By Jack Welch Youth Ambassador
It would be an almost impossible task itself to try and encapsulate two entire days of varied and detailed highlights of the IntoWork
Convention, organised by the Centre for Economic and Social Inclusion (CESI). However, the sudden announcement by the CEO of CESI, Dave Simmonds, to the DWP Director of Strategy Jeremy Moore, who gave a speech on the actions to create full employment, that unemployment had increased by 15,000 in the last month reminded that the course for progress must not be a time for complacency either. Although, this increase was perhaps seen as more of a blip in the bigger picture, with youth unemployment now falling to 729,000 from 743,000, the ambitious plans which the new Conservative government have set themselves will be no small feat.
Since the initial Youth Employment Summit of April, when the final outcome of the election was a mystery, government spokespersons from the two day convention have begun the delivery of their pledges concerning young people which had been included in their manifesto. Joined by newly appointed Employment Minister, Priti Patel, she asserted a stark call to action for young people that ‘you now have to be out there in that position to start earning or learning’, warning that choosing welfare would no longer be an option. She also confessed that the education system itself may have ‘failed’ to help young people find the path that would best support their needs to find opportunities. The announced cut to housing benefit for under-21s and enhanced JSA restrictions will make welfare a tougher environment for the young.
In a similar vain to Patel, on the second day the invited Acting Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Stephen Timms, who also agreed with the principle of ‘earning or learning’ in his plenary, added that the new ‘Youth Allowance’ had many shared aspects to that of Labour’s ‘Youth Guarantee’ in their election manifesto. He maintained, after a question regarding the practicalities of the Guarantee, those opportunities could have been found if they had been elected, where in his speech he stated that 40% of those currently unemployed were under 25.
Throughout the course of the convention, initiatives, such as the £108 million Big Lottery funded ‘Talent Match’ programme, were held across the country. The London branch will be supporting the upcoming Youth Convention in November, providing tailored assistance to youth, through methods like Peer Mentoring, to ultimately find work placements. The example of Staffordshire’s own project demonstrated the potential for success with their apprentices and previous service users who had now found work. Whether this could be rolled out across the UK will be another matter.
The announcement at the outset of the convention, of CESI and the National Institute of Adults Continuing Education (NIACE), completing merger represents a growing pattern of strengthened partnerships and combined resources to combat the ongoing issues in the employment market. In their stated aims for government to address, regarding productivity and full employment as the main challenges over the coming years, illustrates the scale of change that is needed. Experts across government and other expert bodies indicated in both plenaries and workshops that greater relationships between business, government and the voluntary sector to bring better outcomes for those people still disadvantaged.
On a personal level, the difficulties facing those disabled could not be greater. Within CESI and NIACE’s ‘Ten Policies for Ten People’ document, at least 50% of disabled of people are out of work in comparison to that of a quarter of those who are not. There was broad consensus across debates that a new Employment Support Programme needed to be developed in order to address the fundamental issues still existing, but that Employment Support Allowance (ESA) needed reform. As Priti Patel announced in her speech, £100 million will be invested by 2020/21 with collaboration between the DWP and Department of Health to enable more vulnerable individuals back into work, including the disabled.
In the closing plenary of the event, Minister for the Disabled, Justin Tomlinson, pleaded with the audience to sign up to the ‘Disability Confident’ campaign to find the untapped potential of many of those at risk of being trapped in the system. With only 6% of those with learning disabilities in employment and 15% of the disabled who said they felt they were secure in their jobs, it will be an ambitious task if the government are anticipating these diverse issues to be resolved by 2020.
The build up to the Youth Employment Convention is set to be a very exciting and equally demanding one, given the number of related topic points which will be of interest to both professionals and young people at such an event. Good pockets of case studies over the workshops at this convention highlighted the successes when both investment and long term planning can create success (Guinness Partnership an example in this case).
The pace and scale of government reforms, as shown by ministerial speakers, and the alignment with that of policies by the opposition are forecast to show a significant process of change. This will begin to unfold during the course of this Parliament, depending on what amendments or objections will be made by the shadow ministers. For young people, whether it be themselves or organisations who work with them, the matter of employment is certainly one to watch as the impact of impending changes soon begin to take hold.
