WOLVERHAMPTON POSITION STATEMENT ON WORK AND SKILLS

Transcription

1 WOLVERHAMPTON POSITION STATEMENT ON WORK AND SKILLS 1. Existing work & skills priorities & principles Strategies and Plans Wolverhampton s high level objectives for work and skills are expressed in its Sustainable Community Strategy (SCS). All key partner agencies are fully committed to the SCS as their vision for Wolverhampton. Its key objectives in relation to work and skills are that by 2026: 76% of the population will be in work and 40% will have a Level 4 (foundation degree) qualification. A refresh of the SCS is to take place in Summer 2010 to ensure it remains relevant and focused on the City s needs, particularly in light of the impact of recession. The Economic Strategy sits alongside the SCS to articulate the City s more detailed objectives for supporting and strengthening the economic base. The Strategy was prepared in 2009 based on the City s Economic Assessment and with full involvement of the public and private sectors. In order to represent the changing needs of City businesses and residents, a refresh of the Economic Strategy is planned during mid 2010, based on an updated Economic Assessment, which will be expanded to include data on worklessness and future skills requirements. This will ensure that the City has a full evidence base for a comprehensive Work and Skills Strategy to be produced as part of the SCS refresh process. The objectives of the SCS are translated into practical actions in the Local Area Agreement, supported by 4 thematic cross-cutting Delivery Plans. The LAA identifies key performance targets as: NI 151 (employment rate) NI 116 (child poverty) NI 117 (NEETs) NI 164 (Level 3 or higher) NI 171 (VAT Registration rate) NI 153 (out of work benefit claimants) NI 163 (Level 2 qualifications or higher)) NI 165 (Level 4 or higher) Achievement of the LAA targets is highly dependent on the activities of the mainstream agencies in this field, DWP/JCP, the College, City Council and University. The Crosscutting Delivery Plan for Employment, Skills and Enterprise was prepared in 2008 and identifies the key multi-agency activities over and above individual mainstream services that create the route to delivering both the LAA and achievement of the City s relevant SCS objectives. The Plan brings together WNF and ERDF funding with C2O and FJF to 3 main strands of activity: enterprise & innovation, employment, and skills. An underlying principle has been to complement and add value to mainstream programmes through

2 an integrated approach. There is a focus on job creation, and business support. The current programme of provision in the Delivery Plan covers the period Performance on NEETs has been particularly successful with the current achievement of 7.6% substantially exceeding the target of 8.2%. Support for graduates is equally important and 70 graduate internships will have been created by July 2010, ahead of schedule. Given that it was drafted prior to the recession, a review of the Delivery Plan is currently underway. Although current projects are successful in getting people into work, amongst other changes, the review is likely to result in an increased emphasis on job growth, sustainable employment and ensuring individuals are supported in the early stages of a job to minimise drop-out rates. This refocusing is part of the City s strategy to ensure the sustainability of FJF, which is creating 455 diverse employment opportunities for young people across a wide range of public and not-for-profit organisations, for which there has already been strong take-up. As part of the review, adopting a Total Place approach, a study of a targeted neighbourhood is underway. Taking accounting of guidance from UKCES, the key objectives are to improve the customer journey, ensure progression, address the legacy of programmes and improve the effectiveness and efficiency of provision. The refresh of the Plan will also consider improved emphasis on measures to encourage enterprise, self employment and, importantly, entrepreneurship in children and young people. Infrastructure Wolverhampton has a well-established model of community infrastructure, which facilitates service delivery in neighbourhoods across the City. After consultation with stakeholders, including businesses, it is now in the process of expanding its service delivery infrastructure to embrace the needs of the employment and skills agenda: A Neighbourhood Employment and Skills Service is being established City-wide, with a particular focus on priority wards to unify and improve the calibre and consistency of employment and training provision. A Business Solutions Centre has just opened to provide a single front-end engagement service for all businesses to access business improvement services. The Centre is hosted by the University and actively engages all key services deliverers including the College, Chamber, Business Link and City Council. These two structures will provide a revitalised focus for enterprise and business startup services by driving start-up advice into the local community for those interested in self employment and by improving the connection with other business support and innovation services for those young businesses with the potential for growth. 2. Current business needs Overview In common with the rest of the UK, Wolverhampton s economy has seen dramatic shifts over the past 3 decades, away from manufacturing and large businesses towards a more diversified economy. New sectors with growth potential are emerging, in 16:53:37 14/06/2010 2

3 particular the aerospace, advanced manufacturing industries, creative industries and a small but vibrant cluster of creative sector IT software companies. The first graph below shows the most up-to-date (2009) breakdown by industry, where retail, construction, professional services, production and business administration are important business sectors. Source: NOMIS Number of VAT registered businesses Stock of VAT registered businesses and change over time by sector 0 6 : Hotels and restaurants (SIC H) 5 : Wholesale, retail and repairs (SIC G) 1 : Agriculture; Forestry and fishing (SIC A,B) 2 : Mining and quarrying; Electricity, gas and... 3 : Manufacturing (SIC D) 4 : Construction (SIC F) 8 : Financial intermediation (SIC J) 7 : Transport, storage and communication (SIC I) 11 : Education; health and social work (SIC M,N) 9 : Real Estate, renting and business activities : Public administration; Other community,... Stock of businesses end 2007 change in stock in past 10 years The second graph shows the number of VAT registered businesses by broad industrial grouping. It can be seen that at the end of 2007 the four key sectors for the City in terms of numbers of businesses were Wholesale, retail and repair, Real estate, renting 16:53:37 14/06/2010 3

4 and business activities, Manufacturing and Construction. The business base grew by some 860 units between 1998 and 2007, however in terms of contribution to growth in the business base, both Manufacturing and Wholesale reduced in numbers while other sectors, and particularly Business activities grew. The VAT data series was discontinued after 2007, but indications from BIS statistics imply that there was a fall in business numbers in Wolverhampton in 2008, although there is no information available on sector. Given the nature of the recent recession, it is likely that Manufacturing and Construction were hit, although the downturn in Construction should be regarded as temporary as with significant regeneration activity expected in the City, there should be opportunities in this sector. The pie chart below shows that, whilst employment in manufacturing is in decline, it remains important but is overshadowed by other service sectors and particularly by public administration, education and health, the latter resulting from the growth of the University, College and hospitals, which together employ approx. 30% of the workforce. Wolverhampton has made significant steps forward in the percentage of employees working in knowledge intensive services, from being 5 percentage points below the regional average in 2003, to being in line with the regional average in A number of new employment sites will contribute to the development of the city s knowledge economy. Some are linked to the Wolverhampton-Telford High Technology Corridor, one of three in the region, for example i54 on the Stafford Road. Employment is expected to grow in: Advanced Manufacturing Software Development Education Health and social care Retail and customer service This expectation will be tested fully within a future skills assessment as part of the Economic Assessment refresh. 1 1 Annual Business Inquiry 2007 ONS 16:53:37 14/06/2010 4

5 Business Engagement Strategic businesses meet regularly as part of a Business Champions group, to discuss issues in the City and to provide guidance to the local authority. The strategic businesses include: 4 of the aerospace firms in the City (Moog, Marston, Goodrich and Timken) Caparo Marstons brewery Handelsbanken While the City s larger employers are represented at the champions group, Wolverhampton is dominated by SMEs, and it is important that these companies are consulted with and able to raise their issues. As part of the work based around the Economic Strategy, Wolverhampton City Council has been working with businesses to create an SME forum, which provides a platform for SMEs to raise their key issues in the City and to feed into service development. Employment There is an increasing shift in employment needs across the City and in the needs of the available workforce in comparison with vacancies. As an example, 2700 jobseekers looking for employment in elementary trades, were chasing just 340 vacancies during Though the majority of vacancies being advertised are for lower skilled jobs, the proportion of higher skilled jobs being advertised is rising. At a Black Country level, redundancies and lay-offs have continued through the first quarter of this year, according to the Black Country Chamber of Commerce QES but there is some indication that the situation is starting to stabilise. Through consultation, businesses have raised the issue that while the City is producing many young people who are qualified to level 4 and above, qualifications often do not meet the needs of the business community. Businesses have not expressed a difficulty in recruiting to posts, but they have expressed a difficulty in recruiting local people to posts. Evidence for this can be found in the City s travel to work patterns, whereby most of the lower skilled jobs in the City are filled by local people, and the higher skilled jobs are filled by people commuting into the City each day, from places like Stafford and beyond. 3. Future skill needs Existing skills Due to the historical business structure of Wolverhampton, built around a low skilled economy (from an academic perspective), there is a significant gap in skills in the current working environment. The graph below shows that approx. 50% of the total population and 28% of the working age population have no or low level qualifications; this compares poorly with other areas of the West Midlands, the regional and national averages, which has a domino effect on higher level skills. 16:53:37 14/06/2010 5

6 100% Qualification level by age group 80% 60% 40% 20% NVQ4+ NVQ3 Trade App NVQ2 NVQ1 Other None 0% retire Age group Source: Annual Population Survey, Jan - Dec 2008 The percentage of population with higher level qualifications is improving but is also low. In a business survey conducted as part of the Wolverhampton Economic Assessment 62% of employer respondents stated that a lack of high quality graduates was a harmful or very harmful, barrier to their business functioning to its full potential. One of the key challenges for the City is to improve achievement at Level 2, where, despite extensive support, the gap between Wolverhampton and the region is widening. The introduction of the NESS, alongside extended College provision, is designed to address this. Future skills The impending update of the Economic Assessment will inform future skills planning, for instance recent research has shown the importance to the City of the computer games industry. The College provides a valued pre-recruitment service for employers to help match required and available skills. Work is now being undertaken by the local authority, college and university, to match the courses being provided to the needs (and future needs) of businesses. This will help to ensure that more local people are suitable for local jobs. By 2007 the City had developed a series of exciting physical infrastructure improvement projects and business development sites. These were delayed by the recession but are now coming back on stream and, currently, skills plans are being developed for the i54 and Summer Row developments in order to ensure that there is an adequate supply of local labour to provide the required skills for the businesses likely to locate on these sites Wolverhampton has three broad priorities with regards to the development of provision for young people. The first of these is around learning and the aim to develop the four "entitlement pathways" whilst also widening the community of providers to create breadth and depth. The "pathways" are general qualifications, apprenticeships, foundation learning and diplomas. The second priority is concerned with access and the need to develop the infrastructure to facilitate a universal guidance process which 16:53:37 14/06/2010 6

7 includes commissioned Connexions IAG Services. The final priority is to promote a demand-led system which will inform planning and commissioning which will enable the Post 11 Strategic Governance Board to fulfil its responsibilities. A positive sign is that staying on rates in Wolverhampton are amongst the highest in the region building on year on year improvement in GCSE outcomes. There has also been a recent improvement at Level Three ( A Level etc. ). The City has pioneered the new "Diplomas" and an "offer" across the city which enables the young person to access a much broader curriculum offer which reflects aspiration and ability. The Executive recognises the cornerstone importance of IAG and the development of apprenticeships. 4. Tackling worklessness and economic exclusion The scale of the issue Worklessness is one of the key issues facing the City, partly attributable to the decline in manufacturing over the last 30 years. This has left many unskilled workers unable to find new employment without re-training, and creates a skills gap between the older generations and younger people in the City. Job seekers in Wolverhampton almost doubled between late 2008 and mid 2009, with the figure rising from below 7,000 to above 12,000. This figure has slowly decreased over the last few months but still leaves the City with the second highest claimant rate of any UK local authority. More significant to the claimant count is the level of economic inactivity in Wolverhampton, which currently stands at 26.8%. This figure represents 38,200 people of working age who are not in employment, and is on top of those claiming Job Seekers Allowance. Only 65.1% of all people of working age are in employment in the City. In the Wolverhampton LAA, NI153 showed that at the time of negotiation (just prior to the recession), there were 43 priority LSOAs in Wolverhampton. These are LSOAs in which more than 25% of the working age population are claiming out of work benefits. The number of priority LSOAs has risen to 53 during the recession. The indices of multiple deprivation 2007 shows that Wolverhampton has many neighbourhoods with significant barriers to employment. Wolverhampton recognises that the third sector can play an important role in helping those furthest from the labour market to improve their chances of entering employment. It is often these organisation which are involved in outreach work, and they are usually located within local communities, in contrast to mainstream provision which is often centralised and therefore must be travelled to in order to access. 16:53:37 14/06/2010 7

8 Incapacity benefit claimants are a major issue for the City, as demonstrated by the graph below. Services to support this group are being reviewed in line with the Valuing People Now strategy. In the refresh of strategy to take place later this year, stronger links will be made to other aspects of the regeneration and deprivation agendas, in particular, to Child Poverty and Lone Parents. Already, Children s Centres provide an important focus for community delivery of employment and skills services. 40,000 Benefits claimants over time 35,000 Benefits claimants 30,000 25,000 20,000 15,000 10,000 5,000 0 Nov 2005 Feb 2006 May 2006 Aug 2006 Nov 2007 Feb 2007 May 2007 Aug 2007 Nov 2007 Feb 2008 May 2008 Aug 2008 Nov 2008 Feb 2009 May 2009 Aug 2009 Other lone parent job seeker ESA and incapacity benefits < 5 yrs ESA and incapacity benefits 5 yrs plus Source: NOMIS Points to note - ESA and IB 5 years plus has not changed over time, increase in benefits since November 2008 is around job seekers allowance. The diverse population of Wolverhampton gives rise to issues around language barriers. The City also hosts asylum seekers, who are assessed in offices in the East of the City. Those who become refugees often remain in Wolverhampton, and are more likely to have barriers to employment, and require greater support to remove these barriers. Another issue facing Wolverhampton is 2 nd and 3 rd generation unemployment. This issue can be the most resource intensive to resolve, as it requires fundamental behavioural changes. Tackling the issue Wolverhampton has established a network of Learning Centres, known as the Learning Platform in priority wards across the city to facilitate access to services for those furthest from the jobs market. This network is the basis for delivery of the Neighbourhood Employment and Skills Service (NESS) referred to earlier in the paper. Priority wards have each developed, at a community level, a Neighbourhood Employment and Skills Plan, which articulates the community learning needs of that area. This currently works alongside the City s Local Neighbourhood Partnership (LNP) network and provides further opportunities for extending community engagement in employment and skills and for integration of functions. Through the Working Neighbourhoods Fund (WNF), Future Jobs Fund (FJF) and Connections 2 Opportunities, Wolverhampton is committing significant resources to tackle worklessness and to help people overcome their barriers. Over 4.7 million of 16:53:37 14/06/2010 8

9 WNF is allocated to deliver on the Employment & Skills agenda. There are projects to help deal with the barriers mentioned above, and to assist those furthest from the labour market, without ignoring those who are closer. The relevance of projects is continually under review and Wolverhampton will be looking to secure funding to ensure that these projects can be sustained beyond the life span of WNF. For instance, an ERDF bid is being developed to extend the NESS until 2014; C2O continues until Mainstream provision such as Train to Gain is being utilised across the City by a variety of training providers to help ensure that those who are in employment can improve their skills and meet their rising aspirations. Wolverhampton has made a significant impact on the number of year olds who are out of work, through delivery of the FJF in the City. The Council s partners have already created over 250 jobs through the initiative and are expecting to create at least another 200 over the course of this year. The shift in Incapacity Claimants to Employment Support Allowance will also help to encourage those who have barriers to employment to take advantage of the range of support available across Wolverhampton to help them back into suitable employment. The early results of pilot work with local RSLs to assist the tenants of social housing with multiple challenges are encouraging and consideration is now being given to how these can be extended. 5. Informal learning needs Coming out of the recession it will be necessary to ensure that people have the opportunity to re-skill: skill-sets that were useful for jobs that existed before the recession will not necessarily be helpful or transferable to new positions. People who have been in employment for many years who now find they have been made redundant may have never have had to prepare a CV, or attend job interviews in the past. These skills will be essential to helping them return to employment, particularly within sectors they have never worked before. Basic skills tuition is an essential element of training the poorly skilled and helping them to engage in employment and other educational activity. As mentioned above, language barriers are an issue in Wolverhampton, and ESOL courses will continue to be delivered by partners across the City. There are over 60 languages spoken in Wolverhampton, one of the best diversity examples being at a primary school in Woden where in a single classroom, there are 34 spoken languages. By encouraging people to learn to speak English, and to read and write in English, their barriers to employment will be broken down, and they will move a step closer to work. Community learning, where it is properly integrated into employment programmes, provides an important engagement opportunity and forms part of the City s toolkit to make contact with the economically inactive. 16:53:37 14/06/2010 9