Examination of Witnesses (Questions 40
- 59)
MONDAY 15 NOVEMBER 2004
Department for Work and Pensions and Department for
Education and Skills
Q40 Jim Sheridan: How do you advertise
for these advisers?
Mr Anderson: We advertise in the
press and we ask for a certain set of skills.
Q41 Jim Sheridan: Do you ask for
a particular age?
Sir Richard Mottram: We would
not be allowed to do that.
Q42 Jim Sheridan: In the Executive
Summary at page 3, it says here that between 700,000 and 1,000,000
people who are over 50 would like to work, of which 200,000 are
looking actively. So, 200,000 out of 1,000,000 are looking actively
for work. What has happened to the other 800,000?
Sir Richard Mottram: The other
800,000 would be a combination of people who are on Incapacity
Benefit and perhaps some others who were retired and were thinking
about coming out of retirement, for example.
Q43 Jim Sheridan: Of the 200,000
who are looking actively, do we know the age profile or the skills
profile for them?
Sir Richard Mottram: We possibly
do. My initial hunch about them is that they are going to be down
the younger end of this band, so they are more likely to be people
in their 50s rather than in their early 60s. We do know the skills
profile of people who have left the labour market in this age
group and they are less skilled on average than the working population
as a whole which is precisely why one of the things we have focused
on is how we can help people with their skills.
Q44 Jim Sheridan: The reason that
I ask about those 200,000 is that, given that we have a skills
shortage in the country of joiners, plumbers etc, I assume that
none of these 200,000 fall into that category.
Sir Richard Mottram: I do not
think that would be a safe assumption. The thrust of the Report
is that there are all sorts of very good reasons to try and ensure
that these 200,000 and many others of the 1,000,000 get into work
because some of them have skills and, even if they are unskilled,
the country has an interest in giving them the skills necessary
for them to get into work.
Q45 Jim Sheridan: Can I just touch
on a question that the Chairman asked earlier about Incapacity
Benefit. There are an awful lot of people over 50 who are on Incapacity
Benefit.
Sir Richard Mottram: Yes.
Q46 Jim Sheridan: If you look at
industries like the construction industry, it is very, very unusual
nowadays to find someone in the construction industry in their
late 50s.
Sir Richard Mottram: Yes.
Q47 Jim Sheridan: Yet, when people
try and get a joiner or plumber to work privately, they seem to
get them easily. I notice a wry smile on your face.
Sir Richard Mottram: Yes, that
is one of my faults! Yes, of course. What the Department is trying
to do with things like the Age Positive Campaign and all sorts
of other campaigns is to change the attitude in our society towards
employing older people and, as is brought out in the Report and
as is very familiar to all of us, there are a number of very farsighted
employers—I probably should not start to name them but to
mention one, B&Q for example—who have gone out of their
way to recruit older people because they have found that they
do a very good job and, as the Report brings out, most of the
things which people use to argue against employing older people
are myths. So, I suspect that ones which are stopping some people
being employed in the construction industry are myths.
Q48 Jim Sheridan: I think you are
right, B&Q are a perfect example of how employing more mature
people does have its benefits. Mr Anderson, in terms of training
and education, you say there has been an improvement in recent
years with people over 50 becoming involved in training and education,
but what are the figures for that?
Sir Richard Mottram: I think that
is probably a question for Mr Marston.
Mr Marston: The best survey evidence
that we have comes from a survey called the National Adult Learning
Survey and the data from there suggests that those aged 50 to
59 participating in any form of learning over the past three years
has gone up. It now stands at 74% in 2002-03. So, steadily and
progressively, we think we are seeing an increase in participation
in all forms of learning in that older age group.
Q49 Jim Sheridan: What are the main
reasons given by people aged 50 or over for not getting involved
in mainstream education and skills update? What are the main reasons
they give for that?
Mr Marston: As the Report rightly
identifies, there is a wide range of reasons. Some of them are
concerns about simple lack of information and advice, not knowing
quite where to go or what would be available. Some may well be
confidence and motivation factors. I think there will be a range
of different matters that are obstacles for different people.
Q50 Jim Sheridan: There is mention
in the Report of the outreach schemes we have that have been of
benefit. What is the success rate of that and what type of groups
are you taking these projects to?
Mr Anderson: These are in various
parts of the country where we are working with voluntary sector
organisations and we are working with other government departments
to co-ordinate efforts to get at particular communities. They
have not been brought together, if you like, in one national programme,
they have been left to the discretion of local districts to work
on themselves. The pilots are to be evaluated next year.
Q51 Jim Sheridan: My experience of
people who have perhaps worked in industry and, for various reasons,
have lost their job is that there are opportunities there but
that they have to update their skills in terms of new technology,
how to operate computers, et cetera, et cetera which
an awful lot of people are somewhat concerned about. How do you
overcome these concerns and these barriers?
Mr Anderson: I am sorry, I did
not catch that as it is quite noisy.
Q52 Jim Sheridan: How do you overcome
people who have a fear of computers? They may have worked in a
factory all their life.
Mr Anderson: When individuals
present themselves to our personal advisers, the personal adviser
will first of all have a discussion with them about the particular
issues that they see as being barriers to get into work and they
have then a range of training provision that is available for
reference over a whole list of things which may be basic skills,
confidence raising or may be basic office activity, and that provision
is available for advisers to recommend that people should go and
have training.
Q53 Jim Sheridan: Are there any incentives
for people to take these new skills up? Do you offer them incentives
for them to do that?
Mr Anderson: The incentives particularly
the New Deal 50 Plus are not actually for paying people to go
into training, no. On the other hand, one would hope that with
the aid of advisers to motivate them, they would be incentivised
to take up the training in order to reach their objective of getting
a job.
Q54 Mr Steinberg: Sir Richard, it
is peculiar because, 10 years ago, we would not have been doing
a Report like this, would we? We would be doing a report on how
we could get 50 year olds out of work so that we could get young
people into work.
Sir Richard Mottram: Yes. That
could be part of the problem though, could it not?
Mr Steinberg: Yes. I am very shortly
to become a member of this club.
Chairman: You are not going to get Incapacity
Benefit!
Q55 Mr Steinberg: To get on to Incapacity
Benefit would be quite nice! A lot of people surveyed have been
incapacitated for a long time. Seriously, I am going to become
a member of this club very shortly and it seems to me that in
fact we have not heard a great deal about New Deal 50 Plus. This
is substantiated on page 44 at point 3.7 where it says, "The
results of our customer research in the three locations suggest
that they have a low awareness of the local services available
to help improve their employment prospects, and how to access
them. This includes Jobcentre Plus Programmes, information, advice
and guidance services and other local services." In other
words, presumably a lot of people did not know there was such
a thing going. Why is that? It does not sound much of a successful
scheme, Mr Anderson.
Mr Anderson: There are a number
of reasons why awareness would be low. First of all, this is a
voluntary programme and therefore these people are not forced
to come into our offices and hear about it in contrast with other
New Deal programmes. The district managers are given a budget
to promote this programme and, in recognising the lack of awareness,
there is actually an emphasis on guidance for this group being
introduced as a result of last year's budget that will actually
provide more guidance and more co-ordination.
The Committee suspended from 5.06 pm to
5.13 pm for a division in the House
Q56 Mr Steinberg: What you were saying
is that you are basically just starting to do something about
it now.
Mr Anderson: There was not a budget
available last year but there is this year for marketing for this
year. The use of it is at the discretion of district managers
according to the priority that they give to their own client load
in their own area but there clearly is more to do in making people
aware of this.
Q57 Mr Steinberg: So, you have just
started to do something about it but the Learning and Skills Council
do not seem to be bothered about it at all because, if you have
a look at the year end report, it is said that, out of 47 learning
and skills councils, only seven of them actually take this very
seriously at all and the other 40 do not. What are you going to
do about that? That does not actually surprise me because my experience
of skills councils is that they can always tell you why they cannot
do something instead of how they should be able to do something.
Mr Marston: The Report rightly
identifies the importance of a particular instrument that the
LSC use, that is to say Equality and Diversity Impact Measures,
and seven of the 47 use that instrument to identify older people
as one of the aspects of equal opportunities that they want to
pursue. The important point to register is that that does not
mean that the other 40 therefore are not paying any attention
to this. But you can come at it in different ways and the Learning
and Skills Council are putting a lot of effort into trying to
ensure that, across a whole range of these priorities, they have
provision in place and they have programmes in place to support
a wide range of skills and opportunities. The further progress
that we are hoping to make comes through an exercise that has
recently been commissioned to look at the way in which each of
the 47 is currently addressing older workers and older learners
within the range of programmes that they are offering. That will
report back in the New Year as the basis for trying to take the
best practice which may well be in those seven and make that more
general across the piece.
Q58 Mr Steinberg: So, basically,
what you are saying is that although seven of them only appear
to put it in their strategy, only 40 are actually doing something
but not so transparently.
Mr Marston: They are not using
the particular instrument of the Equality and Diversity Impact
Measures.
Q59 Mr Steinberg: Do you not think
they should?
Mr Marston: The priority for older
workers and older learners could be expressed in a number of different
ways. It is an aspect of equality of opportunity but it works
in a number of different respects. So, all of the learning and
skills councils in one way or another will be offering a range
of programmes. I would not want to over-cite this particular mechanism.
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