Ambition 2020: World Class Skills and Jobs for the UK

The UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES) has recently published its state of the nations report, ‘Ambition 2020: World Class Skills and Jobs for the UK’. The report challenges the government and business to raise their efforts, their ambitions, and the nation’s skills to prevent the UK slipping behind its international competitors over the next ten years.

The report shows significant improvements in the UK’s skills levels over the last decade but finds that urgent action needs to be taken now to ensure post-recession success and to reach the goal of being in the top eight countries in the world for productivity, employment and skills by 2020. The report’s findings include a fundamental mismatch between supply and demand in the labour market and state that to achieve the recommended goals will require an additional 20 million qualifications by 2020.

Read the report on the UKCES website.

MCMC good practice studies published

Production of Case Studies of Flexible Learning and Support Packages for Young People who Require More Choices and More Chances
Kevin Lowden, Alison Devlin, Stuart Hall, George Head, Jon Lewin

The full report is also accompanied by research findings 47/2009.
The document is also available in pdf format (392k)

The study was commissioned by The Scottish Government (2007-08) and was intended to inform a series of papers on 'Building the Curriculum' being prepared as part of the implementation of Curriculum for Excellence ( CfE).

The study had several key objectives:

• To identify and select five case studies of provision for young people who require More Choices and More Chances ( MCMC). These were selected to illustrate a range of provision in different contexts, and identified as examples of good practice by a range of key stakeholders across Scotland.
• To gain a detailed understanding of the activities and achievements of the organisations, partnerships or programmes within the case studies.
• To identify the factors influencing success in each case study and assess how any challenges had been addressed.
• The research methods varied to suit the case study contexts but generally involved interviews with providers, pupils, and parents, and scrutiny of providers' own evaluations and monitoring information.

Within each case study, the findings are arranged under headings reflecting key areas of interest to the study: the experience of pupils and outcomes, an overview of provision, factors influencing provision and finally, future developments and sustainability.

Future Jobs Fund to create 15,000 jobs across Scotland

The Future Jobs Fund, announced as part of the April 2009 Budget, is a major new initiative which will operate across the UK. It is designed to create 15,000 jobs across Scotland between October 2009 and April 2011.

The 18 month initiative is focused on young people aged 18-24 who have been on Job Seekers Allowance but it will also support some long-term unemployed people who have barriers to employment or live in areas with high concentrations of unemployment.

A key element of the programme is that the jobs created should provide community benefit and in Scotland there is an expectation that over 1,000 green jobs will be created as well as jobs in social care, childcare, health, energy efficiency, sports and the arts. Funding of around £95m will be available in Scotland and this will fund the costs of employing an individual for six months on at least a minimum wage.

The programme is an opportunity for the third sector in Scotland to extend the range of services it provides to communities across Scotland as well as contributing to the challenge of young people and long-term unemployment. It also provides an opportunity for people to stay connected to the labour market and deliver genuine benefit to their local area.

Get in touch with SCVO if you are interested in getting involved or have ideas on jobs that could be created within your organisations or community. Contact: SCVO, phone: 0141 225 8017

Latest unemployment and job vacancy results published

The latest unemployment and Jobcentre vacancy figures are out today for West Lothian (Job Seekers Allowance (JSA) based figures).

• The number of JSA jobless in West Lothian for April is 4,530. This is an increase of 52 on the March 2009 figure, and is the highest total for West Lothian since September 1996.
• West Lothian's unemployment rate of 4.2% is higher than both the Scottish (3.9%) and Great Britain (4.1%) rates, and excluding last month's similar rate, is higher than at any time since February 1997.
• West Lothian's unemployment rate ranks joint 12th highest (with South Lanarkshire) out of all Scottish local authority areas.
• There were 786 notified Jobcentre vacancies in April - a net decrease from March 2009 of 15 vacancies.
• Similar to last month, there are approximately 6 jobseekers for every vacancy advertised in West Lothian jobcentres. In comparison, Scotland's ratio is 5.5:1, Great Britain is 6.4:1 with West Dunbartonshire having the highest ratio of 14.0:1 (14 jobseekers to every vacancy) of claimants to vacancies of Scottish local authorities.

JSA based unemployment figures do not provide the full picture. However, the headline JSA figure does help to indicate the latest trend or change at a national or local level and whether the economic down turn is beginning to bite. The Government's favoured method of measuring unemployment - the ILO method does not readily translate into up-to-date local area estimates.
The Jobseeker's Allowance (JSA) is payable to people under pensionable age who are available for, and actively seeking, work.

Home Energy Apprenticeship scheme announced

More than 100 individuals in Scotland are to be offered a place in a new Home Energy Apprenticeship Programme.

The Scottish Government will support Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE) in a Home Energy Apprenticeship Pilot Programme which will build a framework of energy professionals to support the company's long term ability to contribute to energy efficiency goals.

More information on Scottish Government website.

Extra Government jobs for unemployed

More Scottish Government jobs will be made available to individuals who face increased barriers to employment.

Speaking at the Welfare to Work Convention in Stirling the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning, Fiona Hyslop, announced that she had signed the Scottish Government's first ever Local Employment Partnership (LEP) with Jobcentre Plus.

Through the LEP the Scottish Government will put in place a number of measures to help support benefit claimants into work. Such measures might include pre-employment training, mentoring opportunities, supported placements through Get Ready for Work, and a review of their recruitment and selection methodologies to help make job opportunities in the Scottish Government more accessible to young people and adults further from the labour market.

Find out more from the Scottish Government website.

Redundancy funding boost from Europe

Extra help for those facing redundancy has been announced. Additional European Social Fund funding of £1.4 million will provide resources for the Scottish Government's PACE (Partnership Action for Continuing Employment) initiative to help people facing redundancy.

PACE is Scotland's partnership initiative providing help to organisations and employees when an organisation is facing potential redundancy situations. This funding will provide early help for businesses who unfortunately have to make people redundant. It will ensure employees can go straight from one job to another where possible. Doubling the number of careers advisers working with companies will allow them to intervene early in redundancy situations, to help employees on site in their place of work before they are made unemployed.

The funding is expected to help an additional 4,600 individuals through a variety of support including individual career planning interviews, individual employability sessions, careers planning group sessions and registrations on the website.

Further information on the announcement can be obtained from the Scottish Government website.

Changes to Individual Learning Accounts announced

Changes to the Individual Learning Accounts Scotland Scheme which will be available to learners in the 2009-10 academic year mean that up to 250,000 more people can now be helped to develop their learning when changing jobs or facing redundancy.

The changes are:

• the income threshold will be increased from £18,000 to £22,000 with nearly half the adult workforce now employed
• the minimum study requirement for the ILA £500 grant will be reduced from 50 per cent of a full-time course to 40 SCQF Credits
• eligible students studying part-time taught postgraduate courses (SCQF level 11) will be supported through the ILA500 scheme

For more information visit the Scottish Government website

Oatridge College offers free training places

Oatridge College reports receiving funding which could mean that young landbased workers can receive free training and qualifications.
Places are available for 16 to 19 year olds to study on a day or block release for Scottish Vocational Qualifications (SVQs) at levels 2 and 3 in a range of disciplines, including agriculture,
horticulture, greenkeeping, landbased engineering, animal care and equine studies. In many cases free transport may be provided and if necessary accommodation may be part-funded.
The number of places on offer is strictly limited and will be allocated on a “first-come-first-served” basis. Interested employers should contact Hilary Morton, the Workplace Learning Manager, Commercial Training, as soon as possible.
Hilary can be emailed at hmorton@oatridge.ac.uk or by telephone on 01506 864800.