Pre-Employment Training – A Handy Little Guide

Below is a quick look into the current policy framework for pre-employment training. We are keen to hear your thoughts on the topic. What are your positive and negative experiences of pre-employment training? What do you think is going to happen in the future and how would you like to see it improved?

A little bit of history...

To get your head around the current state of pre-employment training it is probably easiest to start with the National Employment Panel. The National Employment Panel was an employer led organisation that advised government on labour market policies for ten years up until 1st April 2008. As a consequence of the Leitch Review of Skills, the National Employment Panel has now been merged with the Sector Skills Development Agency to create the UK Commission on Employment and Skills. One legacy from the National Employment Panel is the Employer Coalition Network. This is a national network of 10 employer coalitions working to represent local employers in the shaping of local welfare-to-work provision. The most significant policy initiative that arose as a result of the National Employment Panel was the Fair Cities pilot.

Fair Cities was a three-year (2005-2008) employer led pilot programme with the aim of helping disadvantaged ethnic minority residents from target wards to gain employment and progress within the new jobs. Fair Cities played the role of an intermediary; working with employers to understand their business needs, and working with training organisations to ensure training was relevant and effective. Fair Cities were employer-led, working backwards from the demands of the employer to determine how provision should be shaped. Contractors' payments were outcome-based with the focus on retention and not just job entry. Three separate pilots were run in Birmingham, Bradford, and the London Borough of Brent.

Did Fair Cities work?

Fair Cities fell well short of its targets. Most significantly in terms of job entries with 1028 being achieved against the targeted 4424. Much was attributed to lack of clarity of objectives. Was the programme designed to create systemic change (in which case the programme length was too short) or to deliver large numbers of job outcomes (in which case the operational scale was not big enough). At £8,900, the cost per job outcome was high. This is partly attributed to the lack of economies of scale in such a small scale pilot.

However, much was learned from the pilots. Each pilot was given a significant amount of autonomy and therefore run differently. Much of the learning on local boards has been used in the City Strategies initiative. And some of the most interesting observations come from comparing the different approaches used in each region. For example, Bradford took a job brokerage approach. This created more job entries, but poorer retention. Brent's approach to customer relationship management meant more repeat business from employers, higher wages, and higher retention rates – but less job entries were achieved. A detailed write-up of the lessons learned can be found in this report released just before the National Employment Panel was disbanded. Many of the lessons learned were essential in the creation of Local Employment Partnerships.

Local Employment Partnerships (LEPs)

A valuable lesson learned from Fair Cities was the need for an intermediary to understand what it is that employers want and to create a package of support. This takes the brunt of the work away from employers, making it easier and more advantageous for employers to repeatedly access local welfare-to-work services. It is this which led to the creation of Local Employment Partnerships (LEPs). LEPs are designed to be a single point of contact through which employers can engage with local provision. LEPs are a deal between local employers and Jobcentre Plus. Employers offer opportunities to local jobseekers to return and progress in the workplace and in return receive a tailored package of support. This partnership is supported by DWP, DIUS, and LSC. LEP was launched in April 2007 with the target of getting 100,000 people into jobs by April 2009, and a further 150,000 by April 2010. This target has since been raised to 450,000 by April 2010. It is estimated that 50% of those will need access to pre-employment training.

The contribution of LSC is to fund pre-employment training as long as the employer engages in Train to Gain or shows equivalent commitment to workforce development.

Nine of the 25 Sector Skills Councils have worked with LSC, JCP, and the (now superseded) Sector Skills Development Agency to produce Sector Employability Toolkits (SETs). This includes a framework for a two-week, sector-specific pre-employment training programme. Where appropriate the SETs are used by providers in the development of pre-employment training programmes.

Skills for Jobs is an umbrella term used by LSC to cover various pre-employment training programmes. The programme began in January 2008 and was funded by the LSC. The funding tends to be distributed locally, meaning eligibility tends to be for local priority groups. LSC Skills for Jobs funding came to an end in March 2009 (except London) while the programme undergoes evaluation. But the programme is still being funded in the interim through the European Social Fund. One of the most significant Skills for Jobs programmes currently operating is Sector Routeways. As well as being available to priority groups in most regions, Sector Routeways is now a component of the Young Person's Guarantee. JSA claimants aged from 18 – 24 years will have opportunity to access the provision towards the 6 month stage of their claim (brought forwards from 12 months, as announced in December's White Paper). Jobcentre Plus advisers will guide their customers' choice between Sector Routeways, Future Jobs Fund, Work-Focussed Training, and Community Task Force. Sector Routeways provision begins with the engagement of the employers. The provider then engages with 'learners' through community and outreach. A short employment-related course is delivered to the learners to be followed by a job interview guarantee for those who complete the Routeway.

What the future might hold

The White Paper, Raising Expectations: enabling the system to deliver included plans for a new agency to provide training and skills for adults which will mean the dissolution of the LSC by 2010. The LSC will be replaced by the Skills Funding Agency – a lighter touch organisation with more focus on funding rather than planning. Most funding will be coming through Skills Accounts. Provision will therefore be demand led, however unemployed people will be guided or mandated by Jobcentre Plus to help them use their Skills Accounts to gain sustainable employment. LEPs will be providing an overarching framework. Employment and Skills Boards will be established in city-regions and sub-regions to help identify growth sectors and ensure provision is suitably tailored. This suggests a continuing if not expanding role for pre-employment training.

Should the Conservative Party be elected, some shake up is likely. The Conservatives' Skills Policy Paper suggests that the LSC or its successor would be heavily scaled back if not made defunct. Instead funding would be 'streamlined' through Sector Skills Councils and a slimmed down Further Education Funding Council for England. A Community Learning Fund would be created with a further £100m available for NEETS. This appears to be from where the brunt of pre-employment training would be funded. The major focus of the Conservatives is employer-run apprenticeships, with Train to Gain being refocussed to support them. £100m will also be invested in an all-age community based careers advice service. UK Commission on Employment and Skills, Employer Coalition Networks, National Skills Academies, Employment and Skills Boards, etc may well fall victim to efforts to rein in the number of quangos. A commitment has been made to reduce Government spending on Whitehall bureaucracies and quangos by one third.

Whether the current framework survives or not, it is clear that employer-led delivery will remain one of the primary routes for getting large numbers of disadvantaged people back into work.