Youth Unemployment and the Future Jobs Fund

Written evidence submitted by Association of Colleges

College engagement with the Future Jobs Fund

1. We understand that five Colleges hold direct Future Jobs Fund (FJF) contracts. These are:

· Barnet College

· Croydon College

· Newham College

· Newham Sixth Form College

· West Kent College

2. Many more provide training and support as sub-contractors and members of consortia and partnerships.

3. Colleges are uniquely placed to match young people’s needs with employers, as they already have strong relationships with employers within their communities.

4. In some areas, there is not a strong tradition of collaborative working between Colleges and JobCentre Plus (JCP), though where such relationships do exist, they work together successfully. The introduction of the Skills Funding Agency (successor to the Learning Skills Council) ‘Six Month Offer’, through which training was offered to those unemployed for over six months, brought many more Colleges into contact with JCP. Despite some problems in the beginning, in most instances Colleges were able to respond effectively to the needs of the individuals within the constraints of the programme.

Future Jobs Fund success in matching new work experience opportunities to young people

5. Colleges that hold direct contracts within the FJF are concerned that the individuals referred to them are not well matched to the job opportunities or work experience available.

6. Most Colleges have come into FJF contracts later on and as a result have found that the individuals that are referred to them are the hardest to help. For this far more involved and lengthy work, they receive the same funding as the private providers who have already supported the more able.

7. Although Colleges are well equipped to help the most vulnerable individuals and see this as one of their core roles, it needs to be recognised that not all people can be supported directly into work through training alone, particularly amongst the hardest to help. They can, however, be brought closer to employability.

8. Colleges would like to see a much stronger emphasis on pre-programme, holistic, assessments, being undertaken by Colleges and other qualified providers to ensure a much better match between individual needs, training in and out of work, and work placements.

Strengths and Weaknesses of the Future Jobs Fund from a provider perspective

9. As FJF is a contestable funding stream, providers have to identify what interventions and potential job outcomes they are going to provide. However, when individuals are referred to the College their needs may not be met by the proposed interventions, but the College is still obliged to meet specific targets. The FJF does not have sufficient flexibility to meet the often complex needs of people seeking sustainable employment.

10. The Future Jobs Fund currently has three key functions:

· Developing new jobs

· Training individuals to fill these jobs

· Bringing the individual and the job together

It is worth assessing whether these three areas are best undertaken by the same organisation, or whether the community might be better served if the three tasks were completed by fully co-ordinated, but separate organisations working together.

11. The proposed Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) are expected to take specific responsibility for encouraging private sector enterprise and therefore they might be the best avenue through which new job opportunities could be developed.

12. It might also be a suitable role for LEPs to work with Colleges, which we hope are full members of every LEP, to develop the skills and knowledge that individuals will need to gain sustainable employment.

13. Colleges and other providers could develop training programmes that would allow access to training across the full range of skills identified. These programmes would be supported by individual assessment against the job standards identified and then individuals would be provided with the aspects of the delivery programme that they require, alongside any other necessary support to allow them to access the training.

14. Bringing the individual and the job together would need to be undertaken in partnership between employer, provider and JCP (and possibly other stakeholders). We expect that an individual could be supported effectively to enter work as soon as they are able and that they continue to be able to access training (and possibly support) once in work

Impact of the decision to end Future Jobs Fund one year early

15. Although we do not anticipate any long term impact, we expect there to be some issues regarding learners who are mid-programme when the scheme ends and would expect that these individuals will be supported to the end of their activities even if this exceeds the end date for the FJF. We suggest that the Work Programme should provide opportunities to support all types of individuals back into work, or closer towards it, including those individuals who would have originally benefitted from the FJF.

Management of the transition to the Work Programme, including the Government’s proposal to fund new apprenticeships

16. Colleges would be supportive of a transition that ensures those individuals who are on existing programmes are not disadvantaged. The Work Programme should recognise that the needs of individuals varies widely and a small number of prescribed programmes may not meet all these individual needs. We believe there needs to be holistic, individual assessment to ensure an individual’s needs are considered prior to determining the training interventions required to bring that person to work readiness.

17. 53,000 16 to 18 year olds are undertaking their apprenticeship at a College and success rates (a combination of results and retention) for College-based apprenticeships have increased to 71%1. We absolutely recognise the importance of apprenticeships to the medium and long term success of business,to the development of the individual and indeed to the nation as a whole. Not all indivduals however, are ready to progress straight to this level and need some form of pre-apprenticeship training or support which the Work Programme should support for the unemployed. Employers need to recognise the benefits of apprenticeships and training in general and there needs to be significant growth in the number of placements available, particularly at higher levels.

18. In this light we note that the latest version of the Structural Plan from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills says it will, by autumn 2011, "develop options to encourage greater employer investment in skills to support work-based training" 2 . We hope that this extends to the need for employers to look favourably on increasing the number of apprenticeship opportunities.

19. The Work Programme is to be distributed through a small number of contracts within each of the nine regional ‘lots’ in England. We are concerned that such large contracts could reduce the range and quality of provision available to the workless and will reduce the amount of money spent on front line services due to high administrative costs of the commercial organisations that are most likely to bid. It is vital that Colleges, with their expert knowledge and local employment market intelligence, are able to engage with this important new programme, but we have concerns that the processes put in place to administer the programme will make this relatively hard and expensive to achieve. We hope that consortia of Colleges are permitted to compete for work against the commercial sector.

9 September 2010