Memorandum submitted by Cumbria County
Council
OVERVIEW
The approach to reducing the numbers of young
people not in education and training in Cumbria has been to see
all the issues involved as inter-related. Consequently reducing
NEET is not seen as an isolated "problem" but rather
an integral part of the 14-19 strategy. If we achieve the Cumbria
14-19 Strategic Partnership's vision of enabling all young people
to choose to succeed this will have meant that early identification
of potential disengagement and disaffection has worked right through
to ensuring that those young people who disengage at a much later
stage, for example during their undergraduate years at University,
are supported and helped to find the right progression route for
them as an individual.
Cumbria County Council, through its 14-19 Partnership,
has a long track record of successful development and implementation
of 14-19 reforms. Cumbria was one of the first 14-19 pathfinders
2003-05, worked with QCA as one of only three multi-pilot areas
from 2006-07 and was the only rural local authority to be awarded
Beacon status for 14-19 development in 2008-09.
The Cumbria 14-19 Strategy is focused on:
1. Securing universal access to the 14-19 learning
and curriculum entitlement before 2013;
2. Securing an appropriate place in learning
and progression up to the age of 19 for every young person by
2013;
3. Developing and embedding minimum quality standards
for 14-19 provision across the partnership;
4. Establishing a robust commissioning framework
to enable successful delivery of the 14-19 entitlement; and
5. Securing partnership based efficiency in collaborative
delivery to provide value for money.
The county 14-19 Strategic Partnership is committed
to and has responsibility for implementation of the 14-19 strategy
and enabling the development of the collaborative provision in
each area of the county. The focus is on enabling successful participation
and progression for the individual. The partnership maintains
the performance management framework that governs identification
of priorities for development and targets for improvement, thereby
ensuring all young people can access the Cumbria 14-19 learner
entitlement. The five "travel to learn" Area 14-19 Partnerships
have responsibility for implementation of overarching elements
of the county strategy and further development, within the performance
management framework, of local context specific initiatives and
priorities which support delivery of a personalised curriculum
to learners in their area. Each area has three key working groups,
with membership at practitioner level, which drive participation
and progression, namely: The Information, Advice and Guidance
Development Group; The Personalised Curriculum Support Group;
and The Inclusion/NEET Group
Cumbria is a county of contrasts. The popular
external perception of Cumbria as synonymous with the Lake District
and idyllic rurality belies a much more complex mix of settlements,
lifestyles and policy priorities. It also hides significant levels
of deprivation in Barrow and West Cumbria as well as pockets of
deprivation across all main indices in rural parts of the county
and Carlisle. 12 wards in Carlisle, Barrow and West Cumbria fall
within the 10% most deprived nationally. The impact of this diversity
can also be seen in other important performance indicators including
those for educational participation, attainment and progression
of young people. Whilst the county is in line with or above the
national average on all the key indicators this masks pockets
of underperformance which are not always attributed to traditional
deprivation factors. Consequently lessons learnt from Cumbria
initiatives and developments are transferable to a wide range
of local authority contexts and challenges. These range from the
sparsely populated rural area to the isolated, semi-urban area
with high levels of deprivation and a cultural antipathy to learning.
The 2009 data for Cumbria shows a continuing
decrease at 4.6% of 16-18 year olds who are not in education,
employment or training with a further 2.1% whose activity is not
known. Although these figures are amongst the best nationally
they mask variations between travel to learn areas and some specific
issues with, for example, young people engaged in employment without
training. The use of and access to data by the partner services
that work most closely with young people in and with the potential
to be in the NEET category is excellent. Access to data on real
time participation and progression is a lot less secure being
fragmented across providers and all too often delayed by validation
requirements for performance management purposes. Cumbria's Raising
the Participation Age Implementation Plan enables current work
on NEET reduction and related developments, including those involving
voluntary sector partners and AimHigher, to be given an added
impetus and also support focus on addressing the specific issues
facing the county and each area partnership in a systematic, planned
manner.
Examples of local action to maintain high EET
and prevent future NEET
Cumbria's approach is to address the barriers
and challenges to full participation in each travel to learn area
and to develop workable and sustainable solutions to secure better
outcomes. Examples of the participation and progression activities
in each travel to learn area include:
1. Carlisle Area—addressing high participation
in employment without training by raising young people's aspirations
and securing appropriate employer engagement in apprenticeships
and training;
2. Eden Area—securing full participation
in a very sparsely populated rural area by linking with the community
development and coherence strategy;
3. Furness Area—continuing to develop the
strategies for early identification and intervention for young
people with the potential to disengage from learning by further
developing integrated support services for long term improvements;
4. South Lakes Area—enhance and further
develop current good practice in personalisation of the curriculum
to secure continuation and successful completion in learning 16-18
and improve retention by 17 year olds; and
5. West Cumbria Area—further develop strategies
to ensure match between curriculum offer and individual learner
need ranging from early careers education and guidance (Year 6
in primary schools) to developing the Foundation Learning offer
to secure progression opportunities.
Specific activity drawn from current good practice
also seeks to secure progression and participation for targeted
groups across the county, including:
1. Support for Looked after Children and Young
Care Leavers from 13 years;
2. Pre and post natal support for Teenage Mums;
3. Continuing learning for Young Offenders; and
4. Securing progression for young people with
learning difficulties and disabilities.
Single action that would help to sustain participation
and progression for the long term?
Require all providers, including Local Authorities,
of 14-19 education and training to opportunities to track the
participation and progression of their learners up to age of 24.
Easily said—very difficult to achieve under the current
system.
March 2010
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