Following the Millburn report last week, what can and should be done to help younger people find training and work opportunities?
Given the age group we serve, lots of our current and ex cadets could be affected. Can we help?
(If possible let’s keep party politics out of this!)
I think there needs to be a revolutionary shift in further education.
Increased funding in apprenticeships over university tbh. My personal stance is most jobs that require higher education should go through an apprentice scheme. Rather Uni then into work. You can even become a Dr through an apprenticeship - Medical Doctor Degree Apprenticeship | NHS England | Workforce, training and education
Then baked into pre higher education we need to bake in work skills and information about how to adult. Like teach kids what a pension is, how to approach employment etc. also make work experience more regular and account towards final grades.
There certainly needs to be more on-the-job learning.
The social contract between many employees and employers has long been broken, with the expectation that new starters arrive ready made for the job. This has meant that expectations on jobseekers have grown exponentially whilst wages have stagnated.
The worst example I’ve seen for this is a standard role as a cleaner in a non-specialist environment requiring a level 2 (or above) qualification in housekeeping.
My own view is that if a role requires applicants to hold a degree, there should be an associated minimum salary threshold that the role must meet. The exact figure could be debated, alongside exemptions for some roles if needed (thinking nursing as an example), but graduates need to be shown a return on their investment - something that isn’t happening now.
But much of this points to a wider problem; Britain doesn’t have an industrial identity, just a massive service industry. How does one go about creating jobs whilst this is the case?
As a trainee teacher, I can say that it is absolutely ridiculous that someone who requires a degree is also then required to fund a year of postgraduate education specific to training to do the job in question, during which you basically have a full-time job.
So that’s an additional £9.5k to pay and we’re lucky if a bursary is available.
And believe me, that year of additional intensive training and post graduate education is absolutely necessary, but that just makes it more ridiculous that you have to pay instead of being paid properly.
It’d be like joining the military and then having to fund your own specialist training…
I absolutely couldn’t have done this without a bursary.
I also think there should be substantial tax breaks for those wanting to go into public service. Fire Fighters etc make it more appealing on already crappy salaries
Wholeheartedly agree. Perversely, if you want to be a careers adviser working in a school you are required to have a Level 6 qualification. The same as a teacher. But with zero career progression. Oh. And you’ll be lucky to earn the entry point of a teachers salary.
Scotland has it FAR better, and actually value the careers staff - whether they be working in mainstream schools, specialist SEN settings, FE Colleges, Higher education, prisons, or job centres. All start at £26k, moving to £37k+ when qualified.
Why does this matter? The industry in England and Wales is falling on its backside and qualified and experienced advisers are leaving in their droves. These are people who’ve been are the coal front, seen the impacts of the decline in youth support over the last 20 years and haven’t been able or empowered to do anything about it. The Milburns report has shone a very bright and clear light upon the wider societal failings which have brought us to this horrific milestone.
How to fix it? Skills Development Scotland seem to have elements of it right. A nationalised all ages careers service - extending from schools through and covering a HUGE range of areas. They took the old Connexions model and properly funded and expanded it. They embed staff in schools, they are accessible and they building trusting relationships with the kids. They unpick the barriers and give them hope, and see them through transition into adulthood through tracking, monitoring and support. A SDS is a single unified and accountable body.
In England/Wales we don’t have this same level of support or accountability. For bits of 16/17 year olds it the LA. For 18-24, it’s JCP…. If they are claiming universal credit. But many don’t. So are literally unknown. Health doesn’t talk to HMRC who don’t talk to National Careers Service who don’t talk to the Local Authority who don’t talk to the local FE Colleges who don’t talk to employers and training providers.
There’s a BBC News article today about Sefton, and how they have introduced a Risk of NEET programme to help buck the trend. Identifying those less likely to succeed and achieve through a range of factors; SEN, Free School Meals, Attendance, Worklessness at home, Parental imprisonment, cultural background etc. they implement support early. And it works.
And it’s NOTHING new. This is literally what Connexions did in the early 00s. Yes they had gimmicks and pens and horrible orange/purple signs. But it was effective. Expanding this to include ages up to 25 - whilst expensive - would be an invest to save option. NEET young people cost the economy long term.
But this alone won’t be enough. Over the last 20 years we’ve seen an increased focus on technical education at level 3 and above. But the pace of investment at this level has entirely outpaced investment at Level 2. Across England, the entry requirements for Level 3 apprenticeships and college courses are normally 5 x GCSEs Inc English and Maths at 4-9. Yet, because of the bell curve or grade boundaries, 40% of pupils will leave with a Level 1 pass (sub-GCSE grade 4). Their options? Level 2 course and resist English and maths until it’s passed.
Our local college teaches English and maths in classes of 30. They do not use English and Maths teachers like schools; they will use whoever they can employ - often cheaply. They aren’t necessarily SEN specialist either. And their pass rates for resist in general FE Colleges reflect these poor decisions. It also harm’s young people’s journeys and onwards trajectory - because if they can’t get their L2 or English and Maths, they cannot progress.
Now throw in the every reducing number of roles open to young people without English and maths. Catering and hospitality, retail, warehouse, old folks homes, childcare and, if you’re lucky enough to live in the right postcodes, some manufacturing. The number of vacancies we have across these areas is low. The number of young people who are unemployed and seeking (not to mention the older people with years of skills, knowledge and experience behind them) is high.
Fostering investment in these lower level areas is paramount… but expensive. And with a service sector driven economy, it’s challenging to just “make jobs”…
This is a good idea, tax breaks for public services up to a certain salary range.
I think as a country we need to invest more in trades, almost impossible to get people by me these days.
That why me apprenticeships actually appealing, I think they still have the “not good enough for uni” stigma to a certain extent.
It should just be the norm post GCSE
Ages 16-24.
These young people were 14-22 in 2024.
They were 0-8 in 2010.
Is this a legacy or a new phenomenon?
A massive problem we face is that there are a million people in need of an immediate solution - and that’s just not possible.
A very large portion are likely to be disadvantaged for a lot of their lives. NEETS now will be feeling this for at least 5 years even if a solution was in place tomorrow and more will be coming up behind them that miss out on whatever rolls out to prevent school leavers struggling post education.
I think we already have. There’s not likely to be any figures but I suspect that cadets as a cohort will generally be faring better in the current jobs market and that of the last decade than many of their peers.
Without a complete overhaul of our model and our offering, there’s little extra we can do. Certainly not as a volunteer organisation at this scale with under qualified instructors to deliver more tangible qualifications en masse.
I wouldn’t say tax breaks.
I think we all need to be contributing on equal terms (within whatever tax regime is decided). We need to avoid things that could create narratives of division — it’s what comes out whenever we talk of improving pay.
A weak public sector produces a weaker private sector and so on. Tax breaks for one but not the other is not desirable. Simply ensure they’re paid well and keep it simple.
Personally, I think it’s grossly inefficient for anyone on the public payroll to be taxed: surely it would be better all round to just pay us a bit less in the first place rather than take some of it back where it came from?
In addition, if the national living wage has been calculated as the very minimum income that a person can live on, then we shouldn’t be taxing it. Full-time earnings at NLW should therefore be the tax threshold (and not a ‘personal allowance’ that can be reduced or taken away entirely) and the threshold for repaying student loans should be somewhat higher.
Could we look to Nazi Germany and invest in public infrastructure such as roads etc with this million coming into the workforce in an apprenticeship so they are learning skills and delivering.
I don’t object to your actual point,
But I fear this is a truly terrible way to contextualise it… Please let’s not look to Nazi Germany for absolutely anything…
You mean like FDR’s New Deal?
A New Green Deal would be an ideal experiment in reintroducing Keynesian economic policies to the UK, whilst boosting investment in renewable energies and providing transition opportunities in deprived former heavy industry towns.
And get people to fill in potholes (I’m only slightly joking!)
We would need to be wary of having too much focus on a single area.
We’ll be completely saturated and then when demand dries up or that specific support scheme ends we just start the cycle with a slightly older cohort.
Think back to the initial renewables boom - massive growth sector with investment, expansion, and training that had the bottom ripped out when FiTs were reduced.
Marc Bolland has been tasked with bringing business leaders together to expand opportunities for young people.
How optimistic are we feeling about this?
He tanked the non food M&S business which it was famous for….
Sounds like the perfect person then.
[/s]