By 19 years of age ... ple’s Employability Plan 2012-16 The Young Peo

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The Young People’s Employability Plan 2012-16
By 19 years of age every Surrey young person will be participating in education, training or
employment with training. Confident, effective and happy, Surrey young people will be well prepared for
the challenges of work or further study. A well developed and capable character, literate, numerate with
a good understanding of what to expect from the world of work; a Surrey young person starting adult
life will be safe, healthy, creative and have the personal confidence, skills and opportunities to
contribute and achieve more than thought possible.
Executive summary
Surrey County Council‟s youth strategy is participation for all Surrey young people in education, training
or employment. Central to this strategy is our plan to increase young people‟s employability.
Most young people in Surrey are able to secure employment at the point they leave education, but
others need additional support to address barriers to participation. Barriers such as a poor mental
health, drug misuse, homelessness or offending behaviour can limit young people‟s participation. Poor
literacy or numeracy, few or no qualifications, lack of work experience may also act as barriers to
education or work. These barriers can be associated with poverty and an experience of worklessness
in the family and community. We aim to address barriers to participation through the promotion of
wellbeing in young people, particularly emotional wellbeing. We will prevent young people from
becoming NEET (not in education, employment or training) and we will provide additional support in the
transition from school to college or work with training. We will identify those young people at risk of
becoming NEET as early as Year 8 of school and we will work with schools and other partners to
provide additional support that will reduce the risks in a young person‟s life.
We will train young people to become more employable through the Youth Support Service and Skills
Centres throughout the county. Crucially, we will proactively align the aspirations of young people, with
employment and learning opportunities. Employer engagement and understanding the local job market
will be a cornerstone of our approach. We want to know what Surrey employers need and support
young people to be ready for employment opportunities whilst commissioning the right education and
training in partnership with school, colleges and training providers.
The relationship between young people‟s readiness to take advantage of opportunities and the
availability of college, training, apprenticeship and job vacancies is key to participation and young
people‟s increased employability. The county council, in its community leadership role, will endeavour
to influence this relationship so to enable young people to make a successful transition to adulthood.
Our plan to improve young people‟s employability involves a range of activity but is underpinned by four
key actions:
a. Removing young people‟s barriers to participation
b. Preparing young people for participation
c. Commissioning and developing new opportunities for young people
d. Aligning young people‟s aspirations with opportunities
This plan is one of three underpinning the Children and Young People‟s Strategy 2012-17 and works
alongside the Education and Attainment Plan and the Health, Wellbeing and Safeguarding plan.
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Introduction
The rationale for the county council‟s focus on participation is an obvious one. Children and young
people that participate fully in education are more employable and have a better chance of getting a
job. There is a well-documented body of evidence that demonstrates that those in paid work can
access the benefits of mainstream society more readily and have better life chances.
Nationally, around half of all school leavers progress to university, whilst a degree improves young
people‟s chances of future employment with one in five graduates unemployed those heading to
university are far from secure. However, those most at risk will be the estimated 50% of school leavers
not continuing to higher education. This group described as „the forgotten half‟ in a 2011 Demos and
private equity foundation report, turn 16 and 19 without many of the key skills and the support structure
they deserve as they walk towards an uncertain future. This group may quickly find themselves
entering a cycle of disengagement and marginalisation – not in education, training or employment
(NEET).
Central to the objective of full participation is preparing young people for the 21st century labour market.
Today this is a market with fewer low skilled jobs and semi-skilled manufacturing jobs and increasing
service sector, managerial and professional jobs. There is also growing demand for „technician level‟
jobs, vocational roles requiring higher-level qualifications, high-skilled manual roles. Increasingly,
Surrey is promoting the idea of „job readiness‟ as the description of where we want learners to be at 19
years; this chimes well with the Demos study.
To be ready for the job market Demos describes „five employment premiums‟:
1. The character premium - capabilities and „soft skills‟ such as the ability to communicate
effectively, apply oneself to a task, commit log term goals and work effectively in a team.
2. The literacy and numeracy premium – in a 2010 CBI survey found 52% of employers were
dissatisfied with basic literacy of school leavers and 49% of numeracy.
3. The work premium – work experience and an understanding of the world of work and the
expectations of employers.
4. The technical premium – practical skills, learning by doing; vocational qualifications can yield
greater potential earning that a degree.
5. The graduate premium – capacity to progress to higher education.
Birdwell. J., et al, the forgotten half, Demos, 2012
The acquisition of these premiums before leaving school becomes the best insurance against NEET for
many young people. An „insurance policy‟ worth buying when we consider the cost of NEET on the
public purse. The Audit Commission, in the 2012 report Against the odds stated that NEET young men
were four times more likely to be out of work, five times more likely to have a criminal record, 6 times
less likely to have qualifications and three times more likely to suffer from depression before they retire.
The long-term cost of the average NEET young person in 2008 was £56,000 in public finance costs
before retirement age (for example, welfare payments, health services, criminal justice services and
loss of tax and national insurance revenue). There will be a £104,000 opportunity cost (loss to the
economy) and the entire 2008 cohort of NEET young people could cost over £13 billion to the public
purse and £22 billion in opportunity cost. The London School of Economics published research in 2010
estimating the lifetime costs of a NEET young person to be £97,000. Such financial estimations are of
course problematic and do not calculate the social cost in terms of lives, community and the cost to
society. Nonetheless, the financial case for reducing numbers of NEET young people is self-evident.
Some young people are more likely to become NEET between 16 and 19 years than others. The
groups at greater risk include those in care, those being supervised by the youth offending team,
pregnant young women and young mothers, young people with special educational needs, those who
have disclosed substance misuse and young carers. Membership of these vulnerable groups can help
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local partnerships predict who might become NEET at 16 plus and provide targeted support at school.
Providing the right support at the right time is undoubtedly a cornerstone to increasing participation.
Full participation in education training and employment with training cannot be achieved by one agency
alone. The county council, central government, borough and district councils, schools, colleges, training
providers, employers, the police, health services and parents and young people themselves all have a
part to play. The case for full participation is compelling given the county council‟s role in the
community and is perhaps the best thing we can do for young people, as they become adults.
The policy context
Local Authorities have a statutory duty to secure provision for all young people aged 16 to 19, and for
those with Learning Difficulties and Disabilities (LDD) to age 25. Raising of the Participation Age (RPA)
will come into effect in summer 2013 and will require young people to continue in education or training
until the end of the academic year in which they turn 17; rising to 18 in 2015. Post-16 participation can
include Apprenticeships or employment with training. Building Engagement, Building Futures set out
the government‟s strategy for achieving full participation. Strategic priorities include incentivising
employers to recruit young people, by offering Apprenticeships and work experience and providing
young people with support to find work, through Universal Credit, the Work Programme and Get Britain
Working measures. The government has also accepted the findings of the Wolf Review and will focus
on high quality vocational qualifications that lead to further education of employment.
Across the UK more than a million 16-24 year olds are without a job. It is expected that short-term
growth in labour demand will be slow. Employers state that an increase in demand for entry level roles
as well candidates having better employability skills would have the greatest impact positive impact on
the recruitment of young people, followed by financial incentives.
This plan sets out the county council‟s and the 14-19 Partnership‟s approach to improving young
people‟s employability and meeting the requirements of the Education and Skills Act 2008 and the
Education Act 2011, that young people should be in education, training or employment with training to
age 17 in 2013 and then to age 18 in 2015. Full participation is defined as –
 Full-time education i.e. 16 hours or more
 Apprenticeship
 Employment of 20 hours or more, with employer funded accredited training
 Accredited activity of at least 20 hours per week e.g. voluntary work
The plan is one of three setting out how the county council will achieve the Children, Schools and
Families Strategy 2012-17.
The Surrey context
Although Surrey‟s young people mostly achieve better qualifications than the national average, there
are still significant attainment gaps between identifiable vulnerable groups, including those with special
educational needs, those in care and those from gypsy and Roma traveller background. Although
Surrey performs relatively well for the educational attainments of “looked after” children, as a group
they still do less well than their peers. There are geographic pockets of relative deprivation especially
in parts of Spelthorne, Woking, Guildford, Reigate and Banstead and Surrey Heath. Of the population
of young people who are not in employment, education or training (NEET) in Surrey, approximately
45% have learning difficulties or disabilities.
There is a need to address the level of drop out from Further Education courses in Surrey, evidenced
by the participation of 17 year-olds being lower than 16 year-olds in all types of education and training,
except for work based learning and part-time education. Surrey also has low proportions of learners on
Foundation Learning Courses (2.5%) and Apprenticeships (5.6%). The number of people aged 18-24
claiming Job Seekers Allowance has more than doubled since before the recession rising from 1,245 in
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Feb 2008 to 3,110 in Feb 2012. The number claiming for more than 12 months has risen from 15 to
215 in the same period.
The 2010 needs assessment of Surrey young people: One in Ten told us that certain groups of young
people are disproportionately at risk of becoming NEET. It may also be true that and that many young
people at risk of becoming NEET can be identified early. We have identified many of the barriers to
participation vulnerable young people face and the key periods when additional support is needed to
help these young people achieve successful transition to post-16 education. Statistics show that the
longer a young person is NEET the more likely they are to remain NEET.
This intelligence enables us to evolve a strategy that includes early intervention with young people who
become NEET or are at risk of becoming NEET; providing sufficient, quality and appropriate learning
opportunities including vocational education and training in local, non-institutional settings; and
providing foundation level courses, appropriate to learners with learning difficulties. „Employability skills‟
necessary to start work or be sufficiently job-ready to start an apprenticeship are a priority.
In April 2012 Surrey County Council‟s Services for Young People completed a three-year
transformation of the service. The new service configuration addresses localism, through the local
commissioning of youth services and provides strategies for achieving full participation for young
people in Surrey - both key areas of Surrey County Council policy.
The Employability Plan 2012-16 links to the 14-19 Plan 2010-15 and expands on the participation
objective in that plan. Both plans are developed with partners, particularly schools, colleges, training
providers and employers through the county-wide 14-19 Partnership. This partnership is supported
though the twelve 11-19 Networks, which are critical to supporting local collaboration and development
of flexible, local provision. The 14-19 Partnership is also supported by local Cluster Groups, which
bring together education and training providers with the Youth Support Service to match young
people‟s aspirations with education and training provision in each area.
The numbers of young people in Surrey are currently declining but will soon be increasing and
provision will need to adapt to these changes as highlighted in the population chart below. The chart
also includes participation data and whilst this has shown a steady increase since 2000, this has only
kept pace with demographic changes and there has been a persistent gap of about 4,000 young
people who have not been in education, training or employment with training.
Projected 16 and 17 year-old population in Surrey compared to participation
in education and training
35,000
30,000
25,000
Population
20,000
15,000
Participation
in Education
and WBL
10,000
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Barriers to participation
Young people‟s barriers to participation are multiple and complex; a audit of cases of NEET young
people being supported by the council‟s Youth Support Service (YSS) illuminated many of the
challenges young people face. This audit looked at 33 cases and the findings give a clear indication of
the direction of our plan to increase young people‟s employability.
The audit found that young people with the most acute problems had experienced some form of
abandonment or rejection from one or both parents in childhood. Domestic abuse, sexually abuse,
neglect, family break up (divorce) and bereavement were typical in such cases. Crucially, this
experience occurred for young people before approximately eight years of age. The family context for
these young people was frequently one typified by poverty, worklessness, poor parenting, chaotic
households, drugs and poor boundaries and structure. The inevitable consequence of a traumatic
childhood experience coupled with a chaotic family context is offending behaviour and low participation
in education, training and employment. Cases such as this were found to be common to the NEET
cohort. For example, in one case of a 17-year old young person whose father left the family when he
was five his mother told him at eleven that he was the “product” of a rape by his father. The mother
went on to find a new partner and created a new family, she would comment that he looked like the
father and she seemingly rejected him on this basis. At five and 11 these events did not result in any
behaviour that got the attention of statutory agencies. By 17 he was NEET, homeless and a Class A
drug user. Cases where young people were presenting the most problematic behaviour and
challenging issues typically exhibited a common issue of insecure attachment1 in childhood. Officers
often attributed this issue as the root cause of the young person‟s barrier to participation, although
without a full analysis of why. A traumatic experience in childhood was evident in all cases of young
people who were either persistent offenders or long term NEET. Interventions did not sufficiently
address the needs of these young people in assessment, planning or practice. Participation, for these
young people seemed unlikely even if what was planned was successfully executed.
Young people with Learning Difficulties and Disabilities (LDD) experience greater barriers to
participation and are over-represented amongst young people who are NEET (56% of young people
who were NEET in May 2012 had some form of LDD). This proportion has been steadily growing over
the last year, with a significant factor being the reduction of numbers of young people in employment.
Other key barriers to participation included transport, teenage pregnancy and poverty. In some cases
young people simply could not afford to travel to work or college and were living on a very low or even
no income. Pregnancy and teenage motherhood was a common barrier to participation.
Young people have also directly highlighted barriers from their perspectives through a series of focus
groups held in Spring 2012. These are summarised below.

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
Transport
Lack of employment opportunities
Lack of experience of work
Lack of suitable education and training opportunities
Lack of realistic and timely information, advice and guidance
Lack of qualifications
1
Attachment is an emotional bond to another person. Psychologist John Bowlby was the first attachment theorist,
describing attachment as a “lasting psychological connectedness between human beings” (Bowlby, 1969, p.194).
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
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Negative school experience
Bullying
Disadvantage, including financial hardship
Lack of confidence and self esteem
Surrey economic assessment
Surrey‟s economy is overly reliant on certain areas. In 2010, 30% of residents worked in banking,
finance or insurance and 24% worked in the public sector. Both these sectors are contracting in the
current recession. In contrast there is lower than average labour demand in manufacturing industries in
Surrey. Reflecting the county‟s proximity to the capital, 23% worked in London. Surrey itself has a high
proportion of small and micro-businesses. The main growth sectors to 2015 are forecast to be financial
and business services, construction, distribution, hotels and catering and transport.
Professionals, personal services and skilled trades experience the most vacancies related to skills
shortages. Chartered Institute of Professional Development‟s Labour Market Outlook (winter 11/12)
forecasts that professional roles, particularly managers, business development, sales and marketing
and IT, will be areas of significant skills shortage in the county. Surrey has a well-qualified workforce;
39.3% (279,600) of the working age population are qualified to level NVQ4 (degree level) and above,
well above the South East and Great Britain rates.
Despite Surrey‟s generally impressive levels of qualification, in comparison Spelthorne has the highest
number of young people in employment without training (EWT) (234 in May 2010) and only 19% of the
working age population in the borough was qualified to NVQ Level 4 or higher. It is also significant that
55,400 (7.8%) the working age population of Surrey have no qualifications.
Central to the objective of full participation is preparing young people for the 21st century labour market.
Today this is a market with fewer low skilled jobs and semi-skilled manufacturing jobs and increasing
service sector, managerial and professional jobs. There is also growing demand for „technician level‟
jobs, vocational roles requiring higher-level qualifications, high-skilled manual roles. Increasingly,
Surrey is increasingly promoting the idea of „job readiness‟ as the description of where we want
learners to be at 19 years.
The chairman of Google delivered a devastating critique of the UK's education system in 2011 when he
said the country had failed to capitalise on its record of innovation in science and engineering.
Delivering the annual MacTaggart lecture in Edinburgh, Eric Schmidt criticised "a drift to the
humanities" and attacked the emergence of two educational camps, each of which "denigrate the other.
To use what I'm told is the local vernacular, you're either a luvvy or a boffin," he said. Schmidt told the
MediaGuardian Edinburgh international TV festival: "Over the past century, the UK has stopped
nurturing its polymaths. You need to bring art and science back together." Schmidt's comments echoed
sentiments expressed by Steve Jobs, the late chief executive of Apple. "The Macintosh turned out so
well because the people working on it were musicians, artists, poets and historians – who also
happened to be excellent computer scientists," Jobs once told the New York Times.
To prepare young people for the world of work Surrey will need a vision for education that embraces
„vocationalised‟ academic learning and supports young people‟s employability and entrepreneurship. A
vision that does not categorise young people as either a „luvvy‟ or „boffin‟ nor steer less able students
towards vocational options whilst pushing high achievers towards academic excellence. A diverse offer
is required where we see a mix from Level One to Three students and vocational and academic options
being delivered side by side. To support development of vocational education the county council will
offer advice and guidance on the qualification frameworks and continue to champion „vocationalised‟
academic learning through the 14 to 19 partnership.
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Lifecourse pathway
As children and young people change and mature, the services and support their need will also change.
We want to be able to understand their journey through services in Surrey to ensure that we help them
achieve the best outcomes possible. We have developed the lifecourse pathway model to do this,
looking at the outcomes we believe children and young people can be supported to achieve at key
stages in their lives. The model therefore also looks at the different key services involved in supporting
children and young people as they mature, and how these help them to achieve positive outcomes.
This model is designed to help develop an understandable, joined up way of thinking about childhood
development in Surrey. The model should give us a new way of planning that uses what we know and do
now, to look at how we support children and young people moving forward. Without a consistent
framework setting out the outcomes we intend to achieve for children and young people, it is likely that
strategies will be less efficient and effective. Therefore, we can then use this model as a framework to
guide strategy and policy work, ensuring that it becomes central to the way we work. As we develop our
strategy for children and young people, this model will help us to appraise equalities issues against each
of the key outcomes for children and young people.
This model draws on national policy and international research, which shows us that the elements
contributing to excellent opportunities and outcomes are wide ranging. However, there are four common
features, in countries where children and young people have the best opportunities and outcomes, which
have the most significant impact on positive outcomes:

Family and parenting – This involves good relationships between parents and their
children; a warm, firm and positive parenting style; a stable family unit; good relationships
between children and extended family members and between siblings.

Pregnancy and early years support – This includes support throughout pregnancy to age
five through childcare, pre-school education, physical and emotional health.

Education – Where children have a solid foundation promoting life long learning, those aged
five to 18 achieve good learning outcomes within formal education or training. This is
supported by access to and achievement within higher education.

Material wellbeing – Often determined by parents‟ prosperity, the quality of environment
and the personal and public resources available to a child or young person as they grow up
impacts on their outcomes.
Our research identified six further features that support children and young people to have the best
outcomes and opportunities: positive relationships with peers; good physical health; good mental
health; leisure activities; safety and reduced exposure to risks; and a positive cultural experience. The
model identifies five key life stages in childhood and adolescence:
 Pregnancy and birth: from conception to birth
 The early years: from 0-5 years
 The primary years: from 6-11 years
 The teenage years: from 12-18 years
 Young adulthood: from 19-25 years
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What we will do to improve young people’s employability
To improve Surrey young people‟s employability the council has already decommissioned its old youth
services and re-commissioned a unique new offer, strategically aligned to our mission to increase
participation in education training and employment. A range of learning opportunities in schools, with
pathways for progression, has also been developed, working with 11-19 Networks, schools and
colleges. Further to this our plan to improve young people‟s employability is presented under four
themes as shown below. This will be supported by a detailed action plan for each year.
1. Removing young people’s barriers to participation
1.1 Youth Support Service targeted support for participation
The council‟s Youth Support Service (YSS) will work with young people to remove barriers to
participation, through one-to-one case management with all young people who are NEET in Surrey.
The YSS is structured into for quadrants and 11 district teams, in line with the directorates 1:4:11
organisational model. Our approach will be to provide intensive supported in proportion to need to
all NEET young people aged 16-19 years. YSS practice is designed to improve young people‟s
overall wellbeing in order to support their participation. Young people‟s needs are assessed by the
service and their barriers to participation are identified, then a progression plan is developed with
young people and often their families to remove these barriers and ensure participation. The YSS is
made of locally based teams that include youth workers, social workers, psychologists, nurses,
criminologists, teachers and practitioners with expertise in work with families, mental health and
substance misuse.
1.2 Overcoming financial challenges as a barrier to participation
The council plans to explore the development of a bursary scheme, delivered locally through youth
task groups, to support young people for whom financial hardship is a barrier to participation. Other
ideas include the personalisation of the existing local prevention framework and the funding of free
meals for students at General Further Education and Sixth Form Colleges. It is hoped that these
plans will address some of the inequalities of opportunity for specific groups of young people.
1.3 Overcoming transport challenges
The council plans to explore targeted support for young people for whom the cost or availability of
transport holds them back from education, training or employment. This was identified by young
people as a key barrier in the focus groups held in Spring 2012.
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2. Preparing young people for participation
2.1 Youth Support Service targeted support for participation
The YSS will deliver a „Participation Readiness Programme‟ for all NEET young people, who are
not yet ready to access education, training or employment opportunities. This programme will
deliver skills training that supports readiness for work and learning, including communications skills,
personal administration, how to access support, team work skills, literacy and numeracy, study
skills and career planning. The programme will also provide opportunities for work experience or
college taster courses, consider issues around travelling to work or learning and financial
management. To directly support work readiness the YSS in partnership with training providers will
deliver the Construction Skills Certification Scheme (CSCS), first aid training, health and safety at
work certificates and food hygiene training. Young people will also be supported on how to apply
for jobs and learning opportunities.
The YSS will employ the most creative methods available to deliver this curriculum. The course will
be taught through projects that inspire young people and build on their wellbeing and employability.
The programme will be delivered by the YSS from youth centres and other community venues and
available to all NEET young people. The Participation Readiness Programme will be ongoing and
only end at the point when a young person progresses to a mainstream learning opportunity or a
job.
2.2 Prevention and work with schools
Preventing negative outcomes and events for children is a perennial challenge in children‟s
services and one that could start during pregnancy. The county council‟s preventative approach
reflects this long view of prevention and sees prevention as a continuum of support rather than a
single intervention. In relation to young people and their employability, prevention means preventing
poor educational outcomes at 16, young people from being NEET from 16 to 19 years and
unemployed from 18 to 24 years. Specific preventative activity is delivered through this plan from
Year 8, which is not to say that preventative interventions do not happen before this time.
The council and its partners use predicative analytics to attempt to identify those young people who
will most likely be NEET at 16. For two years already a database of young people from Year 8 to 11
has been developed of young people that present „risk of NEET indicators‟ (RONI). These
indicators include criminal offences; care status, school attendance, schools exclusions and special
educational needs. We know from analysing previous cohorts of NEET young people that if a young
person has offender, been excluded from school, are a poor school attendee are looked after or
have a statement of special educational needs then they are significantly more likely to be NEET at
16. The 14-19 networks to provide targeted support to young people from Year 8 use this date.
The council has also commissioned a range of targeted support for young people in school and the
community. This includes a contract to support young people in the transition for Year 11 to Year 12
and other community based preventative activity delivered by a range of Third Sector partners.
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2.3 Offering a wide range of vocational and academic opportunities
The county council will support schools, colleges and training providers in offering a suite of
vocational and academic learning opportunities and qualifications that best suit the needs, abilities
and aspirations for young people. Working with 11-19 Networks, a varied curriculum offer will be
supported, including flexible and alternative provision that meets the need of all learners in school
and supports progression to education, training and employment opportunities post-16. The council
recognises and promotes parity of esteem between vocational and academic pathways, seeing
both as equally viable routes to employability. The council will promote collaboration through the
11-19 Learning Networks between schools and other providers of post-16 education and training, to
secure clear progression pathways and routes to employment.
2.4 Tracking and engagement of young people
Tracking young people‟s participation in year 12-14 is a statutory requirement upon the local
authority. This is an area which will attract increasing attention in view of RPA and is a critical
activity for any authority which aspires to full participation for its young people aged 16-19. Surrey
currently operates a centralised tracking process located within a team of staff based in the Youth
Support Service. The underpinning principles which enable the local authority to successfully track
in excess of 30, 000 young people's activity every year are efficient transfer of high quality data
between providers and the authority, and the ability to effectively follow up on young people whose
activity is unknown. The critical developments which are planned in order to better support this
work are the current re-negotiation with all providers of education, training, and apprenticeships of
protocols to enable more efficient information sharing, and the localisation of activity to capitalise
on borough and district teams' intelligence and proximity to 'their' young people whose activity is
unknown and pro-actively engage those who are found not to be constructively participating.
Further developments which build upon engagement through social media will also support the
greater efficiency and effectiveness of tracking and engagement in the future.
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3. Commissioning and developing opportunities for young people
3.1 Commissioning learning opportunities
We plan commission new provision to fill gaps in line with our statutory role, working in partnership
with education and training partners. Our commissioning role will focus on gaps in provision where
young people‟s aspirations are not met with available provision, where employers‟ needs are not
addressed through available provision or to address future changes in need and demand, including
demographic changes. We will draw on opportunities for capital and revenue funding from the
Education Funding Agency and Skills Funding Agency where possible to support the development
of new provision. Having an understanding of need and performance of students across the whole
county is vital to the strategic commissioning role; the county council is uniquely positioned to
provide this support to the sector and young people. Commissioning of new opportunities and any
future changes in provision will be managed in line with the planning principles as agreed at the 1419 Partnership and included in Appendix X.
3.2 Employer engagement and developing opportunities for work
We will actively engage employers, working with Local Enterprise Partnerships, Chambers of
Commerce and other representative bodies to secure increased employment opportunities in
Surrey through new business starts, inward re-location and growth of Surrey businesses. We will
seek to secure new opportunities for young people in apprenticeships, jobs with training, work
experience and internships.
We will commission opportunities for young people to gain experience of work through work trials
and work pairing, where an employer will be supported for the initial period of employment of a
young person who would otherwise have been NEET.
We will draw on Labour Market Intelligence (LMI) to understand forecast future changes in the
labour market and draw on this to inform information, advice and guidance for young people and to
commission education and training that the local business sector needs.
Although Surrey is home to an estimated 61,000 businesses, 88% are „micro-businesses‟
employing fewer than ten people, with 81% employing fewer than five. There are fewer than 300
businesses in Surrey that have 200 or more employees. This presents both a challenge and an
opportunity, as we will work both with the largest businesses who have the most employees, but
also with small businesses, many of which will be creating the employment opportunities of the
future.
3.3 Apprenticeships
We will increase apprenticeships for young people in Surrey through a threefold approach: as an
employer, as a purchaser and as a partner. Firstly, the county council has committed to employing
more apprentices and already has a healthy apprenticeship programme that is successfully
attracting young people. Secondly, we will work with our contractors to ensure that all contracts for
the provision of services (rather than goods) are let with a condition that the contractor employs an
agreed number of apprentices aged 16 to 24 years. Finally, we will work with our partners in the
public sector to do the same; employ apprentices directly and ensure that their contractors do
similar.
This strategy will be augmented by campaigns such as the successful „200 in 100‟; launched at the
Surrey Skills Festival this campaign saw the council successfully facilitate the employment of 200
Apprenticeships in 100 days. The council has already published „An employer‟s guide to
Apprenticeships: How Apprenticeships can benefit your business, young people and the economy‟.
This guide sets out the benefits Apprenticeships can bring the community, signposts readers to the
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National Apprenticeship Service website and provides a three step process on how to employ an
Apprentice.
3.4 Skills Centres
We will commission a programme of Skills Centres to provide local, flexible, timely opportunities for
foundation learning provision with pathways for progression to further education, training or
employment with training. This provision will be delivered in partnership with training providers and
will be funded and by the Education Funding Agency (EFA) after start up funding for the first year
through the county council. The centres will run out of youth centres and will be short three-month
short courses that provide a key stepping stone to a mainstream college place or employment.
Skills Centres have been commissioned specifically around the needs of NEET young people.
NEET young people have told us that they learn best in non-institutional, relaxed, informal, fun
environments. Provision should be local, flexible, vocational and accessible. We know that NEET
young people are predominately Level One and Two learners and approximately half of them have
a learning difficulty or disability. Skills Centres have been designed, piloted, evaluated and rolled
out to specifically address these issues. Skills centres when fully rolled out will over 80% of the
county‟s „NEET hotspots‟ and will often be located where young people have historically struggled
to access provision. All young people participating in Skill Centre provision will have a 121 support
from the YSS and each centre will have a „learning and a business adviser‟ from the community.
These advisers will be volunteers currently working in the FE sector or in business that will advise
the Skills Centre on how to ensure the curriculum is as relevant as possible.
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4 Aligning aspirations with opportunities
4.1 Understanding young people’s aspirations
We will survey all NEET young people to discover what they want to; what courses, what jobs, what
careers and seek to match this with available provision where possible. Career guidance
professionals will support this survey, to ensure that young people‟s ambitions are both realistic and
stretching. This data will then be cross-referenced with learning and employment (job and
Apprenticeship) opportunities available local. Analysis will show the gaps and matches (in
aspirations and opportunities) across piece and inform future commissioning of provision. The
aspirations survey will be completed monthly and sent to GFE colleges who will attempt to recruit
young people onto courses directly. The 14-19 networks will also use the report to match young
people to opportunities including job and Apprenticeship vacancies.
4.2 Information, advice and guidance
We will support schools, colleges and the 11-19 Learning Networks in providing careers education,
information, advice and guidance to young people in schools and colleges. The county council
contributes to careers advice pre 16 by providing an on-line advice and guidance service to all
schools. In addition to this there are professionally qualified careers advisers within the YSS who
provide advice and guidance to NEET young people.
4.3 Learners with Learning Difficulties and Disabilities (LLDD)
We will fulfil our statutory requirement of attendance and contribution at key reviews for LLDD
young people in school and the production of a learning difficulties assessment (LDA - previously
known as a S139a assessment), with a focus on future pathways for education and employability
for young people with statements of special educational need.
The LDA is key to supporting transition from school to college or another education provider.
Anyone who has a statement of special education needs will have an LDA written for them to
enable their needs and support required to be identified. This is intended to ensure their next
placement can meet their needs and minimise the risk of dropping out. Year 11 students are
followed up over the summer period to ensure their plans are still in place and they do not need any
further support.
Some of this work is with young people whose needs are very complex and in those cases the
Youth Support Officers works closely with the transition team and adult social care to ensure that
there is a complete package of support being put in place for that young person and their family.
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