Written evidence submitted
by Birmingham and Black Country City Region
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The following report outlines a response from the
Birmingham and Black Country City Region to the Work and Pensions
Select Committee Inquiry into Youth Unemployment and Future Jobs
Fund.
The Birmingham and Black Country City Region initially
secured FJF funding for 5,844 jobs in Birmingham, Solihull, Coventry,
Sandwell, Dudley, Walsall, Wolverhampton and Telford. This figure
has altered slightly following some of the Local Authorities re-negotiating
their number of placements due to a late start to the programme.
Each local authority acts as the accountable body for their allocation
of FJF monies and outputs with Be Birmingham managing Birmingham's
contract. These partners have fed into the City Region secretariat
to inform this paper. As well as feeding into this report Be Birmingham
and Sandwell have provided a separate response to the inquiry.
Overall FJF has been viewed as a success by providers
and employers. It has increased the employability of those who
have benefited from the programme which has led to significant
numbers of young people going on to find sustainable employment
following their placement. The programme has provided young people
with the softer employability skills that employers have identified
can often be lacking in candidates. FJF has helped many young
unemployed people to realise their potential within the workplace
at a time of recession. Weaknesses of the programme include a
lack of systems to effectively monitor outcomes and support for
those young people who fell out of the programme.
1 PURPOSE OF
REPORT
To outline the response, to the Work and Pensions
Select Committee Inquiry into the Future Jobs Fund (FJF), from
partners delivering FJF in the Birmingham and Black Country City
Region. The report will focus on the strengths and weakness of
FJF.
2 FJF STRENGTHS
2.1 Partners within the City Region partnership
have identified a number of strengths that the programme offers
young people in terms of long-term sustainable employment opportunities.
2.2 The programme helps raise the confidence
and aspirations of those young people who enrolled with many commenting
that if it were not for FJF they would not have considered applying
for the type of employment that the programme offered them.
2.3 The programme has provided young people with
the basic skills that employers state are vital within the workplace.
This includes communication skills, ability to negotiate, developing
a positive attitude, punctuality and being able to work in a team.
Developing these skills greatly increases the employability of
the individual. These softer basic skills have been complimented
by formal training with qualifications up to NVQ level as well
as CRB checks.
2.4 As well as providing the young people with
these skills FJF has helped them produce CVs which increase their
competiveness in the job market. As well as boosting their CVs
the FJF programme has provided participants with references helping
them access sustainable employment opportunities.
2.5 The six month time frame was considered positive
by many providers and employers. This provided the young person
with a substantial amount of work experience but at the same time
wasn't too long a time frame that tested the commitment of the
employer.
2.6 The numbers of young people who are going
on to gain permanent employment following the programme, often
with their FJF employer, surpassed expectations. For instance,
within Solihull over half of the 65 young people who have finished
phase 1 to date have gained permanent employment.
2.7 The scope of FJF jobs was vast ensuring that
the programme offered young unemployed people the opportunity
to be employed in housing, environmental services, retail, 3rd
sector, colleges, sports and leisure, youth work, regeneration,
libraries and much more. This allows young people to be matched
with placements that match their abilities and interests helping
to ensure retention.
2.8 The programme was attractive to employers
because there was a recruitment and selection process allowing
employers to select candidates giving them greater choice in who
they took on.
3 FJF WEAKNESSES
3.1 Some employers felt that there was too much
paper work which became time consuming when employing large cohorts
of candidates within one organisation.
3.2 Some partners felt that more could be done
to assist those young people who dropped out early or who finished
without gaining ongoing employment.
3.3 Some providers felt that at the start of
FJF there was an opportunity to refer candidates more quickly
onto the programme. Some employers also felt that there is an
opportunity to better brief candidates about the job role they
are applying for and a need to identify candidates who are not
suitable and provide them with greater support and development
before they apply for FJF opportunities.
3.4 Despite there being a need for eligibility
criteria some providers felt that there were a number of young
people who could benefit from the programme but were not eligible.
3.5 Employers who tried to match the placement
with an NVQ qualification struggled to do so with the placement
just being for six months.
3.6 Some partners felt that there was the opportunity
to have more robust measures in place to track the destination
of FJF leavers once they have finished their employment to more
accurately assess the project's outcomes. While destination forms
help with this process there were significant numbers of young
people whose destination was classed as "not known."
Also the destination forms are completed immediately after the
young person finishes their employment when it may be more revealing
to undertake them 3 months after their placement. This is in response
to many young people not always preparing themselves for further
employment while on their placement and having a short time out
of work in between finishing FJF and finding further employment.
As a result these individuals are not captured as securing employment.
Furthermore, more could be done to assist young people in obtaining
further employment as they near the end of their FJF placement.
4 ENDING FJF
City Region partners felt that the impact of ending
FJF in March 2011 rather than March 2012 would produce a lack
of "entry level" jobs leading to an increase in youth
unemployment. Ending FJF would also produce a gap in employment
provision around providing young people with work place experience
and basic skills which employers regard as crucial when recruiting.
10 September 2010
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