CATCH22 – WRITTEN EVIDENCE (YUN0055)

Youth Unemployment Committee inquiry

Catch22 is a large social business and charity, delivering public services right across the social welfare cycle supporting 120,000 people a year, from children’s social care through to alternative provision education, employability programmes, apprenticeships, and prison rehabilitation, working with some of the most vulnerable young people in society. Last year Catch22 supported nearly 400 students to progress onto further education or training and helped 523 people into paid employment. We also supported 2500 young people with employability skills through our NCS programmes.

Our employability work

Catch22 currently delivers 11 different employability programmes, runs 7 colleges for 16-19 year olds and as a government registered training provider, provides a range of apprenticeships for all industries. We work across the UK with individuals and employers to get the right people into the right jobs in the right places. Through our extensive network of local and national partners, we go out into communities to support individuals who face barriers to work, such as those who have:

-          Criminal convictions to declare

-          Low confidence

-          Mental health issues

-          Long term unemployment

-          Learning and physical disabilities

-          Substance misuse

-          Housing issues

-          Lone parents

We help individuals who are struggling to find employment, many of whom have been particularly hard hit by the Covid-19 pandemic. Our aim is to ensure everyone is given the opportunity to find a career that suits their individuality. They receive guidance on future career pathways and the benefits of being back in the workplace.

WHAT CHALLENGES ARE YOUNG PEOPLE FACING?

With youth unemployment levels rising, focus is right on programmes and initiatives that can help young people get into work, and crucially that they are meaningful and sustainable placements. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated many employment problems which already existed for young people:

• Too many short-term or zero-hour contracts
• Very little focus on upskilling and developing a young, motivated workforce
• Traditional early-stage career jobs in retail or hospitality have disappeared overnight
• Huge numbers of young people out of work competing for the same jobs
• Young people are suffering from poor mental health and wellbeing, with little support
• Digital exclusion is a huge barrier: 23% of children in the poorest families don’t have home access to broadband and a laptop, desktop, or tablet[1], 13 million people lack the digital skills they need for work[2] , and, 11.9 million (22%) of people do not have the skills for everyday life – the ability to manage money online, engage in government services and find a job online.[3]

Solutions:

1. Quality, sustainable employment :

• Employability programmes must be focused on finding young people sustainable, long-term roles. Horizons, our flagship employability programme, is one of the first to address both unemployment and underemployment: where work is either low paid, unstable or without opportunities to progress.
• Any employment schemes must focus on wraparound support and skills building. As part of the Government’s Kickstart scheme, we created Kickstart Community to help people aged 16-24 into 6-month work placements. Our approach is to build wider skills and support young people (and the employers) during the placements so that the placements lead to longer term employment – beyond the end of 12 months.
• There needs to be a more strategic plan in place that embeds employability and transferable skills in schools as well as having the appropriate advice and guidance that support a young person to understand what opportunities are available and know where and how to access them. 
• Many of our programmes also offer pre-employment and pre-apprenticeship training programmes free of charge to service users. Depending on the programme, they may focus on soft skills and building confidence, or they may focus on technical skills that can get a person ready for a prestigious digital apprenticeship, for example. 
• We must look to sectors which have talent shortages – such as the tech and construction sectors. Microsoft analysis on data from LinkedIn suggests that there is capacity in the UK for 3million new Tech jobs by 2025 across software development/engineering, data analysis and cyber security etc. As part of this we must focus on supporting young people to identify transferrable skills.

2. A vision for a digitally included Britain:

• The pandemic has brought into sharp focus the extent of the digital divide in Britain. 1.5 million households are without access to the internet[4] and 22% of the UK population lack basic digital skills[5]. The children in these households, many in rural and hard to reach areas, are at risk of falling – and being left – further behind in their education. Young people seeking work are missing opportunities to seek and apply for jobs.
• We are currently campaigning for a coherent, cross-sector, sustainable digital strategy to ensure no one is disadvantaged by a lack of access to a device, data or the skills they need for education, employment and living in an increasingly digital society.
• Catch22’s employability services have been able to access courses through our existing partners, such as Microsoft and Google, to help service users upskill during lockdowns. For many, this may be basic digital skills – which counters the assumption that young people are inherently digitally capable.

“Along with our own digital skills development, we’ve had to add training to almost all service users too to ensure we are developing everyone’s transferable skills, so that they can adapt in these times.”- Assistant Director of Employability at Catch22, Emma Allix

3. Actively finding young people in harder to reach communities:

• Our teams do not wait for unemployed people to find them. All of Catch22’s work, across all our services, is focused on outreach – going out into community centres and job centres, or as referrals from other public services, to ensure that we find those who need us, in a location and in a way that works for them.
• Government schemes should not solely target those claiming universal credit (UC) – there are many reasons why young people do not claim UC such as stigma, lack of digital access or understanding of the process. They must be accessible to any young person who is out of work but not claiming UC, or for those who have been furloughed for a long time. 

4. Addressing poor mental health and wellbeing:

• The pandemic has exacerbated and created mental health problems for huge numbers of young people. We must never assume that a young person is in the right mindset to be able to gain and succeed in employment, without the right kind of mental health support as part of the process. This is outside of the clinical boundaries for mental health provision.

“We’ve held wellbeing sessions – particularly with Bright Light, which supports care leavers. In some cases, we are the one main, stable contact for that young person – that one lifeline for some of these isolated young people. It’s essential that we can offer support in all areas, particularly during this last year.” - Assistant Director of Employability at Catch22, Emma Allix

5. Ensuring all employability programmes provide wraparound support:

• Our Inspiring Families participant, Hayley, says that the support she has received over the last 12 months was invaluable, after she unexpectedly found herself as a single mum, with a large work history gap, and real lack of confidence returning to the job market. Hayley’s support advisor worked with her on her CV, cover letters, and with practice interviews, and Hayley is now an employment advisor herself.

“I had an amazing work advisor who worked with me very closely. She worked with me to help me understand the skills I did have. She helped me my potential for myself.”

6. Mobilise young people so they become active citizens

• There is growing momentum around the idea of mobilising young people and equipping them with the skills to become active citizens and contribute to their local communities in a meaningful way, like the National Citizen Service does for some young people already. This is particularly where the demand for social activity is growing and jobs are at a premium. Such ideas – including the ‘year of service’ and the ‘youth corps’ would see Government provide money to employers to subsidise the wages of young people, meaning they would be paid a wage equivalent to that of an apprentice.  The young person would be deployed into a role that meets the needs of their community – allowing them to gain work experience, positively contribute to society and once completed, enter sustained work. 

 WHAT CHALLENGES ARE EMPLOYERS FACING?

• Job search support for young people only works if sufficient new jobs exist and employers feel comfortable and confident to employ young people. More clarity is needed about what is being done to support businesses long-term, and therefore the provision of high-quality sustainable jobs. While there was relief when government schemes were launched, many businesses, especially SMEs are cautious about taking on any new staff due to uncertainty about continued support from the Government.
• There is a lack of funding to support disadvantaged groups into the labour market. Before the pandemic there were over £3m people out of work who wanted to work including nearly £1m young people outside full-time education or training. This is needed to enable young people to have the right kinds of skills and wraparound support to succeed in the jobs employers do have available.
• Myths persist about the value of apprenticeships. From the many conversations we have with employers, students, parents and employees, it’s clear that some myths around apprenticeships persist. These include the idea that apprenticeships are only available for trades and that there’s little advantage for businesses in taking on an apprentice. 

Solutions:

7. The Government needs to be clear in its intention

• Some of the policies recently announced, which are aimed at helping young people, are yet to have a positive impact. Kickstart was creating just 13 jobs a day for young people in February while 292 were becoming unemployed daily. Solutions which are focused on long-term, sustainable employment options – for employers as well as young people - must be developed and communicated.
• The nation needs more championing of the value of young people, the benefits that their creativity brings, and the responsibility we all have to help them recover.

8. The Government and employers should work closely with civil society

• Many charities act as a bridge between government schemes and employers, to submit applications for the likes of Kickstart. Civil society organisations who operate in this way, and truly understand the needs of their communities, should be able to use funding to go further than acting as an intermediary, enabling initiatives like Catch22’s Kickstart Community – where civic organisations can work together, at pace, to bring together purposeful employers and young people, while offering wrap-around holistic support – support which leads to sustainable jobs filled by young people who have been mentored throughout.

• By working with employers and employees before, during and at least six months after an employment placement, this increases the likelihood of sustained, permanent employment in any role. We extend this support through all of our employability programmes, which we run with partners and funders including the likes of Barclays and JP Morgan, Microsoft, and Salesforce. 

9. Build more flexibility, and incentives into the apprenticeship levy

• The idea of building more flexibility into how businesses can spend their apprenticeship levy is a good one – particularly as so many are effectively losing thousands of pounds each year.  A percentage of the levy could be allocated to ‘off the job costs’ – for example recruitment costs or the salary of an apprenticeship manager – as an added incentive for employers to continue (and ideally expand) their apprenticeship programmes. It could also be used for purchasing quality, targeted pre-employment training, which supports young, inexperienced participants into apprenticeships – and vitally gives them a direct route into employment. And for those young people from low-income backgrounds, unused levy could be used to purchase tech equipment, to mitigate the impact of digital poverty.

In conclusion

As society and businesses begin to open up, new value must be given to youth employment. As we continue to place young people into some of the most forward-thinking businesses and organisations, we will continue to ask:

• Is this young person able to develop their talent?
• How can we build the social capital of the young person we are working with?
• And how many of these jobs are leading to sustainable long-term careers?

12th May 2021