Youth Unemployment and the Future Jobs Fund

Written evidence submitted by Transforming a Generation

1. Summary

1.1TAG was set up with one clear objective: provide unemployed and disadvantaged young people with all the skills, expertise and support they need to not only secure a job, but build a career, be an integral part of society and enjoy a fulfilling and rewarding work and private life.

1.2 From our understanding, the Future Job Fund was conceived as a catalyst to help young people break through the ‘no-experience-no-work-no-experience’ cycle and to reduce the number of registered unemployed.

1.3 Did it succeed? What does ‘success’ look like? Has the programme been truncated because it did not achieve its objectives, or was it truncated for non evidence based reasons.

1.4 The Future Job Fund could have been a perfect example of a cross-departmental strategy with profound implications for our society. To the cynical, it was a unemployment list massaging exercise. To organisations like ours, it was an example of integrated government:

1.5

1.6 This was a social experiment which could have had a profound and lasting impact on the lives of disadvantaged and vulnerable young people, as well as their families and their communities. It could have had long lasting benefits for society (by reducing the prospect of intergenerational unemployment, anti-social behaviour and the fragmentation of society).

1.7 But that opportunity is now lost.

2. Who We Are

2.1 TAG (Transforming a Generation) is a charity set up specifically to help 18-24 year olds who have no job, (probably) no qualifications and very limited career prospects. We developed a tailored training programme specifically for them and, using our extensive industry contacts (our Chairman Fred Turok is also Chair of the national fitness chain LA Fitness and the industry’s employer trade body, the FIA), we help our learners secure a four month work placement and a job in the growing health and fitness sector.

2.2 These are the young people who, if we fail to help them, will either drift into lawlessness and antisocial behaviour, or be the victims of it. What is more worrying is that if we fail to integrate ‘them’ into ‘our society’, this vulnerable community will be condemned to a legacy of generational unemployment and ultimately, the creation of a two tier society comprising the opportunity rich and the opportunity poor.

2.3 Our aim is to help this community overcome the psychological, professional, cultural and economic barriers which exert a glass ceiling on them. This is why we developed a programme which focuses on the technical aspects of work, as well as the ‘soft’ skills necessary to secure and prosper in a job.

2.4 TAG is a six month vocational training programme which takes young people with limited/no formal education who have been out of work for at least six months and:

· Provides them with a qualification (Level 2)

· Educates them in the ‘soft skills’ required to secure and retain employment – the ‘hidden curricula’

· Organises a (paid) four month work placement for them

· Provides them with a dedicated mentor

· Creates and manages a 12 month Personal Development Plan for each learner

· Provides them with many other learning/education experiences – such as NLP and help with creating a ‘e-CV’

· Pays a salary for the duration of the six-month programme.

3. Facts About Our Programme

3.1 We have flourishing partnerships with all the major public and private employers in the health & fitness industry

· We developed a tailored programme which address clearly identified

o Employer needs

§ For technical and ‘soft’ skills

o Reasons why this community fails to secure employment

§ This ranges from lack of confidence, qualifications and work relevant experience, to attitudinal and behavioural issues

· By the end of September 2010, we will have created 893 new jobs

· Over 90% of our learners have achieved qualifications and/or secured employment in the industry

o The other 10% did not complete the course primarily because the rigours of ‘work’ proved too daunting

· By March 2011 we will create over 1850 new jobs

· We have established a TAG Centre in over 30 locations nationwide

· We have evolved our ‘proposition’ to appeal to a broader range of unemployed young people. It now includes training programmes to achieve qualifications in

o Health & Fitness Training: our core offering

o Community Health Coaching: which focuses on delivering sports and active leisure in the community, not in a gym

o Front of House/reception duties: developed specifically to target female JSAs

o Membership Sales: to provide young people with a much sought after business skill (especially attractive to ethnic minorities who are more steeped in a commercial rather than a gym culture)

o A tailored programme developed specifically for young disabled unemployed people, who would like to pursue a career in the sports and active leisure sector but are hampered by lack of opportunity

· The TAG programme is an excellent example of a partnership between

o Government

o Employers

o Government agencies (Job Centre Plus offices across the country)

o The third sector – with deep community connections.

4. Does the Future Job Fund Work – pros & cons

4.1 Pros

· The FJF was an innovative pilot which has had a profound impact on the emotional, psychological and professional (ie career) welfare of a very vulnerable community who would otherwise fall outside the reach of society

· Its strength is that, if deployed correctly, it has proved an economically viable strategy which has profound implications for the learners , their communities and society

· Paying learners a salary whilst they learn vital technical, social, behavioural and ‘people’ skills is a highly effective intervention strategy which has profound psychological benefits for the recipients and economic benefits for society ie

o The £6500 outlay will reap a ‘ return on investment’ (ROI) which will be measured in multiples of hundred if we consider that every beneficiary who starts a working life of (possibly) upto 50 years, will in that time pay both direct and indirect, national and local taxes

· This intervention strate g y addresses a wide range of objectives

o Growing youth unemployment

o Reducing alienation and therefore seeking a definition of ‘self’ by belong ing to a g ang and /or participat ing in the flourishing drug culture and business (as a consumer or commercially)

o The need to reach deep into a community to be an ‘agent of change/intervention’

o Empowering l ocal people and delivering programmes delivered local ly , for local people

o Helping to re generat e local economies by creating ambassadors and mentors who underpin societal goals and its way of life

· A proven delivery model to help JCPs achieve their goals

o A perfect partnership

· Six months has proved an optimum period of time to manage a ‘behavioural change’ programme designed to help unemployed young people who have either lost or never had the ‘work habit’, develop a n employment culture and acquire new skills to help them build a career rather than just ‘ have a job ’

· The TAG programme has proved a gateway for young people with the desire, talent and who are better suited to work in a ‘kinaesthetic environment ’ , rather than a desk bound one

o We believe in identifying employment opportunities and tailoring programmes which suit the innate skills and aptitude of a community which has been ill served by existing employment creation strategies...which is why they are unemployed with limited prospects of securing employment

· FJF has c reates role models who highlight that peers in their vulnerable communities can secure employment, be a respected member of society and enjoy a deep seated level of self confidence and self esteem which is based on achievement and self actualisation. These role models are the foundation on which a stable, supportive, caring society and one which is at peace with itself, can thrive

4.2 Cons

· The decision to truncate the programme does not appear (to us) to be based on empirical evidence :

o Did the programme work or did it not

o Which delivery strategies worked and which failed

o How was ‘failure’ defined

§ Young people not completing the six month programme

§ Young people not securing a job at the end of it

§ Young people not securing a qualification at the end of the programme

§ Young people not benefiting from a tailored ‘preparedness for work’ programme, which they failed to get at school and/or college

§ Young people not benefiting emotionally, psychologically and ‘professionally’ from a programme which made them more attractive to potential employers ie gaining a qualification and relevant work experience

o What was measured

§ The level of ‘up - skilling’ or the fact that participants were off the JCPs books for six months

§ Has any attitudinal profiling of the participants been conducted

§ I f not, how do we know if:

· This intervention strategy has worked

· Lifelong work habits have been taught, nurtured and grown

· Participants benefited psychologically , will be less susceptible to stress, depression and mental illness and therefore will help reduce the pressure on an already overstretched health service

· Anti-social behaviour has been curtailed or prevented from surfac ing in a group of people who find it hard to reconcile the schism between the dream sold in magazines, films, etc and the realty of the depravation in their lives

· Did this social experiment fail, or was it denied the opportunity to prove that a sustained intervention strategy can succeed at a personal level as well as at a macro-economic level

· As a deliverer of a FJF programme we do not know whether the achievements of organisations like us were actually known, understood and played any part in the decision to truncate the initiative

o No P olicy or JCP executives ever visited us to see what we do, how we do it and/or talk to participants about their views

· Did some employers use the FJF to benefit economically ? Did they offer participants just rudimentary and possibly unrewarding work experience? Probably. But does the team responsible for terminating the programme know who they are and how future employers could be prevented from replicating their strategies ? Probably not.

· What were the real ROIs , who measured the m and when

o Were the conclusions ‘statistically significant’

· Given our own model, why is the partnership between Government, employers and community led organisations (deemed) not a success and worthy of a sustained investment

o For operational and administrative reasons, we did not launch our first programme until January

o Within a few months of our ‘launch’ we were advised that the strategy had been truncated

o The results of our model are phenomenal, given the nature of this vulnerable community, but we have been deprived the opportunity to demonstrate that the strategy is economically viable in the long run.

· Why were participating organisations, like us, not consulted?

10 September 2010