Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

Ms Yvonne Croskery (Department for Employment and Learning): I have brought some new faces with me today. I am joined by Carol Magill, who is heading up the youth training review; Michael Armstrong, who has been working in the review team since it was first created; and David Broadhurst, who has been at the Committee before.

The Chairperson (Mr Swann): Thank you, Yvonne. It is over to you.

Ms Croskery: We submitted a slide show and a series of written briefings, because, at that stage, we thought that we were not able to be slotted in. We are really pleased to be here today to talk to the Committee about our work in youth training. If it is OK with you, I will walk through the slide show very quickly with my colleagues to set the scene of where we are.

In essence, the review is examining vocational training provision at level 2, which is broadly equivalent to GCSE, to ensure that our future youth training offer has sufficient breadth and depth to allow progression either into that level 3 apprenticeship, into level 3 further education and beyond, or into employment. The review has not been standing still. For the last while, we have been very busy. Following the study visits to the Netherlands, Denmark and Scotland, we have gathered a comprehensive evidence base; completed a literature review and an economic evidence storyboard; had a series of stakeholder engagements over the summer to help to inform our work going forward; and carried out an online survey of our employers. It has now entered its final stage as we come towards the publication of an interim report, which we hope to be in a position to do in early November.

On that note, I will talk through the slides, because, if we can articulate the vision and let you visualise what the model will look like, it creates that understanding. To start off with, Northern Ireland’s future youth training will comprise a system of learning that is underpinned through a new professional and technical curriculum offer that will facilitate seamless progression into an apprenticeship, employment or further learning. We want it to be recognised nationally and internationally by employers and further and higher education providers alike for its quality, flexibility and transferability. We believe that the system will need to be a conduit to support the young person’s lifelong employment and learning journey. It needs to be informed by employers and designed to take cognisance of the employer's current and future needs to match better demand and supply so that it offers that rite of passage for the young person into those professional and technical occupations, delivering seamless progression routes.

We do not want young people to stop at level 2. We want them to move into this education system with this new curriculum, no matter where they start, so that — I shared this with the Committee when I was here before — they can move seamlessly between the vocational and the academic routes and aspire to go right to the top of their profession or occupation and even to move across occupations. The system will embed the wider skills of citizenship and good relations, which, I think, are key to our community, to ensure that our young people have the necessary tools to make a significant contribution to an inclusive society in which diversity is recognised, respected and valued.

That is the high-level vision that we are setting for this piece of work, and, before I pass over to Carol, I will say that the biggest change that we are expressing to you all today is that we are coming forward with a youth training system right across Northern Ireland. We are not just reviewing one wee bit of what DEL does; we are looking at a system of learning right across Northern Ireland at level 2. Without further ado, I will hand over to Carol.

Ms Carol Magill (Department for Employment and Learning): The youth training system will have two routes: the employed route for 16- to 24-year-olds; and the non-employed route for 16- to 17-year-olds. The core of the offer will equate to five GCSEs at grades A* to C, including English and mathematics.

Ms Croskery: It will be a new baccalaureate-style qualification. Apologies for interjecting, but it is important that you get that into your heads. It is not what we have at the minute; it is a new curriculum, offering the equivalent of five GCSEs, including maths and English. It will be a baccalaureate-style qualification that young people will aspire to have and will see as a route that offers them progression.

Ms Magill: Key to all that is employer engagement, and the design and delivery of that is vital. The sectoral partnerships, which we established through the Northern Ireland strategy on apprenticeships, will define the curriculum for both routes, and employers will be supported and incentivised to offer employment and work placement opportunities to ensure that training reflects current needs. So, employers are key to that process.

I will now hand you over to Michael and David, who will go through the proposals and the themes in a little more detail.

Mr David Broadhurst (Department for Employment and Learning): Let me set out the way that the report will be structured. There will be five main themes — that is the way that we are drafting it at the minute. Those themes are: delivering relevant training to young people; integrating structured work-based learning; pastoral support to young people throughout their training; ensuring the relevance of said training to employers in the labour market; and ensuring quality across all provision.

The first theme is delivering relevant training. I understand that you have seen a number of the emerging proposals, which are in your packs. I will talk through those briefly. Delivering relevant training will be available through both the employed and the non-employed routes, as Carol said, and they will be able to access it from a job. It will be targeted at 16- and 17-year-olds who are not in employment, and 16- to 24-year-olds who are in employment.

Ms Croskery: Let me just say that there are two routes. There is the young person who has not quite secured the job, and the young person who has a job and he or she is either entering the labour market for the first time or is already in a job. We are going to be offering this to those three cohorts, and that is really different from Northern Ireland. It means that any young person who does not quite know what they want to do and does not have a job will go through that. At the minute, we call it the non-employed route, but we will get a better title as we move forward. It will give that breadth. There will be the other two cohorts of young people: one who is already in a job, aged 16 to 24, and one who enters the labour market between 16 and 24 for the first time. They are going to be offered, through this youth training system, a new qualification that is equivalent to level 2, or five GCSEs, including maths and English. Why are we doing that? Because we know that that is what the labour market needs, it is what Northern Ireland's young people need, and we want to give them a qualification, while in work, that allows them that breadth and depth to move right through the employment journey. I am sorry for cutting across you, David, but it is important to visualise that. If you do not get that, the message is lost.

Mr Broadhurst: Theme 2 is on integrating structured work-based learning. Some of the proposals that we have put forward include a mandatory element of training; employers inputting the design of the work-based learning on a sector-by-sector basis; a central service to source and facilitate work placements for young people; and industry consultants, as we have called them, working on a regional basis to help to source those work placements. Other proposals are for a list of registered and approved employers — a database, if you will; incentives for small and microbusinesses to engage with youth training; and the Department will work with key stakeholders, such as councils, to try to get this to work on a local basis.

I will pass over to Michael so that he can outline the remaining themes.

Mr Michael Armstrong (Department for Employment and Learning): The list of proposals that you got was not subdivided into these themes, so we are sorting them into themes to structure the report.

The third theme, which was identified in feedback from our expert panel and other key stakeholders as being really important, was providing pastoral support for young people. This new youth training offer, by delivering a breadth of qualification at level 2 equivalent to five GCSEs at A* to C, including English and maths, may be challenging for young people, and they may need additional pastoral support to help them through that training process to achieve at that level and then progress.

So, some of the key proposals under this theme are that we support young people through other measures to gain qualifications at entry level and level 1 before progressing into the new youth training system. That is a check that they can achieve at level 1 before moving into level 2 provision and achieving at that level.

Another proposal is that every young person in the youth training system, regardless of who is providing the training, should have access to pastoral support to enable them to access the training and to support them through their options before they progress to higher-level routes.

A further key part, which aims to bring in some of the ongoing other work that the Department is doing with the careers review, is that young people should receive an independently verified assessment of their training needs from careers advisers or other sources at key transition points. That should be informed by local labour market data so that the young person is having a frank conversation with a careers adviser on the area of work that they want to go into for training and on the possible labour market opportunities that they can have on completing training.

A final element is to ensure financial support. Regardless of whether they are in the two routes that Yvonne outlined, they should be either getting a wage because they are in employment, or they should receive a training allowance if they are not yet in employment and are going through a work placement. Additional support should be put in place, beyond that training allowance, financial support and pastoral support, for young people who have additional requirements, in particular for young people with disabilities or those from a background of care.

A final point under this theme is that the host employers, who take the young person on for this crucial work-based learning that David outlined, should provide workplace mentors. Every young person in their work placement or undertaking the training while in work should have a dedicated point of contact with their employer, who is mentoring them, taking them through those training processes and preparing them for work.

A further key theme is helping out young people. We identified pastoral support, but beyond the setting of the level 2 as five GCSEs A* to C, including English and maths, there was a further need to ensure that the training offer was relevant to employers as well and delivered for their needs. So, some of the key proposals under this theme were that sectoral partnerships, in line with the apprenticeships report, should define the curriculum offer for training at level 2. Those sectoral partnerships, which are being set up through the apprenticeships strategy and which define the offer at level 3 and above for apprenticeships, should also inform the curriculum offer at level 2 so that it is designed by employers' representatives and with employers in mind.

The funding for training should be weighted to align with the priority sectors of the Northern Ireland economy so that training is matched to our long-term economic needs on a larger scale. Finally, in the context of engaging not only employers but young people and parents, who are the key stakeholders in delivering youth training, the youth training system as a whole and those two routes should be supported by clear marketing and branding to sell the offer of this professional and technical qualification as being of equal weight to the academic routes that are available through GCSEs at level 2.

The final theme that we identified, similar to the apprenticeships report, is on the quality of the system as a whole, and I will pass back to David to discuss that.

Mr Broadhurst: The last theme, as Michael outlined, is ensuring quality. We have come up with some proposals to try to ensure quality throughout the system. In the work-based learning, we think that there should be a clear, contractual framework so that the employer signs up to delivering certain things right at the start and everybody knows clearly what they have to do. Employers will be required to complete a registration and approval process, almost as a mark of quality, to say that this employer will deliver what they are required to as part of the youth training system.

Individuals delivering both the work-based and the non-work-based elements of training will be required to have relevant industry experience, within perhaps a certain time frame — whatever that may be; we have yet to decide — to deliver this training. It will be underpinned by independent data collection, analysis and evaluation. One of the things that we found is that a lot of the data that we were looking for did not exist or was not gathered in a way that we found useful, so we are going to put forward that there needs to be better data collection. Young people will have the opportunity to provide feedback on their experience. We envisage this as a kind of 360-degree review so that young people, the employer and the provider can all feedback, and there will be quality going forward on that basis.

I will pass you back to Yvonne.

Ms Croskery: I will finish very quickly on the next steps. We will draft an interim report, and the Minister will make a statement to the House, which we hope will happen in November, as I said. We will then go out to full public consultation. A normal consultation takes 12 weeks, but, obviously, as this falls over Christmas, we will be looking to extend the period to make sure that we get as wide an engagement as possible. As part of the stakeholder engagement, we will be going out on the highways and byways to talk to the people who really matter, including young people, providers and voluntary and community organisations to take their views on what we have come up with so that that can help to shape our final proposals.

I suppose that we have shared the nuts and bolts of our findings. In fairness, you have to be able to visualise a system in Northern Ireland that will replace what we have at the minute, be unique and distinct, offer a baccalaureate-type system for young people who do not have quite have a job and build in work experience. What is different about this is that it will give young people who are already in a level 2 job but who do not have the full level 2 an opportunity to get this new qualification. It will be recognised by further and higher education as a passport — I talked about it as a rite of passage — so that, later on, if they want to go up in the job, they have the opportunity to do so.

Anyway, over to you for questions. Thank you for listening.

The Chairperson (Mr Swann): Yvonne, you said that the baccalaureate is the equivalent of five GCSEs. What conversations have you had with the Department of Education on that?

Ms Croskery: That Department is represented by a senior official on our expert panel. We are having conversations with that Department and have received very positive feedback from it. It is very interested in what we are doing and in how it will be valuable to some of the work that it is involved in. I have to say that we have a senior official from that Department on the expert panel, and we have had meetings at a senior level as a result of the various slides that I shared with you and the members today. The Department of Education is very excited about what we are proposing, so we are encouraged by that.

The Chairperson (Mr Swann): This question comes down to phraseology. Sometimes departmental language throws me completely. There were many references in your slides and in your presentation of the "skills barometer mechanism". In plain English, can you tell me what that is?

Ms Croskery: In plain English, we have engaged with the Northern Ireland Centre for Economic Policy (NICEP) to look at demand-and-supply issues in our economy at a granular level. It has commissioned a piece of work, which it will be doing annually and eventually quarterly, that will set the scene for where the jobs of today and tomorrow are going to be and where the growth areas will be. That is the barometer mechanism in layman's terms. It is a very simple process. "The barometer" sounds wonderful, but that is what it is in a nutshell. It is about bringing in extra expertise to better inform where we will have jobs for apprenticeships and youth training at level 2 today and tomorrow and where the growth areas for the future are. We are trying to match the pipeline to the supply. We do not want to put young people into areas where there will be no jobs or prospects. We will have a lot to answer for if we keep doing that.

Ms McGahan: Thank you for your presentation. Under the theme of key developments, regarding your study visits to the Netherlands, Denmark and Scotland to look at models of international best practice, I was wondering whether you could furnish the Committee with a report on the outcomes of that, if you are not able to give an overview now.

Mr Armstrong: We can do both, because we have a report for each of the three study visits. We can give a brief overview now if you want.

Ms McGahan: I have to leave to attend an OFMDFM Committee meeting, but I would be content for you to provide a report.

Ms Croskery: We will provide the reports, and you will see the detail of what we found. They were exemplars of good practice, and they have informed a lot of our thinking going forward. That is what is new and innovative about this work. We are not looking internally all the time; we are looking beyond our shores at how we can improve.

Mr Hilditch: I am glad that you raised that point about departmental language

It is getting worse.

In a major departure from what happens currently, young people are going to receive independently verified initial assessments. That will obviously be carried out by the trainer. Who will do that, and how is it going to work?

Mr Armstrong: This again comes down to language. It is something that we reflect in the

process, because we have feedback from our expert panel, in particular training providers on our expert panel, who said that they use initial assessment when a young person first starts in training to shape the offer according to their needs. So an individual young person may have more literacy than numeracy needs, so their training is structured in that way. When we say "independent initial assessment" in these early proposals, we are really talking about the Careers Service stepping in and having that conversation, informed by the barometer to say, "You should look at training in these areas, because they match up to job opportunities in your area".

Mr Hilditch: So, there is not another layer coming in there.

Ms Croskery: No. There is no extra layer. We are bringing the Careers Service in at that starting point to give independent advice to that young person before they go on their route in this training system to establish what they have already got, what they need, what labour market intelligence says,

and where the jobs are at the minute — all those things. The young person is not shoehorned into something; this is independent assessment at the very start. I think that you will all agree that we very much need that to make sure that people are not being put into a provision that does not meet their needs and aspirations or is not flexible enough if they want to change.

Mr Hilditch: Is there little change in the financial support?

Ms Croskery: In fairness, this is at a strategic level. We will be working through how we join up all our programmes. The challenge for us is how much a training allowance will be, what it will equate to and where it will sit when young people get to 18 when, if eligible, they draw down jobseeker's allowance. Those are challenges for policy development. I do not have the answers at the minute, but we will be looking at that to make sure that we try to strike a balance that encourages people to get the learning and qualifications that they need and do not have barriers put in their way.

The Chairperson (Mr Swann): Yvonne, may I ask whether any of your team have a mobile phone switched on? We are having trouble with the recording of the meeting. I do not know where it is coming from.

Mr F McCann: I have one question. At the start, there was some confusion when we talked about the provision of apprenticeships, and we were told that the review that was being done was about bringing people through high-level apprenticeships to meet the jobs demand. There were then some concerns about where that would leave people on youth training and how the needs of people who wanted to go on to apprenticeships would be met. There still seems to be that gap. I may have missed it, but one of the things that we have continually argued is that there was a problem with the level 2 of the two-year post. People could be training at apprenticeship level for a specific employment post and say at year 2 that they wanted to do another year because that would help them to become an electrician, plasterer or bricklayer. Can that be facilitated?

Ms Croskery: This will allow seamless progression. The level 2 will be built and informed in such a way that will allow that young person to move seamlessly into taking forward a level 3 apprenticeship. That is the purpose of this. It is about making sure that the curriculum aligns to that so that we do not have a mismatch if somebody does a level 2 and then comes along to do a level 3 apprenticeship only to be told, "Oh, hold on. What you did there doesn't meet this. You need this and this". We are looking at using the sectoral-partnership approach to make sure that we inform the curriculum at level 2 to allow that progression into the level 3 apprenticeship and beyond into higher-level apprenticeships as a seamless route. The curriculum should match it and afford that progression.

Mr Armstrong: We are proposing that the two years cover the youth training aspects only. So, someone could complete their youth training at level 2 offer in two years and then progress into an apprenticeship.

Ms Croskery: That is it exactly.

Mr F McCann: I take it that there are mechanisms to ensure that young people who are going out to gain work experience or work training are not doing meaningless tasks.

Ms Croskery: We will police that through a central service where we hold a bank of approved employers, and there will be checks and balances, because we are very concerned about that. This is not about putting young people into an occupation where the work experience that they get is at a very menial level. That is the very reason that we will use the central service. It will be our role to police that.

Ms Lo: Congratulations to the Department and the Minister for doing a raft of reviews. I think that it is so important to look at what we have been doing and try to coordinate services, work with other Departments and try to help our young people. Youth unemployment is far too high, and we are losing those young people as an asset to our society and economy. Are the three routes, which is an idea that I like, compulsory or voluntary?

Ms Croskery: It will be voluntary; it will not be compulsory. We will look at encouraging employers and young people, but if we get the quality of what we offer out there right, I firmly believe that employers will want their employees to go through that route and young people will aspire to do it and might make choices at an earlier stage. At the minute, we are picking up young people who perhaps do not have their GCSE maths and English, and this will offer an alternative route of equal value and a seamless progression into an occupational area of their choice.

Ms Lo: Will there be any subsidy for employers?

Ms Croskery: Phil was with me earlier when we were talking about economic inactivity. I have a series of challenges around incentivisation of apprenticeships, youth training and economic inactivity, and I want to share with the Committee that we will look at that across our Department to get the weighting and those considerations right. We do not want to use incentives as the only way to get an employer to take a young person, and, in some areas, we will want to use more of an incentive, because the people who we are working with might be harder to reach. But, yes, there will be incentives, and we are working through the policy detail. Once we get through the strategy and get back the views of the public, SMEs, the voluntary and community and the young people, we will work through policies around that.

The Chairperson (Mr Swann): Yvonne and the rest of the team, thank you very much for your time. Can we have prior sight of the consultation?

Ms Croskery: We will get that to you before it goes live, and the document will be sent through to the Clerk.