The iron chancellor’s passion for ‘upskilling’ the UK economy may grab the headlines, but Roger Cowe finds other employment innovations in the small print of the latest budget.
Budget headlines were all about civil servants facing the axe from business-style efficiency programmes, especially the merger of Customs & Excise with the Inland Revenue. One spin-off could be a pool (maybe a reservoir) of highly-trained clerical and managerial workers – although it is questionable how transferable their skills are.
Skills and “upskilling” are the main themes of the Budget for Briefing readers – confirming Gordon Brown’s obsession with productivity and employability.
Of course some people argue that the famed productivity gap is actually due to measurement methods. But so long as Brown is in Number 11, it will drive much of Treasury thinking. In any case, both businesses and communities will benefit from improving the skills of people who have found it difficult to get jobs.
This year’s Budget contribution is a cocktail of minor innovations and tentative steps, some of them building on previous measures or announcements, which collectively seek to build partnerships between business, local authorities, government agencies and other players that can influence skill levels. The Fair Cities idea is one example, and the business growth incentive is also intended to stimulate local authority partnerships with business.
The main element is the New Deal for Skills announced (like most of the Budget these days) in the pre-Budget report. Jobcentres will be required to give greater priority to helping people who are out of work acquire the skills needed to make them more employable. This latest New Deal will also give employees a single point of contact to access learning. Jobcentres will also be expected to work more closely with local information services so that people can connect training needs with employability.
The Chancellor also announced the next stage of the Employer Training Pilots which will begin in the autumn and bring coverage of this free training scheme to more than a third of the country.
There were also special measures aimed at young and old people and minority ethnic communities – the typical collection of micro-interferences which makes the Chancellor the “tinkerman” (Claudio Ranieri) of politics.
All this emphasises the importance of employment and training policies in corporate responsibility. Many companies have a strong record of employee-related community activity such as volunteering and mentoring, and there has been increasing action on diversity. But few have really examined how their recruitment and training practices affect disadvantage. These Budget measures should stimulate more companies to examine how all their HR practices – from recruitment to retirement – affect the communities they recruit from and work in.
BUDGET HIGHLIGHTS
New Deal for Skills: including extension of the Employer Training Pilot scheme, which gives employees paid time off and free training, as part of a package giving a guarantee that every adult will be able to gain level 2 skills (equivalent to five good GCSEs)
Fair Cities initiatives: will support the creation of employer-led partnerships between local employers, public bodies, providers and minority ethnic communities. The aim is to design initiatives which will improve employment of local minority ethnic communities in these areas. Due to start in three areas from July
Business growth incentive scheme for local authorities: will allow councils to keep a portion of increased business rate revenues. The idea is to give them an incentive to work with businesses on local economic development. The scheme will begin next April and councils are expected to benefit by £150m in the first year, rising to £450m in 2007/8
Corporate Citizenship Briefing, issue no: 75 – May, 2004
Roger Cowe is a freelance journalist, writing regularly for the Financial Times, The Guardian and other leading journals.
School schemes
March 01 2004
by Zanna Rodrigues
Over half of all secondary schools now have Specialist status. Add to that 44 new Academies and a £2.2bn school improvement package. Confused? Briefing?s Zanna Rodrigues demystifies the latest plans to involve the private sector in education.
What’s happening in our schools?
There are currently two major government initiatives that encourage and enable private sector participation in providing better education for secondary school children – the Academies programme and the Specialist Schools programme. Both build on the model of City Technology colleges, which the previous Conservative government piloted as a way of improving science, technology and vocational qualifications in secondary schools.
What’s ‘new’ about these new schemes?
A couple of things. First, they must integrate more closely with local communities and participate in LEA admissions arrangements. Academies and Specialist Schools are free to choose from arange of specialist areas. Academies however may also cater for primary school children and tend to be based on new or redundant sites, whereas Specialist Schools are modifications of existing secondary schools.
How can companies be involved?
Private sector backers can strongly influence the specialisation of an Academy, as long as this complements existing specialist schools in the area and suits the site and locality of the proposed Academy. Corporate sponsors of Specialist Schools have less say over the curriculum, focusing more on the provision of educational facilities.
In both cases, sponsoring businesses can participate in the governance and running of the schools (for Academies, corporate sponsors are entitled to a majority on the Trust board and governing body). Companies are also encouraged to build relationships through employee volunteering, mentoring and work placements for students.
How much does school sponsorship cost?
Academies demand a higher level of financial commitment from sponsors since they are usually built from scratch. As such, Academy sponsors are required to contribute £2m. Specialist schools, meanwhile, only need to raise £50,000 of private sponsorship.
How do you choose a school to sponsor?
In general, schools wishing to gain Specialist School status must find sponsors themselves. In the case of Academies, however, potential sponsors must contact the DfES. LEAs assess the facilities in an area, and, if they are able to locate a suitable site, will then communicate the need for an Academy to the DfES.
It then falls to the DfES to direct companies to suitable opportunities for sponsoring an Academy. A company then submits a formal expression of interest to the Secretary of State, who funds the feasibility phase of the project if the expression is accepted. When the feasibility phase is complete, sponsors sign an agreement with the DfES and make a financial commitment.
And the £2.2bn?
Yes – let’s not forget this! The £2.2bn relates to another new scheme – Building Schools for the Future – launched on February 12. The scheme aims to introduce a new model for the design, procurement and building of secondary schools. A new body, Partnerships for Schools, will work with each LEA and a private sector partner to develop the so-called “local school estate” concept and construct, maintain and operate the new facilities.
For more information, see: http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk”>http://http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk
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