Youth Unemployment and the Future Jobs Fund

Written evidence submitted by Groundwork UK

Summary

Groundwork’s experience of delivering the Future Jobs Fund (FJF) has highlighted that providing someone with a job is the most beneficial thing we and other third sector organizations can do to help people out of poverty. The FJF has also demonstrated that subsidised employment programmes are effective, especially in emerging market areas. Subsidised employment programmes and temporary work placements could be very effective elements of the Work Programme.

1. Introduction

Groundwork is one of the country’s leading providers of environmentally-focused employment schemes. We tackle worklessness in deprived areas by helping people develop their confidence, skills and experience in order to find work and to contribute to the regeneration of their own neighbourhoods. Our programmes are focused on those people who find it hardest to get work such as those with low levels of skills, people claiming incapacity benefit or ex-offenders. Many Groundwork Trusts run programmes that pay local unemployed people a wage while they work on a wide range of activities - from renovating run-down houses to running recycling schemes – which also deliver environmental benefits and contribute to genuinely sustainable development. Increasingly these services are being developed into enterprises with the potential to support local economic development.

Over the past year, we have:

provided 51,000 weeks of training;

created 3,550 jobs; and

supported people to gain 7980 qualifications.

With the support of the Future Jobs Fund, Groundwork and the National Housing Federation are working in partnership to create over 6,000 jobs to improve the skills, confidence and employability of jobseekers and improve the quality of life for hundreds of local communities.

Our partnership has a combined network of 90 organisations across the UK able to provide local jobs for local people, including: energy efficiency advisors, neighbourhood caretakers, land management workers and recycling workers.

Additionally, many Groundwork Trusts are delivery partners in local authority Future Jobs Fund programmes.

2. The extent to which the FJF has succeeded in matching new work experience opportunities to young unemployed people.

Groundwork and the RSLs have created jobs that wouldn’t otherwise have existed and which help improve quality of life in local communities and contribute to sustainable development in the following areas:

· energy – helping individuals and organisations take simple, practical steps to improve energy efficiency and reduce fuel bills;

· waste – improving and expanding local recycling and composting projects;

· construction – gaining experience in construction and refurbishment of social housing;

· environmental maintenance – maintaining and regenerating facilities for leisure, recreation and exercise;

· amenity horticulture – helping to plan, develop and maintain high quality public green spaces;

· community development and support – supporting local groups to get more involved in decision making;

· housing management – providing services and support to residents of social housing;

· sustainable learning – supporting education, training and lifelong learning in the community; and

· green enterprise – supporting the management and administration of local environmental initiatives.

In phase one of the FJF Groundwork achieved 99% of its job starts target – 2368 job starts against a target of 2384. Almost 30% of phase one leavers are known to have gone into a non-FJF job after leaving the programme.

3. Strengths and weaknesses of the FJF programme from the perspective of providers (including in the third sector), employers and young unemployed people, and particularly in relation to the long-term sustainability of employment opportunities.

Unlike other government contracts in this field there are few performance outcomes required of deliverers. Funding is not dependent on the number of young people who progress from the programme into permanent employment; this creates a high degree of flexibility for providers who can focus resources on ensuring young people are truly "job-ready" by the time they have completed their FJF programme. Groundwork, and the RSLs involved in the partnership, are committed to using the opportunity to provide positive outcomes for those employed, seeking to supplement the basic provision required by DWP with additional support and training designed to maximise the progression achieved by young people on the programme.

The FJF programme did not include a requirement for longitudinal tracking of participants; it would have been beneficial had this been included and funded to give a more representative picture of the impact of FJF in helping young people to secure and maintain employment. Under FJF, providers only record the destination for leavers on the first day after the end of FJF; thus information about participants who are unemployed at that point but who later go on to secure a job at later date, which may be direct result of participating in FJF, cannot be captured.

The FJF bidding process encouraged providers to bid for the number of jobs they could create based on local need and circumstances; this locally determined and responsive approach proved to be very successful.

4. The likely impact of the decision to end the FJF in March 2011 rather than March 2012.

Voluntary sector organisations were particularly well placed to deliver the FJF; the requirement for up-front capital and financing under the Work Programme may make it impossible for many voluntary sector organisations to participate. Ending the FJF a year early could have some significant implications on the sector’s ability to retain personnel and skills in this area. More importantly, the sector is particularly well placed to meet the needs of those young people who are furthest removed from the labour market and who therefore need the most intensive and specialist help to find and remain in employment; ending the programme a year early may also disproportionately affect those young people.

5. How the transition from FJF to the Work Programme will be managed, including the part to be played by the Government’s proposal to fund new apprenticeships.

Prime contractors appointed to deliver the Work Programme would derive significant benefits from sub-contracting third sector suppliers to deliver some aspects, as the sector has extensive experience of successfully working in the intermediate labour market; as is evidenced by the efficiency with which we have delivered FJF.

Groundwork believes there is significant potential for the temporary work option to be incorporated into the ways in which prime contractors deliver the work programme: There is often the opportunity for repeated temporary jobs or contracts, and the initial experience gained on a temporary contract through an employment programme can enhance an individual’s ability to secure repeat contracts.

A temporary position can also be used to undertake an apprenticeship, or provide structure pre-apprenticeship training and experience. Through FJF, Groundwork has worked with British Gas to trial this approach. Young people are recruited through FJF and seconded to British Gas where they are employed with teams of loft insulation or cavity wall technicians in fuel deprived areas and receive a range of training and support, such that at the end of their FJF programme they will be able to undertake a full apprenticeship with British Gas. Consideration could be given to converting a number of existing FJF positions to formal apprenticeships now, as this would reduce the numbers needing to transition to the Work Programme thereby making the process simpler and more efficient.

New and emerging markets in the areas of energy efficiency and the environment are particularly well placed to create new jobs, as has been evidenced in our experience of delivering FJF: Anticipating the future needs of the employment market is the most efficient use of resources to create and support employment opportunities; many voluntary sector organisations are already working in these emerging market areas and are therefore particularly well placed to support employment related activity in these areas.

9 September 2010