Select Committee on Work and Pensions Minutes of Evidence


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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