From Yvette Cooper, earlier this week.
Dear Kerry,
I am writing to inform you of two important announcements that are being made tomorrow.
The first is the launch of a national campaign to encourage employers all over the country to do everything possible to give every young person help to find a job or training or work skills and experience: Backing Young Britain.
In the recessions of the 1980s and 1990s hundreds of thousands of unemployed young people were abandoned without support. Many communities had a generation lost to worklessness and bore the scars of long-term unemployment for years.
We are determined that this must not happen again and that every young person should get help to find a job or training or work skills and experience.
There are seven ways for businesses, charities and the government to rise to the challenge. We are asking them to back young Britain by committing to at least one of the following:
1. becoming a volunteer mentor for school or university leavers to help them find their feet in the jobs market
2. providing work experience places, volunteering places or a work trial to help young people learn about work, make contacts and fill their CV
3. create a new internship for 18 year olds and non graduates to give them a chance to prove themselves;
4. offering an internship for a graduate
5. providing an apprenticeship for 16-24 year olds
6. bidding for one of the 100,000 jobs for young people in the Government’s Future Jobs Fund
7. joining a Local Employment Partnership to make sure my job vacancies are advertised to local unemployed people.
The aim of this campaign is to get as many employers as possible to commit to taking at least one of the actions to help young people.
For more information, or to Back Young Britain, go to: www.hmg.gov.uk/backingyoungbritain
Secondly, we are announcing details of the first successful Future Jobs Fund bidders. The £1billion Future Jobs Fund forms a key aspect of the Backing Young Britain campaign, and aims to create 150,000 jobs, aimed primarily at 18 – 24 year olds who have been out of work for a year. The first jobs are expected to be available in October.
Bids for the Future Jobs Fund are still being received and are assessed on a monthly basis. Further announcements will be made throughout the year. We are pleased with the number of successful first bids and the jobs they create. They make a significant contribution to the total number of jobs that we expect the fund to create.
For more information, and to find out who the successful bidders are, go to: www.dwp.gov.uk/futurejobsfund
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4 comments:
I'm not personally familiar with the options for school-leavers in UK, having been educated in Africa.
To what extent do "work experience places, volunteering places" mean a young person working for free in a private business? Is there not a risk of businesses that are down-sizing using this as a way to get free labour?
LOL, why on earth go through all the aggro of trying to employ a badly educated unmotivated british teen when you can have a hard working ambitious eastern european graduate willing to work for less? A business is there to make stuff and earn money plus pay taxes to fund those in the leech occupations, not a some kind of social service. Anybody who employs people and has to make money in the real world could have told her that.
It appears the Low Pay Commission is also worried about exploitation of internships. According to Grauniad some MPs may also be culprits??
That web site hmg.gov.uk is a mystery. Its home page is very sparse. Twice this week I have heard of it, the other reference being when a contact in DWP sent me the message:
...I want to make you aware of the publication of 'Building a Society for All Ages'. Please find a link to this document at
www.hmg.gov.uk/buildingasocietyforallages
Surprisingly, that strategy is jointly supported by Work and Pensions, Health, CLG, Business Innovation & Skills, Children Schools and Families, Government Equalities Office (what's that?), and Cabinet Office. Joined up government at last!
Its very sad that our dysfunctional DfT isn't there, particularly since the bus pass scheme (ENCTS) and its smart card are an important component of the 'society for all ages'. I'm aware that someone in DWP was trying to find out about the possibilities of using the ENCTS card to hold more information to support the 'ageing society', but of course DfT's line has been that its the local authorities that actually issue the cards and its their responsibility if there are any ideas for adding additional functions (one effect of that attitude caused the Information Commissioner to give some sharp advice to DfT).
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