Written evidence submitted
by Acacia Destiny
SUMMARY
Acacia Destiny CIC has been working with the Future
Jobs Fund to provide employment opportunities in the Child Care
and Health & Social Care sectors in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire.
From our perspective, the Future Jobs Fund has been a great success,
gaining young people employment through training and work experience.
Operating in a "hot spot" area, there was a split of
77% 18-24s and 23% over 24s employed. Overall, Acacia has a 100%
performance rate and an 87.5% employment rate at the end of the
six month programme.
STRENGTHS OF
THE FJF PROGRAMME
The FJF scheme has clearly enabled people to get
into work, gaining experience and regaining some self belief.
The candidates we processed would not have found employment or
training without the FJF. We were surprised by the number of qualified
individuals who were unable to find employment without the FJF
programme.
Ongoing contact with the candidates has shown us
that the individuals have realised the benefits of employment
and have welcomed the opportunity to prove and better themselves.
They have found job satisfaction working in the care sector. Most
had wanted to work in this sector before the FJF programme, so
the FJF has not only clarified their career goals, but has opened
the door for them.
Under Acacia's programme, the FJF has given candidates
a qualification as a building block for further development. This
has not only increased the individual's confidence and improved
their employability for the future, but has benefited the wider
community and the care sector generally by ensuring better qualified
employees are now working in the sector.
A broad cross-section of the community has been represented
within the individuals who have gained employment - different
personalities, genders and ethnic backgrounds have been offered
employment in the care sector through the FJF programme. Around
20% of the individuals employed through the FJF have been male
- quite impressive in a sector that nationally employs 13% males
and locally just 12% males (NMDS, July 2010).
FJF has also created jobs within Acacia. We now have
12 full time staff to work on the FJF programme, two of whom are
employed through the FJF themselves who have recently secured
full time employment with us.
WEAKNESSES OF
THE FJF PROGRAMME
Acacia have tried to organise the weaknesses encountered
into three broad areas: the candidates, JobCentrePlus and funding.
The candidates
In the first six months, we had over 400 candidates
referred to us from JCP. Of these, only 25% were suitable for
employment in the care sector. A further 29% were unsuitable for
various reasons (attitude towards the role or employment, criminal
record etc) and 25% failed to attend interviews with us or employers.
CRB checks were a particular issue within this sector.
Despite asking at interview stage if there were any issues that
may come up on the CRB, some candidates had employment offers
withdrawn when CRB checks came back. The length of time it took
for CRBs to be reported back caused delays as well. Whilst some
were returned in a week, most took three to four weeks. In extreme
cases, it was more than four weeks.
JobCentrePlus
The importance of the role played by JCP in selecting
and informing suitable candidates for the FJF cannot be understated.
However, due to pressures of both time and targets, this became
a weakness.
We felt that there was a lack of understanding of
the FJF which led to JCP staff referring to the FJF as a "six
month placement". This often made candidates reluctant to
commit; when Acacia changed the terminology to six months employment,
including training to NVQ level 2 stage and the real possibility
of continued employment at the end of the programme, the majority
were far more enthusiastic. In the end, Acacia produced a combined
information and application pack for use in JCP at referral stage
to help both the staff explain and the candidates understand what
the FJF programme was about.
Improved careers advice would also have benefitted
the referrals process and the candidates enormously. Some candidates
were referred to us with no understanding whatsoever of what the
role entails.
Funding
Some candidates were put off when they compared what
they would gain in wages against what they would lose in benefits.
Perhaps this could have been negated by allowing more than 25
hours per week to be funded by the FJF.
We also found that a number of the smaller employers
in our region were likely to terminate employment at the end of
the FJF programme because they could not afford to sustain the
additional jobs created by FJF. Further funding to FJF employers
for a period of time after the end of the FJF programme would
have increased the success rate of the programme for the longer
term.
Another weakness was the transfer of wage compensation
from DWP to Acacia. These payments would come from DWP to Acacia,
who would then promptly distribute it to the employers. With the
employers often paying the individuals on a weekly basis, they
were always receiving the wage compensation around five weeks
in arrears. For some of these employers, this put tremendous strain
on their finances and placed some of the FJF jobs in jeopardy.
If the payment from DWP to Acacia was delayed for any reason,
this increased the problem massively.
IMPACT OF
TERMINATION
The decision to end the Future Jobs Fund in March
2011 rather than March 2012 has left many candidates, job seekers
and employers in the care and child care sectors at a considerable
disadvantage. Acacia has 54 candidates (15% of the total referred
to us) who have been interviewed by us or by employers who are
now being told that there are no further vacancies. Having motivated
the candidates to undertake successful interviews, they were massively
let down by the termination of FJF.
Although the FJF programme has been headlined as
running until March 2011, there are a large number of contracts
that will have been ended prior to that, with nothing to fill
the vacuum during the months until the new Work Programme is unveiled.
This will not only disadvantage the individuals who have been
left in this void, but it will have a detrimental impact on the
care sector as well.
Inevitably, there will be a negative impact on Acacia
as well. We increased our staff levels to operate the FJF programme;
these staff are now at risk while we wait for the replacement
programme to come on stream.
TRANSITION TO
REPLACEMENT PROGRAMMES
At the time of writing, details of the replacement
Work Programme are sketchy, so it is hard to evaluate the impact
it will have on the jobs market. Certainly the arrival of several
thousand qualified and motivated ex-civil servants will make the
marketplace more competitive and may lead to those already disadvantaged
members of society falling even further behind. We can only assume
that this will have been factored in to the new programme.
The current proposal to fund new apprenticeships
as a partial replacement for the FJF is not an ideal solution,
but neither was FJF. Although there are obvious parallels between
the apprenticeships route and the way we have chosen to implement
the FJF programme, the major stumbling block to overcome is one
of full-time vacancies. At the moment, we can approach potential
employers, offer them a part-time employee with a funded salary,
then train the individual both in the workplace and in the classroom.
With the implementation of apprenticeships, they will presumably
need to be a full-time employee with the guarantee of full-time
employment at the end of the apprenticeship. An insistence of
it being a full-time position throughout may well be a major barrier
in the current climate.
We also have concerns about the plans for candidates
over 24 years of age. Although the FJF was primarily aimed at
18-24 year olds, we have been operating in a "hot spot"
area and have seen 23% of our employed individuals come from the
over 24 group. Whilst appreciating the need to get people into
work at an early stage, before unemployment leads them down the
potential path of low self-esteem and reliance on benefits, there
does need to be some contingency for other sectors of society.
31 August 2010
| 
