Agenda item

To provide Joint Committee with a progress update on SPOKE (Local Authority projects) and HUB (pan Berks) projects

Spoke

Elevate Bracknell

Elevate Reading

Elevate Wokingham

Elevate Slough

Elevate West Berkshire

Elevate Windsor and Maidenhead

HUB

Labour market Intelligence

Elevate Me – Presentation by Rohit Paul

Business Growth Hub

The Committee received a report updating it on spoke and hub activity in each borough across Berkshire.

A representative of each of the local spokes provided an update on the work of theirs to support the details presented in the report.  Amongst the main points made were that:

·                     So far 40 young people had been signed up in Bracknell Forest where a new hub location was being sought to build on the good progress made; opportunities to engage more partners and some co-location was under consideration.

·                     Reading’s Hub would be based on the third floor of Reading Library with a number of partners supporting the activities represented there.

·                     In Slough, the opportunity had been taken to join up and streamline all the related teams within the Council.

·                     In West Berkshire a brokerage service to work between young people and employers had been established.

·                     Two hubs had been established in Windsor & Maidenhead at which the borough’s colleges and a number of other partners were working whilst the potential was also being explored to deliver services within schools.

·                     In Wokingham, the hub had been established at Wokingham Library where partners included Job Centre Plus which was not otherwise available in the borough; footfall was up including older people.

During the ensuing discussion, it was suggested that, as a county, there should be a better way of approaching construction apprenticeships.  One option suggested which had been operating successfully elsewhere, would be to create a company to manage apprenticeships on behalf of the construction firms as this addressed the difficulties posed by most projects being developed by way of a main company and series of sub-contractors to deliver specific aspects of the work.  Unless this was addressed, all six authorities were fighting for the same pot in an uncoordinated way.  In response to this, the Committee was advised that the Thames Valley Berkshire LEP was aware of the problem and was aiming to direct some of its apprenticeships funding to such an approach.  In addition, the Committee was told that Elevate would do more work to help the six work better together on commissioning, an area where there were already successful schemes being pursued to encourage the employment of young people for work being commissioned by the councils.  Data tracking work would also enable the whole of Berkshire to pick up young people wanting construction work regardless of which borough they came from.

The Committee also received a briefing on the Business Growth Hub.  It was stressed that its role was about business support rather than employer engagement.  It would be seeking to ensure business got the support it wanted or needed.  150 businesses had so far been engaged.  The Committee was reminded that the LEP had had to apply for the support funding from the Regional Growth Fund and was therefore undertaking a review and evaluation of the hub to meet the requirements that went with the funding.  In the future, the use of the LEP’s own funding would allow more freedom.  The thrust would then be to simplify everything rather than adding another confusing element.  The fact that national partners were currently around the table in the steering group added to confusion and therefore this needed further work once the shackles of regional growth funding were removed.

The Committee also noted that Elevate was aiming to link business intelligence back to schools to ensure they knew what was required in terms of skills and work etiquette.  Elevate would be taking an overview of youth employment in Berkshire.  Whilst NEETs were reducing, there were still 6000 young people looking for work or unemployed around Berkshire.  The figures for claimants of Job Seekers’ Allowance were also significantly down and closer to the level pre-recession.

Elevate was also aiming to support the cohorts of young people most in need.  Lone parents and hard to reach groups of young people were important.  Around 4000 young people were described as “not on the radar”.  Therefore, creative ways were being sought to support them into employment.  The Cabinet Office was particularly keen to learn of experience in relation to hard to reach groups.  They wanted to know what barriers were being identified to see whether they may be able to assist find a way to break down those barriers.

Some concern was expressed about the extent to which the original scope of the project was being widened.  This was to be discussed with the Cabinet Office at a forthcoming meeting.  They were quite comfortable to see changes made to the original proposal which took it further.  A note would be sent to members of the committee on the outcome of the meeting.  Some were concerned that any deviation from the original plan might lead to a failure to achieve the original aims but the Committee was told the progress to date effectively meant that most of what had been planned had already been achieved and therefore there was a willingness to move forward.  It was stressed that negotiating the City Deal had been a tortuous process.  There was no actual contract or mechanism to claw back money.  So it was largely up to the councils to do as they wanted, within reason to maintain credibility with the Cabinet Office.  The continuing work would look at local solutions to help young people into employment as it was recognised that one solution did not fit all.

Rohit Paul made a presentation to the Committee on the development of the Elevate Me Berkshire web site.  The main points he made were that:

·                     The aim was to emphasise that the service was pan-Berkshire.

·                     The web site provided information and guidance.

·                     The site used an imaginative approach similar to that used in a popular computer game to take a young person through the topics they needed to address to find a job,

·                     There was further work being undertaken to make the web site more interactive,

·                     Feedback had generally been quite positive,

·                     Each web site had been localised.

·                     All websites except Slough’s were live.

In response to suggestions that it was inaccessible to older people, it was accepted that there was work to do to get them to use it.  The web site would have access to all Berkshire apprenticeships.  There was still more work needed to get schools and providers to see the web site as a tool to support them.  Feedback from providers had been positive.

The Committee noted the reports.