The government has set a target of 80 per cent employment, and to reach it, London must get another 800,000 people into work. This poses a significant challenge for the capital as the author explores in this piece.
A piece of research commissioned by London Councils has shown how boroughs and other agencies across the capital can help people who aren’t working to access the support they need to find a job .
The report, Going To Work, found that local authorities in London are employing a range of initiatives to get jobless people onto the career ladder.
The study, carried out by Greater London Enterprise, looked at the work of council regeneration officers, who often commission and run employment services. It focussed on how well regeneration officers in 11 boroughs work with other parts of the council and with other organisations and employers to support jobseekers.
The 11 London boroughs involved in the research were: Barking and Dagenham, Brent, Bromley, Croydon, Ealing, Greenwich, Haringey, Islington, Lambeth, Redbridge and Southwark. Many have established links between services – such as children’s services and employment services – to ensure people’s problems are looked at holistically to improve their prospects in the job market.
The document highlights examples of good practice but concludes teamwork between council departments is limited both for planning and providing support for people out of work..
Researchers found that good communication between council staff and strong links with other agencies – such as health and housing – as well as employers, are the key to helping people who may otherwise slip through the net to equip themselves with all the support they need to stay in work.
Based on their findings, the researchers have made a set of recommendations to strengthen these links, including that councils should provide more training for frontline staff in different services so, where appropriate, they can refer people to local employment services.
They also suggest that councils should offer more opportunities to jobless people in their own workforces as well as apprenticeships and work experience. Working more closely with other organisations including employers, primary care trusts and registered social landlords will also be vital for achieving apprenticeship targets.
The GLE report coincides with the launch of the Mayor of London's Skills and Employment Strategy, which aims to reduce duplication and to fill in the current gaps in support and provision.
London Councils welcomes the aims of the strategy: to boost the capital's economy by equipping its workforce with the skills they need and to get more Londoners into jobs.
But for it to be successful, it is essential that the knowledge and expertise of local authorities is employed to develop the proposals outlined by Boris Johnson.
The mayor’s efforts will be underpinned by the recently launched 14-19 London Regional Planning Group, co-ordinated by London Councils, which is leading the drive to persuade more employers to offer work-based training for young people.
From September, teenagers who are not in education, employment or training will be able to enrol on diploma courses in vital subjects for London’s infrastructure plans including engineering and construction. Learners will divide their time between classroom studies and using their skills in the workplace and the result will be a qualified workforce ready for schemes like Crossrail.
In the meantime, the Going To Work report has set out a series of measures which London councils can take to remove obstacles between workless Londoners and the job market.
Concerns about health, housing or childcare can often prevent jobless people from developing their skills and seeking work. One of the boroughs involved in the research, Southwark, has developed an employment strategy which focuses on breaking down 13 barriers to employment including limited skills, expensive and inflexible childcare and a lack of confidence and motivation.
Frontline council staff have a vital role to play in directing those who are not in work towards employment support services. By drawing up a training package for frontline staff, borough regeneration teams can increase the number of referrals to initiatives which assist the unemployed.
Providing literature in places such as doctors’ surgeries, children’s centres, housing offices and colleges was another suggestion to increase the number of residents contacting employment services. Encouraging jobseekers to sign voluntary agreements for their data to be shared would enable health, housing and employment services to work together more closely to offer residents support.
As large employers themselves, nine of the 11 boroughs surveyed offer work experience or apprenticeships for residents and three run tailored training courses to help unemployed people apply for public sector jobs. The Brent in2 Work’s Recruitment and Training Service offers residents free accredited training and the opportunity to have a job interview with an employer at the end of the course.
Eight of the boroughs lead job brokerages which match vacancies with jobseekers and some have developed training packages for bosses.
These opportunities could be rolled out in more authorities and in other agencies, for example primary care trusts and registered social landlords. The report recommended London boroughs should make sure their efforts to help people not in work complemented rather than duplicated the work of other agencies.
An important benefit of doing this would be to avoid employers being approached by lots of different public sector initiatives which are all chasing the same vacancies.
Several boroughs had struggled to build links with small and medium-sized businesses which were sometimes overlooked in favour of larger organisations which were perceived to have more posts to fill. Town centre managers were cited as an under-tapped resource which could strengthen links between council regeneration teams and high street firms looking to recruit staff.
On a strategic level, London Councils can join up the work done in the boroughs in a number of ways, such as by arranging meetings to bring different councils services together such as HR and regeneration, or housing and regeneration. This enables officers to achieve a shared vision around tackling worklessness, as well as sharing best practice on successful up-and-running initiatives.
A variety of initiatives are working towards the same goal of getting more people without a job into work. But they are financed by a range of funding schemes each with different targets and conditions attached which do not always dovetail with national and regional programmes.
Concerns were raised by boroughs about dwindling financial resources. The government’s Neighbourhood Renewal Fund which has been an important source of money for employment services is being replaced by the Working Neighbourhoods Fund. This has resulted in London’s share of the cash has been cut from 21 per cent to 16.4 per cent which will mean all but three boroughs will have their budgets cut.
At a time when more work must be done locally to plug the gaps in national employment services, this is perhaps the greatest challenge facing London councils.
A copy of the report Going To Work can be found here: www.londoncouncils.gov.uk/goingtowork