Minutes:
The Chairman introduced Ariane Crampton (Head of Employment and Skills) and Steve Haines (Employment and Skills Officer) to present information on the opportunities for young people in Wiltshire.
Overview of policy briefing
There had been an unprecedented scale of skills reforms in the past 2 years, with employers at the heart of these reforms.
Swindon & Wiltshire Enterprise Adviser Network was part of the government funded national Enterprise Adviser Network, which was coordinated by the Careers and Enterprise Company. Designed to strengthen links between education and employers, to increase number of employer encounters young people have and to inspire and prepare young people for the world of work.
125 Enterprise Coordinators (EC) support schools across England. Each EC works with a cluster of 20 schools to provide free support, as and when required, to help schools plan and deliver careers activities and to make connections to local and national businesses.
EC also supports local Enterprise Advisers. A senior business volunteer, would be matched to a single school. They would use contacts to create opportunities for their school’s students and provide help in developing an effective careers strategy.
The Enterprise Adviser Network in Salisbury included:
· Bishop Wordsworth’s
· Sarum Academy
· South Wilts Grammar
· South Wiltshire UTC
· St Edmund’s
· St Joseph’s
· Wiltshire College
· Wyvern College
Matched with Enterprise Advisers employed by:
· Blue Flame Digital
· Personnel Placements
· QinetiQ (x2)
· RCL Consultancy (x2)
· Salisbury District NHS Trust
· Spire FM (x2)
At the moment, technical education was not necessarily meeting the needs of the learners. People who follow a technical route had a much more difficult time making their way through the process. Lots of qualifications did not meet the technical requirements. Employers were not engaged in the current system and there were not enough apprentice opportunities.
Table with information leaflets to take away
A Mentoring fund was available to support programmes for pupils across England, to raise aspirations, inspire success, improve motivation, confidence and self-belief.
In Swindon and Wiltshire there were 14 schools taking part, 4 start this term, with nearly 300 pupils being mentored. There would be six meetings with volunteer mentors over 6 months.
This initiative aimed to ensure that all young people get an excellent programme of advice and guidance, based upon their own needs. Every school must ensure there was an opportunity for a range of education and training providers to access all pupils in Years 8-13 to inform them about approved technical educational qualifications or apprenticeships.
Every school should begin using the Gatsby Benchmarks to improve careers provision now, and meet them by the end of 2020.
An apprenticeship campaign had been launched and a survey of the young people taking part would be carried out in 6 months’ time after the campaign.
If you would like to be involved with mentoring leaflets were available with further information.
The board then heard from Joel who was the newly elected member of the new youth parliament for Wiltshire East. He promoted careers fairs, having gained successful careers guidance himself.
Joel noted that one key issue for young people was Transport, without sufficient access to transport, nothing could happen unless we can get to where we want to go, adding that transport was expensive for youth.
Karen Linaker, Community Engagement Manager invited those present to put forward their views on opportunities for young people’s learning and skills development locally, highlighting that this issue had been voted in as one of the community area’s top 5 priorities in December 2016.
Comments and ideas included:
· David Law Laverstock & Ford PC – We have a lot of the secondary schools in our parish. Salisbury, L&F and Wilton were all Neighbourhood plans. They would all be interested in how best to achieve good engagement with young people and how we can plan for transport. How we improve opportunities so that the young people are catered for.
· There are a section of young people who leave school without many GCSEs, they are practical people with practical skills, we need to bring them on in a different stream, don’t force them in to colleges, if we could set up a pilot scheme in Salisbury that would be a way forward. Answer: Cllr Dean – I moved to Wiltshire in 1980’s, there was a fair amount of blue collar well paid work here. The UTC was providing an opportunity for young people in trades, One of WC success is in getting Boeing to locate at Boscombe Down, this has opened up an incredible opportunity there for work. We should be gearing up our young people to work there. In addition, there was the Science Park at Porton. You make a good point and Wiltshire are working at it.
· Cllr Rogers - I have a passion for construction skills, sadly a lot of big companies are just paying the levy and not training people. They are poor at passing on these essential skills to the younger generation. We have numerous retired skilled men who would pass on practical skills.
· At a recent LYN meeting in the Amesbury Area, which was held at 8.30am there were 20 young people in attendance. They were all very engaged. We had them for about an hour, if we go to them rather expect them to come to us there is better attendance and engagement. Answer: Cllr Brown – The Board had changed the way it operated the LYN, it now went out to the schools. Since this new approach, we had seen a greater involvement. Than we had when we previously asked them to come to an evening meeting.
· Did the UTC get their Ofsted ok, as they seemed a bit under resourced? Answer: No one was in attendance rom the UTC, but the Board would ask and feedback.
· The learning-disabled community was frequently told not to stifle its young people, but it was hard for young people when coming out of college. We cannot do things in the set timescales for our young people as they take longer to complete. Some young people will not achieve in maths and English and this is holding them back when working in other areas like leisure. There are a lot of issues, like the minimum wage. Answer: A different part of the council provide learning opportunities for disabled young people. Ariane would feedback these points to West.
· Do we have the correct level of skills from our schools, lots of our young people are travelling out of county to gain the skills. Can we compete with neighbouring provision in level of quality? Answer: There had been a gap in further education for some time, we now have the sixth form, provision increase. We also have the UTC. We are in the early days and there is the aspiration to move this on. Salisbury had suffered in a lack of investment. There was now funding from LEP, with promised significant investment to rebuild Wiltshire college. Coupled with a new academy chain we will have a better product for our young people over the next few years.
· The UTC takes people in to a technical background from age 14, should we be thinking about other options like brick laying from that age, by 16, young people already feel that they have failed, on a national level, we should be looking at other vocational options from age 14.
· Cllr Clewer – apprenticeships have been a tricky part of the programme but have been picking up steam. We will have 81 apprentices at the council by the end of the month. The schemes are much more flexible and accessible now.