The JGA Group's response to the draft 5-year plan put forward in the London Skills and Employment Strategy Consultation, chaired by the Mayor of London

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Executive Summary

Question 1: What key things are the most important for action by the Board to improve the employment and skills of Londoners?

Our response:

We believe that more notice needs to be taken of the client groups which should be involved. There is little mention of small to medium enterprises (SMEs) or of small providers. Both of these are important but neither are represented on the London Skills and Employment Board (LSEB).

More people are employed by SMEs than by large companies, so the Board should take into account the needs of SMEs. Similarly, small learning and skills providers are frequently more flexible in their delivery than larger, particularly publically-funded providers.

As a Train to Gain provider, a 'top notch' brokerage system is of little interest unless it also works with SMEs and provides leads for providers. So far, we have little evidence of this happening.

There is little point in providers trying to meet the needs of companies if the appropriate funding arrangements do not exist. Many employers have requested bite-sized training, in the form of a mix of individual NVQ units, which is not covered by Train to Gain, where full NVQs are required. If employers cannot have what they want, they will lose interest. We need much more flexibility.

An integrated skills and employment structure can only happen if the agencies involved are talking to each other and working together. At present, we see them sitting in their respective ivory towers, at the higher levels, and lacking the appropriate understanding of aims and objectives at the lower levels.

The Board's ambition

Question 2: What targets would you suggest?

Our response:

The Board's ambitions on supporting targets are right, but may not go far enough.

The Employability Skills Programme (ESP) obviously has an important role to play in upskilling those without work. As such, has thought been given to attendance on the programme being made compulsory for all those who need it? There are obviously substantial financial implications to this proposal, but as Skills for Life figure so prominently in the LSEB's strategy proposals, perhaps this should be addressed?

As a provider of this programme, there are a number of other issues which we should like to see worked through, including the use of the much lauded English for Speakers of Other Languages qualification, ESOL for Work - splendid launch, no sign of its introduction either to ESP or Train to Gain, and a penalty clause attached for users - the employer or individual contribution to costs is almost double that for ESOL on other programmes!

Supporting London's People

Question 3: Do you agree with the priorities and actions for improving the support and services available to individuals to improve their skills and employment opportunities? What further priorities and actions would you suggest?

Our response:

We would like to see some priorities taken even further. For instance, older workers should not have to cease to be considered for training at 64.

Work trials or work placements should be extended beyond the current two weeks. We know from our experience that much longer is required by a person who has been unemployed for several, or even many years, before they become an effective member of the team. We are not particularly in favour of forcing the employer to offer a paid job at the end of the trial period. This may have the opposite effect of creating a reluctance to offer unpaid placements.

If self-employment is to be encouraged, and training for self-employment implemented, those people should be eligible for Train to Gain. This has been floated, but not yet implemented. The Learning and Skills Council (LSC) needs to think out its strategies more carefully and implement them more quickly if Train to Gain is to become the potent force we have been led to expect.

Careers Information, Advice and Guidance should be available to all if the Government wants to see the implementation of more high level skills training. It has suffered from frequent changes of name, logos and objectives since it was first 'invented', and too much resource in London has been misused. It could be delivered more cost-effectively, allowing the savings to be used to deliver more help to individuals.

We agree about the greater flexibility for the use of public funds, and whilst understanding the needs for auditable tracking mechanisms, feel that much better use could be made of public sector funding if the systems were less bureaucratic.

We are not against charging for ESOL provision for certain groups, but believe tha the Government has put up the price too quickly and too steeply. 'Little and often' is perhaps a more effective policy.

The role of employers

Question 4: Do you agree with the priorities and actions for involving more employers in London's employment and skills challenges? What further actions would you suggest?

Our response:

All the case studies used in this publication are of large employers, even the use of unions for case studies reflects particularly on large employers. If this strategy is to be effective, it must include SMEs and it must show an understanding of their needs and problems.

Could use be made of larger employers to integrate and assist their, often SME-based, supply chain partners by requiring and helping them to invest in training? This could be done in a variety of ways. Our initial investigations have highlighted the apparent reluctance of many sub-contracting companies to invest in training for their workforce - even free training. This is particularly the case with some cleaning and catering companies.

Local Employer Partnerships have been mentioned to us, as learning providers, very vaguely, but have never been explained fully. Should we know about them? Who should tell us? How do we find out?

Sector Skills Councils are, in our experience, additional members of the 'ivory tower brigade'. They will, in some cases, need to be much more responsive if they are to be effective.

An education and skills system for the future

Question 5: Do you agree with the priorities and actions for creating an education and skills system for the future? What further actions would you suggest?

Our response:

We agree, but know that involving colleges may take some time.

People without work must want/need to work, otherwise all efforts will be ineffectual.

Adults would have a better chance of improving their skills if they had parity with young people in the funding arena. As has previously been remarked, 'education is wasted on the young'. Very few adult apprenticeships have been made available to date. Employers would be more interested in employing and upskilling adults if the numbers of adult apprenticeships were to be increased - quickly!

We agree with all suggestions regarding further education (FE) made in the draft document, but would wish funding for FE staff upskilling to also be made available to those staff struggling to upgrade their skills in the private and third sectors.

In the same way, we would welcome other support for newly recruited private and third sector providers. It is hard to carry the higher capital costs involved in mainstream FE funding fees as a new, small, but effective provider. The playing field is far from level. If FE is to have pump priming funding, so should private providers. At the very least, a proportion of funding 'up-front' on any project, as on many European Social Fund (ESF) projects, should be considered.

Integrating employment and skills delivery

Question 6: Do you agree with the priorities and actions for integrating employment and skills delivery? What further actions would you suggest?

Our response:

We agree. Yes, yes, yes!

We do have a problem with partnerships, as defined by Jobcentre Plus and the recent ESF bidding rounds. Why? There is no extra money, but a requirement for the lead provider/partnership manager to do twice as much work for no extra funding. It does not provide a good business case for proceeding.

We are in favour of individuals taking charge of their own destinies but are concerned that such a rapid culture change could come as something of a shock. The British citizen generally expects that the state or the employer will provide for all their education and training needs. Can we move them off slowly?

Making the public sector system work for London

Question 7: Do you agree with the priorities and actions for integrating employment and skills delivery systems? What further actions would you suggest?

Our response:

We agree with the comments, particularly those on Train to Gain - a great idea mismanaged. Providers are, on the one hand, being encouraged to do more, and on the other, the funder is not responding rapidly enough to enable them to deliver what is required. The Level 3 Women's Pilot is a case in point - in spite of massive under achievement, new providers were actively discouraged until October 2007 and contracts were not available until some months later - a great opportunity missed.