that this group will find it even harder to find work, given
that the pool of available workers will inevitably increase.
2.4 Traditional ETF models are unable to
provide the long-term support needed by this group to re-engage
with the job market. However, building on ETF to create waged
intermediate labour markets (ILMs) produces markedly improved
results.
Groundwork believes that the use of Intermediate
Labour Markets to specifically target these groups can provide
the time and support required to move even the hardest to help
closer to employability.
2.5 Groundwork's ILMs offer a number of
advantages:
They provide an excellent mechanism for engaging
the "hardest to help" in mainstream employment training
provision.
They are well suited to building close links
between training providers and employers.
They enable a range of schemes to be operated
together creating mixed-age teams which encourage mentoring and
reflect real workplace dynamics.
They deliver multiple outcomes addressing social
exclusion and delivering basic skills, neighbourhood renewal and
sustainable development.
2.6 Transco Green Futures was a Groundwork
ILM initiative supported by the Lattice Foundation and launched
by the Prime Minister three years ago. The programme's primary
purpose was to enhance the performance of the Environment Task
Force (ETF) option of the New Deal for unemployed 18-24 year olds.
It highlighted the capacity of socially responsible employers
to support public policy objectives and, at the same time, delivered
business goals, wider community benefits and provided valuable
lessons for the Government's public policy and social exclusion
agenda. In 2001, Transco Green Futures received the BiTC
award in the Power in Partnership category.
2.7 At the start of the scheme, 50 per cent
of participants were moving into full-time work in target areas
such as Manchester, North Nottinghamshire and South Yorkshire.
However, that into-jobs success rate decreased to 40 per cent
by the end of the scheme, which is testament to both its initial
success and to the greater level of difficulties associated with
the remaining core of long-term unemployed. This is still substantially
higher than the basic ETF national average of 11 per cent (January
2001).
2.8 Research undertaken by NACRO (National
Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders) has identified
support mechanisms and good practice case studies demonstrating
how Transco Green Futures has assisted ex-offenders in
securing employment. It established that participants known to
be ex-offenders were just as likely to get jobs and qualifications
as those not known to be ex-offenders.
2.9 The NACRO research also recommends that
New Deal advisers assess each client's aptitudes in advance of
referral and that there should be a greater openness around criminal
convictions. Full disclosure of convictions is becoming increasingly
important as the percentage of clients with a greater burden of
personal difficulties rises. It is clear that, unless there is
openness surrounding individual circumstances, clients will not
benefit from the most effective targeted provision. However, this
needs to be handled sensitively in view of the attitudes and prejudices
about ex-offenders (whether actual or perceived) on the part of
training providers and employers.
Employment schemes as regeneration tools
3.1 An approach to employment training built
on the foundation of local regeneration activity is the key to
ensuring that solutions are able to provide sustainable benefits
for individuals and for communities. Linking the regeneration
of local areas to local job creation can create multiple outputs
for a single investment.
3.2 There is increasing evidence to demonstrate
that the social enterprise and "green collar" sectors
will be key economic growth areas over the first few decades of
the new century. Groundwork's ILMs are geared towards preparing
young people to play a role in these growing sectors by providing
training in energy efficiency, recycling, amenity management and
green tourism.
3.3 A number of Groundwork Trusts have taken
their employment training activity one step further by developing
ILMs into stand-alone social enterprises, providing long-term
jobs for participants and contributing to the local economy.
3.4 In Manchester, for example, Groundwork
and the city council are supporting a community business venture
employing local people to collect and recycle household waste
from 20,000 homes.
3.5 To support this work Groundwork has
recently developed a national partnership with The Royal Bank
of Scotland to turn a number of ILMs into new community businesses.
3.6 The Youth Enterprise Initiative provides
development and start-up capital for potential new "green
businesses" linked to Groundwork's existing ILMs which then
receive advice and support from the bank's small business advisers.
During the programme Groundwork has developed a guidance framework
for Sustainable Enterprises.
CONCLUSION
4.1 It has been argued that ILM initiatives
are too expensive. However, Groundwork has demonstrated repeatedly
that whilst the ILM schemes are, on average, four times more expensive
than the ETF option, due to the additional support and wage available,
they perform four to five times more effectively in terms of sustainable
job outcomes.
4.2 Groundwork's ILM initiatives are now
delivering measurable benefits for the hardest to reach client
groups, tackling some of the most severe problems such as alcohol
and drug abuse, literacy and numeracy skills.
4.3 The economic slowdown serves as a reminder
that the remaining core of harder to reach groups will continue
to need further long-term investment to tackle the severe disadvantages
they face in order to move them closer to employability. Without
this ongoing support the Government's target of full employment
will not be reached.
Sophie Livingstone
Public Affairs Officer
12 April 2002
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