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With apprenticeships currently high on the political agenda, Groundwork UK is delighted to announce that it has taken on 16-year-old Jay Taylor as an apprentice office administrator.

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Backing for Youth Contract and apprenticeships

Employment Minister Chris Grayling and  Apprenticeships Minister John Hayes with Groundwork London apprentices

Leading voluntary sector organisations are formally backing the Government’s programmes to ensure every young person is either earning or learning, Ministers have announced.

Through the Youth Contract and apprenticeships programme there is more support available to employers who want to offer sustainable jobs, training and work experience to unemployed young people.

Groundwork London hosted a roundtable discussion this week where charity leaders discussed with ministers the Youth Contract and how they offer young people work, training and apprenticeships in their organisations.

Some of Britain’s biggest charities including Groundwork UK, Mind and the NSPCC voiced their support for efforts to tackle youth unemployment.

Membership organisations the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations and the National Council for Voluntary Organisations will also encourage their members to consider the opportunities offered by the scheme.

Groundwork London apprentices Ross Oakford, Jamaine Isiguzo and Paige Hoadley were also at the meeting and were able to tell the Ministers about their experiences in the workplace.

Ross found an apprenticeship with Balfour Beatty via Groundwork’s Employment and Skills Training Hub and now works as a swimming pool technician at the Olympic Park. Jamaine works with the Groundwork Green Doctor programme, offering energy saving advice to households in some of London’s most deprived area. Paige worked with Groundwork’s Green Team, gaining experience in gardening and horticulture before securing an apprenticeship as a gardener with Serco.

The government team at the talks was led by Ministers Chris Grayling (Employment), John Hayes (Apprenticeships) and Nick Hurd (Civil Society).

Chris Grayling said: “We want to harness the experience from all sectors to make sure we get it right on youth unemployment. We want young people to enter the labour market with the skills, training and experience required to secure sustainable employment. But we can't do this alone, that is why today we are meeting with voluntary sector organisations and welcoming them on board with the Youth Contract.”

Groundwork UK chief executive Sir Tony Hawkhead added: “Take a young person on as an apprentice and you improve their employment prospects instantly. The future of this country depends on equipping our young people with the right skills now – and giving charities the incentive through the wage subsidy element of the Youth Contract means we can all play our part in doing just that.”

Through the Youth Contract, the Department for Work and Pensions will be providing 160,000 Wage Incentives worth up to £2,275 to employers who recruit 18-24 year olds who are unemployed, claiming benefits and participating in the Work Programme.

The Youth Contract supports the creation of an additional 250,000 work experience places through the DWP work experience and sector-based work academies programmes.

Employers can register their interest in supporting the Youth Contract and can find out more via the DWP website

MP Lilley takes to the air

James King of YOR Radio interviews local MP Peter Lilley

Peter Lilley MP took to the airwaves with the young people of Hitchin when he visited youth radio station YOR Radio.

The former Conservative Minister was interviewed by the young people working there, toured the studio and saw how the radio equipment works.

Groundwork, in partnership with Youth Connexions, established the youth-led community radio station at the Bancroft Centre in Hitchin.

The YOR internet radio station now broadcasts four nights a week from Monday to Thursday with a monthly live music event and weekend broadcasts. Young people take a lead role in all aspects of the radio including DJing, planning, organising the events and promotion.

Mr Lilley, MP for Hitchin and Harpenden, said: “I very much enjoyed my visit to the radio station and was very impressed by the broadcasting skills of my young hosts and the studio and its equipment. They asked me a number of questions, such as what advice I would give to a candidate for the youth parliament. I advised him to keep on trying – it took me 40 applications before I was selected for a seat – and to make sure he has another career to rely on, not just politics.

“Asked about my musical tastes; I grew up in the era of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and the Kinks are one of my favourite bands so I was very pleased when the DJs played one of their best records for me.  When asked which one piece of music everyone should listen to at least once in their life, I proposed Spem in Alium by Thomas Tallis to give them a foretaste of Heaven.”

Asked for a recollection about his experiences during his time in Parliament, Mr Lilley replied: “I used to have a little office between the Chancellor and Prime Minister’s offices, and when Margaret Thatcher forgot her keys to her office she came into mine and announced she would be sharing my desk. So I had to sit looking diligent while she prepared for Prime Minister’s Questions – not so much funny as terrifying!”

The Groundwork Hertfordshire team said: “We were thrilled that Mr Lilley could visit the radio station for what was a lovely afternoon. It was hugely beneficial for the young people; they were really pleased to have their local MP as a guest.”

Youth unemployment ‘a £28bn timebomb’

Youth unemployment is a £28bn “ticking timebomb” under the UK economy, according to a new report by the Commission on Youth Unemployment.

With one in five young people not in employment, education or training and a quarter of a million unemployed for over a year, the commission, chaired by David Miliband MP, says youth unemployment is not only one of the greatest human challenges facing the country, it represents a major financial threat.

Youth unemployment – the crisis we cannot afford identifies hotspots across Britain where youth unemployment has reached emergency levels. In these 600 areas, covering 152 local authority areas, the proportion of young people claiming Jobseekers Allowance is double the national average.

The commission, chaired by David Miliband on behalf of

ACEVO, the charity leaders’ body, makes practical recommendations on what can be done to make Government’s ambition of abolishing long-term youth unemployment achievable.

New research in the report shows that current levels of youth unemployment will cost the public purse at least £4.8 billion in 2012 and its scarring effects will cost £2.9 billion a year in the future. The net present value of the wider costs to the Treasury, even looking only a decade ahead, is £28 billion.

The report tackles the two challenges behind the headlines: the current crisis of rocketing youth unemployment driven by low levels of demand for young people’s labour, and Britain’s long-standing structural youth unemployment problem. The report calls for emergency action and a rethink in how we put existing resources to work more effectively.

Recommendations include:

• Ensuring more job opportunities are available to young people in 2012 by frontloading the Government’s Youth Contract initiative and doubling the number of job subsidies available in 2012.
• ‘First step’ – a part-time job guarantee for young people who have been on the work programme for a year without finding a job.
• Targeting young people earlier – A new national programme, Job Ready, to work with teenagers to prevent them becoming NEET in the first place.
• Providing localised education-to-career support for the non-university bound who are fast becoming the forgotten 50 per cent.
• Youth Employment Zones – starting in the youth unemployment hotspots, local organisations should come together and pool resources to get young people into work, with Whitehall offering additional support in the form of extra freedom and flexibility in return for results.
• A new mentoring scheme for young people, by young people: where under-25s who have been in work for a year mentor others on their path to employment.

David Miliband said: “Britain faces a youth unemployment emergency. This is a crisis we cannot afford. Government have set the right goal – abolishing long-term youth unemployment - but we will need big change if we are to achieve it.

“Young people, Government, communities and employers will all need to up their game if young people are to succeed in a radically changing jobs market. “Our report sets out a practical routemap for how they can do precisely that. The crisis of youth unemployment can and must be tackled now. With action we can make a real difference across Britain.”

Baroness Stedman Scott, Commission member and chief executive of charity

Tomorrow’s People said: “Finances are tight, but our report shows how – with imagination and intelligence – we can use the money available to change the minefield that many face when they leave school to a smoother path to employment, independence and security.”

ACEVO chief executive Sir Stephen Bubb added: “Youth unemployment has been a burning issue for voluntary sector leaders for years now.

The current numbers only serve to reinforce that concern. Charity CEOs are ready and willing to be a key part of the solution, but we need Government and the private sector to work with us. The current crisis will only be solved if we see this as a priority for us all.”

To download the full report click here.

Ends

The Commission on Youth Unemployment was set up in September 2011 by ACEVO (the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations), in response to widespread concern amongst voluntary sector leaders about youth unemployment.

The Commission was chaired by Rt Hon David Miliband MP. The other members of the Commission were: Baroness Stedman-Scott (CEO, Tomorrow’s People), Prof. Paul Gregg (University of Bath), Katherine Kerswell (whose career in local government has included chief

executive roles in four councils), and Jonathan Portes (Director, National Institute for Economic and Social Research).

ACEVO (Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations www.acevo.org.uk) is the professional body representing charity and not-for-profit sector chief executives in the UK, with over 2,000 members. The broad not for-profit sector now employs the full-time equivalent of 1.5 million staff, with a collective annual turnover of £46bn.

Course cull 'will boost quality'

The Government is cutting the number of qualifications that can be included in secondary school performance tables.

Only the very highest quality qualifications will be included in future, says the Department for Education.

Qualifications being ditched include the City and Guilds level 2 diploma in horse care, currently worth four GCSEs in the league tables. A Btec in fish husbandry, worth two GCSEs, a level 2 certificate in nail technology and a level 2 award in travel and tourism are also being dropped.

The announcement follows recommendations in a report by Professor Alison Wolf. She highlighted how the current Performance Table system creates perverse incentives for some schools to put pupils on courses which might boost their Performance Table positions – but are not qualifications which benefit pupils’ prospects. 

At the moment there are 3,175 so-called equivalent qualifications accredited and approved for study by 14- to 16-year-olds, all of which count in the tables. Some of these were worth as much as four, five or even six GCSEs. 

From the 2014 Performance Tables (published in January 2015), just 125 of these qualifications (3.9 per cent of the current total) will count. Full-course GCSEs, established iGCSEs, AS levels and music exams at grade six and above will also be included. All will be included on the same one-for-one basis. 

Schools will still be able to offer the "demoted" courses, but they will no longer boost their position in league tables.

Writing the Guardian Prof Wolf said that vocational qualifications should be included among the most respected school subjects, but warns that too many have no value.

"I have met students who told me they were 'getting 15 GCSEs' when they were doing no such thing. Colleges complained to me about growing numbers of young people applying for courses in the belief that they had the necessary entry qualifications, when they did not.

"Employers could not care less about 'points' and 'equivalences' and how many of them a young person has. Many of them have only just got used to GCSEs, as opposed to O-levels. They look instead at whether young people have got certain, specific qualifications: ones which they recognise and value."

Education Secretary Michael Gove said the changes would extend opportunity because only qualifications which had demonstrated rigour and had track records of taking young people into good jobs and university would count in future.

He said: “For too long the system has been devalued by attempts to pretend that all qualifications are intrinsically the same. Young people have taken courses that have led nowhere.”

To find:

• A copy of the Government response to the consultation on qualifications click here
• Professor Alison Wolf’s report click here
• A full list of the qualifications that will be included from the 2014 Performance Tables (published in January 2015) click here