Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
264-279)
KOSTAS ANDROULAKIS,
ADRIENNE CARMICHAEL,
JUDITH HAY
AND MARK
SANDERS
24 FEBRUARY 2010
Chairman: I welcome Mark Sanders and
Adrienne Carmichael. Let me get the pronunciation of your name
right, Kostas, in case I annoy you the whole time.
Kostas Androulakis: It is Androulakis.
Q264 Chairman: I also welcome Judith
Hay. I will save myself from struggling with any surnames by reverting
to first-name terms. Is that all right with everyone? Excellent.
Thank you very much for participating. We work only on the basis
of the good information that we can get in front of the Committee.
You have all heard some of the evidence given in the first session.
We are pressed for time, so we are going to get straight on to
the questioning. I am going to riff across and say to each of
you that we have a problem with the category that nobody wants
to call what we have been calling it. What's the solution? Mark?
Mark Sanders: I haven't got a
solution to the name.
Chairman: I don't care about the name.
What's the solution to the problem?
Mark Sanders: The solution, I
think, is not imposing one solution on all. For this group of
youngsters in particular, it is about bespoking what we are able
to do and applying that to the particular needs of an individual
at different ages and at different times, perhaps by simply repeating
things, and then being able to slot people into a complex system
that suits their individual needs.
Q265 Chairman: I should tell you,
Mark, that David Chaytor, who is an excellent member of this Committee,
is very sorry that he can't be here today when you, who are from
Bury, are giving evidence. He very much regretted that he had
to be elsewhere this morning. Adrienne, do you have a solution
to the problem?
Adrienne Carmichael: Not a single
solution, but, from our point of view, what we need to concentrate
on is participation and progression rather than the "not
in". We have to avoid the deficit model viewpoint, and look
at how we can ensure that all young people can participate. We
think that is via providing opportunities and support that is
personalised to individual needs and aspirations.
Chairman: Kostas?
Kostas Androulakis: I agree with
my colleagues. For me, the point is not to try to solve the problem
at the time when it presents itself; it is about looking at early
intervention and getting to the cause sooner, rather than waiting
for young people to turn 16 before we deal with it. A review has
spotted this. A number of research and evaluation studies ranging
from 1993 to 2001—they are not our reviews—suggest
that interventions on children under 10 are 75% more likely to
succeed than interventions that look at improving outcomes for
adolescents. There are a number of outcomes for the NEET category
that could be looked at earlier in life and addressed earlier
through prevention and early intervention. That could contribute
to the solution. I am not suggesting that that is the solution,
but it could contribute to it.
Q266 Chairman: Where did you pick
up on that research?
Kostas Androulakis: This is part
of a lot of the research analysis we have done in Birmingham on
trying to improve outcomes.
Chairman: Excellent. We will draw on
that later. Judith?
Judith Hay: In terms of the name,
young people in Sunderland suggested SEET—seeking employment,
education and training—rather than NEET, although young
people do not identify with the name NEET; it is a professional
term. In terms of solutions, I think we are almost there in Sunderland.
The north-east NEETs have been reduced to 9%. In Tyne and Wear,
the figure has been reduced from 16.5% in 2002 to 8.6%, a 47%
reduction over eight years. And in Sunderland, I am really pleased
to say that it was 17.3% in 2002, but in January this year it
was 8.1%, which is a 53% reduction. We have done that through
a very committed Connexions service, which is very experienced
in terms of the specialist advice that it needs to give, and is
impartial and independent. The bit that was missing when Connexions
was transferred to the local authority was performance management,
so they did not know the story of why people were NEETs. So we
now segment all our data and we know every single young person
who is NEET, apart from a small number of not-knowns. We know
where they want to go, where they drop out from and where they
go, so we have a whole plethora of performance-trapping of NEET
young people.
Q267 Chairman: That is what we have
really been trying to get at. Will you share that information
with us?
Judith Hay: We can, yes.[11]
We also have a NEET panel every week that I chair, so we see the
20 most stuck young people every week. We get providers, the college,
work-based learners, the university and the Connexions staff together,
and we work to try to get individual solutions for those young
people.
Chairman: That is most encouraging. It
is very nice to have such a diverse group of local authorities
represented here. We could not have done better. Paul, over to
you for your questions.
Q268 Paul Holmes: May I start where
Judith just left off. The Government set a target to reduce NEETs
from 9.6% in 2004. The target for this year, 2010, was for NEETs
to be down to 7.6% across the country. Clearly, that is not going
to happen. That is not just because there was a recession this
past year, because, far from going down, in 2006 the figure had
actually gone up to 10.5%. Across the country the Government have
failed to achieve what they set out to do over the past six years.
You are saying that in your area you halved the figure from 16%
to 8%. How do we replicate that everywhere else in the country?
Judith Hay: The four elements
of success are data segmentation—knowing exactly where your
NEETs are and why they are NEET in terms of assessment. So we
are currently moving to the common assessment framework assessment,
the multi-agency assessment. The previous witnesses said, "Wrap
the right person round the young person, but bring the different
agencies in". I would say that in terms of the programmes,
we knew what the young people wanted to do. The three top areas
are catering, clerical and care. We then had a gap analysis in
terms of what young people wanted to do and where the gap analysis
was. What we found was that a majority of young people who wanted
to go to college were in college and it was successful. This year
we have a 98% retention rate in college in Sunderland. The issue
was the young people who wanted to work and couldn't. They needed
supported apprenticeships, or what we call ILM—intermediate
level market provision—to get them ready for apprenticeships.
So we put in a bid to the Working Neighbourhoods Fund, which has
been very successful in turning around the NEETs, with supported
apprenticeships and getting people ready for apprenticeships.
So it was the gap analysis, the NEET assessment and then it was
the partnership work. We have a very strong 14-19 partnership
in the city. Also, the local strategic partnership has been very
influential in pulling partners together and saying, "What
are you going to do about this?" So we have a multi-agency
approach. Also, Connexions is very much embedded in schools and
in the college. We all work together really well in terms of the
information, advice and guidance that we give.
Q269 Paul Holmes: But clearly, if
you have halved it from 16% to 8% while the rest of the country
is actually drifting up from 9.6% in 2004 to some higher figure
this year, all the other local authorities, schools, colleges
and Government programmes must be failing.
Judith Hay: It has been a hard
journey and we are not there yet, but we know what the story is
and we can certainly replicate that anywhere. It is the data segmentation
that is needed to know exactly what the stories of the young people
are and then making sure that you have got the provision to match
that. The other issue nationally is that we are returning NEET
figures on 18-year-olds which are incorrect, because we cannot
get the data from Jobcentre Plus. Although there has been an agreement
with the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department for
Children, Schools and Families in terms of providing provisional
benefits, what they cannot provide yet is information on new deal,
which made people EET, not NEET. So every year, Sunderland and
every local authority return on 18-year-olds says that they are
NEET when a significant number will not be. So actually, the figures
that we have given you would be even better if we could unlock
the data sharing information.
Q270 Paul Holmes: So why have Bury,
Cumbria, Birmingham and the rest of the country not had this glorious
success?
Mark Sanders: I think that we
have actually, if you look into it, but that misses the point.
We need to give advice on those statistics. I think we have had
some indicators of it already. If we go back 10 years, we didn't
know the numbers of NEETs and so there is this enormous category
of not-knowns. That was a very patchy proportion depending on
where you were. The main activity has been moving people from
not-known into NEET. That does not sound like a very productive
exercise, I accept, but it provides the baseline from which those
statistics are derived. So those of us who had a bigger proportion
of not-knowns had an uphill struggle to get into a scenario where
we can pay attention. A couple of other things need to come behind
that—the progressive changes at different ages. I am aware
of the north-west figures, where we have had significant improvements
at 16 and 17, but not matched as well as 18. Again, we need to
get behind some of those issues. Also, we need to look at where
some pilots have been taking place and what effects they have
had. There has been a Department for Children, Schools and Families
pilot in terms of the activity allowance and a Learning and Skills
Council pilot in terms of something called the learning allowance.
In Greater Manchester, we have had the luxury of both of those
things taking place at the same time. What I hope to show in some
of the evidence that we have already had is how successful they
have been at drilling down into the very difficult groups—people
affected by juvenile justice issues, asylum seeker families and
so on. Those are really difficult tasks to get hold of. We need
to get behind that overall headline to evidence-base what some
of the solutions are, to be able to apply them across the board.
I would commend—I don't often do this—the DCSF's work
as far as activity allowance is concerned.
Chairman: Sorry?
Mark Sanders: It's called the
activity allowance. I would invite you to look at what the outcomes
have been, because the DCSF has not told people well enough in
my view about what is a very successful scheme, piloted with allowances
and, as far as the learning allowance is concerned, money to employers
to assist this particular group to get placements and live a successful
and productive life.
Q271 Paul Holmes: In a way, Mark,
you're saying that you've been running down an up escalator because
you've been attacking NEETs, but because you've started counting
and looking for them, you're finding more than there were in the
first place.
Mark Sanders: That is a factor
in there, yes.
Adrienne Carmichael: I don't think
it is necessarily the case in Cumbria—sorry, in the north-west.
Our NEET figures in 2005 were 6.8%, with very low not-known numbers;
about 2% at that time were not known. In the last count—the
January figures—we were down to 4.6%, with 1.3% not known,
so we are highly successful. If you were to ask me to identify
one particular reason why we're highly successful, I couldn't
give one. I think it is a significant combination in a very complex
set of interactions that fortuitously—probably—has
got us to a situation where we know our individual youngsters,
what their needs are and how those might be best met. Through
partnership we are able to corral, if you like, the sort of expertise
that is needed. In a lot of cases, one of the factors is that
the more you reduce your NEET figures, the harder it is to meet
the needs of those who are still there, because they have more
complex and difficult needs, and they need particular expertise
to address their issues. Cumbria is very diverse; it's not homogeneous
in terms of its communities, what they look like and how they
act—much like NEETs, who all have individual needs. So if
we have 600 NEETs, they will have 600 different sets of needs.
Working in partnership is absolutely critical. The centrality
of information, advice and guidance within an overarching 14-19
entitlement has contributed to our success. The value of our Connexions
service, working as a key partner within the 14-19 partnership,
has definitely been part of that. I can't knock our Connexions
service at all. It has maintained the universality of its approach
despite having to focus more and more of its resources on the
harder-to-help young people, but it has maintained universality
and that has helped us prevent many young people from going down
the NEET road. Now we are at a situation where we are relatively
low, although 4.6% is still too many. We are having to look at
where there are other issues within the raising of the participation
age that we need to focus on. We know that there are non-traditional
NEETs at 17 who have dropped out of Level 3 provision, and if
we're not quick enough to re-engage them into the right provision,
that builds up a head of steam. We know that we've got significant
increases in our 18 to 24-year-old NEET figures, and we think
that is a much greater concern. It's relatively easy once you
have the systems, processes and agreement right to deal with the
16 to 18-year-olds. As far as the 18-plus group is concerned,
we are building up a bigger set of issues, challenges and problems.
Q272 Chairman: So you would like
the Dutch system that looks at 18-27?
Adrienne Carmichael: Why does
your 18th birthday mean that your individual needs are no longer
of interest or concern? They certainly are when we look at the
public costs that result from those young people's not being supported
and not being enabled to choose to succeed.
Q273 Paul Holmes: I am still not
clear about the national picture. What you are generally saying
is that you have been successful in your areas in cutting the
number of NEETs or in covering a bigger pool than you thought
was there in the first place. Nationally, though, the figures
have not gone down. If anything, they have gone up. What is everyone
else doing wrong?
Judith Hay: I was interested to
hear the feedback, to see if it is similar to our area. Some 98%
of our young people who are NEET are NEET for only a short time.
They go in and out of provision, so the gaps are where we need
to get them on to something else. The solution to that is pooled
budgets and commissioning seamless provision for young people.
They know what they want. We have good connections, information
and guidance. It is the provisions that need to be seamless. Only
1.9% of young people in Sunderland are long-term NEET. For those
young people—interestingly they are not offenders or care
leavers—we have excellent rates. Some 90%-odd of young offenders
are in education or training. It is the very damaged families
and the inter-generational poverty issues that are the problem.
For that 2%, we are looking at piloting a family model in which
we are looking at the needs of the whole family and not just the
NEET young person. The mother may be depressed, and there may
be domestic violence and school attendance issues. There may be
a young child in the family with problems. We are proposing wrapping
intensive support around the whole family, which will include
looking at NEETs and also the broader needs of the whole family.
Q274 Chairman: In parallel to that,
we have been looking at Sure Start and children's centres. It
is almost as though you are saying that you don't want silos,
but a system for helping young people wherever they are from and
from a much broader age range, but with all the services working
together to ensure that something works for them.
Judith Hay: Some 2% are from chaotic
families. We have looked into a number of families and found that
some of them have 18-20 agencies going in separately and assessing
them.
Chairman: 18 or 20 agencies?
Judith Hay: Some of those families
are very chaotic. They have lots and lots of agencies going in
and doing separate assessments, separate intervention packages.
Some of the families just cannot cope with that, so we have stripped
out the professionals and put in a lead practitioner. The other
people are still there; they are still working with the family,
but it is now a sequenced plan. If someone is about to lose their
accommodation, there is no point in the education welfare officer
knocking at the door and saying, "Why wasn't he at school
yesterday?" If there are mental health issues, they need
to be sorted out with the parents before we can ever have a chance
with a young person who is a NEET. It is very much a co-ordinated,
intensive and supportive approach with such families. Inter-generationally,
they have experienced problems many, many times.
Q275 Paul Holmes: The Local Government
Association says that we should scrap the term "NEETs",
because focusing on that group of 16, 17, 18 and 19-year-olds
is wrong. You are saying that we should look much wider at all
sorts of other factors. Yet in the local area agreements, 76%
of local authorities have voluntarily chosen NEETs at 16-18 as
one of their performance indicators, whereas only 8% have chosen
children in care and children coming out of care.
Judith Hay: We were red-tagged
for NEET in the corporate assessment, so the local area agreement
target is chosen because of the Ofsted audit commission intervention.
Models such as Think Family are not on the list that you can choose
from, but the intervention that Think Family provides is a solution
to this chaotic 2%.
Mark Sanders: One of the things
that is attractive about using that particular indicator is that
it is a proxy for a civilised society. Not a lot of the indicators
are in that sort of way. It is a symptom of those other issues—what
the Chair was saying earlier about the queue of professionals
outside some front doors to deal with different segments of chaotic
behaviour. We need to have a system, and I think certainly, now
that commissioning for 14-19s is going to local authorities, that
that's an advantage. But we need to have a system of key case
workers who have a responsibility of a one-to-one relationship
with individuals, whose needs are complex and different. They
all intervene in different ways. For example, we are trialling
a pilot that is looking at nought to fives in relation to 14-19s.
They are the issues that are caused while someone is very young
but that display themselves later on in life; of course, that's
the philosophy behind Sure Start and the rest of it. We haven't
quite got these things right yet because they are complex, difficult
and intertwined, but we are realising that we should not say,
"Haha, we have 14-19s and NEETs, and we'll have a magic solution",
as it's too late by then. There is some low-hanging fruit that
we are able to deal with. But the really difficult youngsters
are the ones with all these complex needs that are family-related.
Q276 Paul Holmes: Some people argue
that of course there will be large proportion of NEETs in predominantly
poor, urban and inner-city areas, where there are large numbers
of people with English not their first language, transition from
old heavy industry to the new world and so on. Sunderland would
seem to give the lie to that. What about Birmingham?
Chairman: Kostas, you are doing some
very interesting stuff in Birmingham as well, aren't you?
Kostas Androulakis: I'm not really
an expert in the area that you are looking at, as my work focuses
on the transformation of services and improving outcomes, and
looking at early intervention and prevention. The stuff happening
in Birmingham at the moment is looking at evidence-based programmes,
which have been proven to work longitudinally, through longitudinal
research, to address outcomes earlier in life. We have the minus
zero point nine to two year olds group, so from conception up
to two-year-olds, where we are looking at improving parenting
outcomes, particularly with teenage or single mothers. We have
early parenting programmes targeted from three to five-year-olds,
from four to 10-year-olds and then later in life, looking at improving
some of the outcomes around the family earlier on—parenting
and using interventions through a lead professional to address
financial shortcomings, social issues or any inequalities. The
focus of the work in Birmingham is on intervening early. The Connexions
service is deemed to be a good service and performing well. We
are hoping that over the next few months, as we integrate services
and hopefully provide a wider choice, we will see further improvement
in this sort of end spectrum bit—the older spectrum.
Q277 Mr Stuart: Following from what
you've just said, I would suggest that early intervention pays
off in the long term. What other barriers stop local authorities
from being able to invest to save?
Kostas Androulakis: There isn't
a short answer to that—I don't think that there is an answer
to that yet. Invest to Save hasn't been proven yet in a robust
way, and it hasn't been proven in a model that can be replicated
across local authorities in England. We are trying to ascertain
whether the Invest to Save concept is valid, and whether there
is a model that can be replicated. The other issue that we have,
which has been proven time and time again through research, is
that the implementation of interventions can vary significantly.
A lot of the time, local authorities and partners are more focused
on the volume of service or absorbing funds, depending on where
funding comes from, rather than looking at fidelity of implementation
and looking at what works—not everything works. Again, from
research, it has been proved that a badly delivered intervention
can have an adverse effect—not only does it have no impact
on improving outcomes, it has an adverse effect.
Q278 Mr Stuart: Can you give us an
example?
Kostas Androulakis: There have
been studies of the triple P intervention programme, which is
a parenting programme. It addresses a number of tiers of services.
A very large study was done in the US. There were highly qualified
practitioners delivering the intervention—some delivering
the intervention out of how they felt they should deliver it,
others following the set examples and guidance that had been developed
through the academic institutes that designed the intervention,
and general practitioners on the ground. About 25% of highly skilled
practitioners longitudinally, over 10 years, had a negative impact
in terms of outcomes; so instead of improving parenting in the
families, they were actually going the other way. Just having
an evidence-based programme is not enough. And just having the
will to do the co-ordinating work is not enough. Understanding
all the parameters that can help improve outcomes—fidelity
to implementation, stopping and evaluating consistently, and targeting
resource to activity that works and has been proven to work—is
part of the solution. As I said at the beginning, I don't think
there is a magical panacea to all of this. We have to look at
what works, combine best practice, and ensure that what is being
delivered on the ground is delivered and is actually improving
outcomes rather than just providing a volume of service or used
to absorb resource.
Mark Sanders: One of the barriers
is data. If we are providing a targeted service, it does not need
much intelligence to target it on those who most need it. We have
enormous barriers between the DWP on the one hand and ourselves
on the other, with the health service as a third party. We need
to be able to get through this data protection issue to be able
to target those most in need.
Q279 Mr Stuart: Could we localise
more and integrate more? Could we give local authorities more
control over a whole range of Government spending in their areas,
and give them much broader outcome-based measures of success?
They could tailor their own policies locally, but use the national
resource, with youth services being judged by where people end
up when they are 25 rather than the artificial target of having
five GCSEs at 16, which we have already heard is sometimes a perverse
incentive.
Mark Sanders: Certainly I would
be very much in favour of that—but I would say that, wouldn't
I? The real issue is that we work together. There is the opportunity
for pooled funding, and it being put to use where the greatest
priorities are, but priorities differ in different places. Avoiding
that one solution throughout the nation is beneficial. But agencies
on the ground know what the local problems are, and largely what
the solutions are. There is a range of barriers—we need
to get over those—and funding is one of them.
11 See Ev 123-26. Back
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