Young People: Skills (Youth Unemployment Committee Report)

Lord Aberdare Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd November 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Aberdare (CB)]

My Lords, this is an excellent and comprehensive report, on which I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, and his committee. Coming in at the tail end of the innings, I will just comment on some specific issues that resonate with me within the report’s very broad coverage.

Careers education, information, advice and guidance, which are not all the same thing, have made much progress over recent years, not least thanks to the efforts of the Careers and Enterprise Company and the National Careers Service. However, as the report notes, there is still a long way to go to assure truly national coverage, consistency and quality. The report, like much policy discussion, tends to concentrate on the education aspect more than on information, advice and guidance. Yet IAG, delivered by qualified career development professionals, especially through personal guidance interviews, should be at the heart of high-quality careers provision. Such interviews at present are often too few or too short to be fully effective. They fall well short of the recommendation of 45 minutes. One of my consistent concerns relates to the lack of investment in developing the careers development workforce to meet this need.

Another issue is whether schools have the funds to attract and retain qualified careers staff. I hear increasing examples of schools, colleges and National Careers Service providers struggling to recruit and retain qualified careers advisers. What plans do the Government have to address this, perhaps through bursaries or other support to gain the necessary qualifications? Careers leaders in schools are not necessarily qualified to provide IAG, so there needs to be proper funding for professional careers advisers who are. Performance against the Gatsby benchmarks for good career guidance is currently assessed by schools themselves. What plans do the Government have to introduce more rigorous external assessment of outputs—for example, based on the Careers Development Institute’s career development framework or the careers impact review being piloted by the Careers and Enterprise Company, or maybe through a careers guidance guarantee, as suggested in the report?

The report also highlights the crucial importance of work experience. Young people need multiple workplace experiences covering a variety of different business sectors and activities—whether they be talks by employers or employees, workplace visits, job shadowing or actual placements—and these must be of high quality. Meeting the requirements of the Baker clause in its latest incarnation should be an absolute minimum, and needs to be enforced, including through Ofsted inspections. I think it is extraordinary that government programmes such as Kickstart do not include careers support as an integral part. The noble Lord, Lord Watson, mentioned Sir John Holman. His recommendations were promised for summer this year; can the Minister tell us when those will appear?

The report rightly includes a substantial chapter on apprenticeships, making recommendations which I fully support. However, I am a little uncomfortable with the suggestion that any employer receiving levy funding should spend at least two-thirds of it on young people under 25 starting apprenticeships at level 2 or 3. There is certainly a need to increase such apprenticeships for younger people, but upskilling and reskilling existing older workers is also vital, and in some sectors and businesses may be a higher priority and more realistically achievable than taking on new, younger employees. Having said that, I fully support increasing the flexibility of the levy and providing mechanisms to encourage employers, particularly SMEs, to take on more younger apprentices.

The new flexi-job apprenticeships scheme is a welcome idea to make it easier for SMEs to take on and support apprentices, and I was delighted to host the launch of the Evolve flexi-job apprenticeship agency in the Lords in July. However, I worry about whether this will prove attractive enough to overcome the barriers facing small firms considering offering apprenticeships, not just the costs but the management time and effort required to support and oversee young apprentices and the bureaucracy involved. It would be a pity if this scheme followed previous initiatives, such as apprenticeship training agencies and group training associations, in having only limited impact.

One topic not covered in the committee’s report is the role of independent training providers—ITPs—in addressing youth unemployment. They are mentioned only once, and only in a quotation from a government report. Having run an ITP providing employability skills training—including via the Future Jobs Fund, which the noble Lord, Lord Knight, mentioned—for young Londoners, many of them at risk of becoming NEET, I know how important ITPs can be in providing training for people who might otherwise fall through gaps in the system and in meeting specific employer training needs that are not covered by existing FE and other provision. ITPs provide the training for some 70% of all apprenticeships, yet the views and capabilities of ITPs are often underrepresented in policy relating to youth employment and skills. I welcome the fact that AELP—the Association of Employment and Learning Providers—representing ITPs, has recently joined the Association of Colleges and City and Guilds to set up a future skills coalition to promote investment in skills, including a much-needed national strategy to support local, inclusive growth. I hope the Minister will engage with this new body in developing relevant aspects of policy on skills and youth unemployment.

Once again I congratulate the committee on this important report, and the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, on his passionate introduction to today’s debate. I also commend the Government, and in particular the Minister, on their and her commitment to tackling youth unemployment. The report, with its 88 recommendations, presents a substantial challenge requiring a change of mindset, as we have heard. Meeting this challenge is vital not just for young people in or facing unemployment but for our overall national growth and well-being.