Agenda item

Hannah Jones, Gareth James, Stephen Cooper and William Austin presented the report. Hannah Jones answered the members’ questions with Stephen Cooper and Cath Fallon.

Challenge:

What is the difference in the numbers of apprentices mentioned?

Where 168 are mentioned, this is existing staff who are looking to upskill: anyone who is undertaking a Level 2-4 qualification or NVQ is considered an apprentice as well.

The elephant in the room is funding. For the projects outlined, £2.2m is coming from the European Social Fund, of which £1.1m is for the Infuse scheme. For the other schemes, where do you expect to achieve funds to cover that shortfall?

We are working with the other CCR authorities to develop a co-designed collaborative model for future employment and skills – this will give us more flexibility and value-based cost-effectiveness. There are workshops this week to look at the model. But finances are a concern – there is a big financial implication for the authority, which we want to minimise. We are looking at local and regional solutions, and will work up more detailed proposals to take to Cabinet. We haven’t heard about the community renewal fund, which is unfortunate.

Adding the schemes together comes to roughly £1m. Will that come from Welsh Government? How much will MCC contribute?

Annually, we receive approximately £327k of grant funding for the Inspire2Achieve, Inspire2Work, and Skills@Work projects. We fund the other £187k delivery costs from our core budget, taking up the majority of our total £199k core funding.

If no European Social Fund money comes in, you will look for a significant increase from MCC to keep these schemes going?

We are looking to successive programmes but unfortunately are still waiting for details from UK and Welsh Government.

In Item 3.2, ‘Next Steps’ mentions Torfaen leading on an employability paper for the 10 CCR authorities. How do we make our voice heard, as a rural council and something of an outlier, compared to the others?

Newport is our lead authority on the current schemes. When developing the model for Monmouthshire, our voices were heard. We have been meeting for 18 months as 10 authorities, developing the model, and looking at local intelligence. Going forward, we think we are in a stronger position to reduce risk. There are bigger contractors coming into the local authority, working pan-UK and pan-Wales – we want to be in that space. We have a 10-authority approach to employability and skills, with the local delivery plan sitting behind it, that is flexible and adaptable to the needs of our county.

Regarding Key Stage 2 Inspire To Achieve and supported children, can the low Chepstow numbers be explained?

We have a data system in which we…attendance, behaviour, and wellbeing at Key Stage 2. One of the criteria identifies young people who need the most support, then the worker will have a professional discussion with the primary school. Everything has been taken into consideration to support the young people at Chepstow stepping up from primary into secondary, but we can double-check the figures.

Can we have more information on the HGV shortage work?

We met with Torfaen at a jobs fair yesterday – they funded a few of their clients through the process. But it is very expensive e.g. approximately £1700 per client, for a test, competency-related exam, and to pay for the licence. We are looking, with ELOs from various councils around us, to see if we can go to Welsh Government to seek further funding. Then, if clients come forward who are already with Melin or MHA, perhaps we can spread the cost. We are in the planning stage; we have identified the need, hopefully our plan will be successful.

The funding issue is critical in expanding these services. There’s an appropriate role for Welsh Government in ensuring that these schemes continue.

Regarding successor funding, the team is working regionally – and the Chief Officer at a national level – to identify alternative funding streams once European funding ends. This is a UK-wide issue. We will update the committee as we progress. Although Infuse sits as part of this portfolio, there is no direct match funding from the authority that goes into it. We support the programme through ‘match funding in kind’ i.e. officer time to support it. So, while it constitutes a large chunk of the programme it runs somewhat outside the delivery of what our employment and skills team does.

3.2.2 discusses an employability paper. Is there an idea of timescale for the final version going to Cabinet?

We’re looking for a date in December to go to Cabinet, so are working up the paper now. It has been agreed by the CCR strategic board. We will take it to the departmental management team, senior leadership team, then Cabinet.

Regarding the Evolutive model in 6.3, we need to match skills to what businesses actually require. Can we be updated on what is happening, and on introducing this system?

We met with neighbouring local authorities to look at the system and understand how it works. We then met with SRS to look at a different plan, to see if there is a better system. We have worked up a paper to go to Enterprise DMT, following sign-off from SRS. Then we will go back to the Evolutive company to start setting it up, hopefully this side of Christmas, for it to then go live January-March. We have face-to-face and e-mail contact with our businesses, but this will give us the skills intelligence to look at trends and the bigger landscape for Monmouthshire. Feedback from other authorities is that it has been a valuable tool for them. We would like to update the committee on its progress around April.

These schemes are so useful for young people to gain experience of a different environment and work.

We have submitted a proposal for a Kickstart placement to support Evolutive as part of a team as well – there should be lots of young people with valuable I.T. experience who will jump at that opportunity.

Chair’s Summary:

This is an excellent project, but more money is needed to ensure its continuation beyond the end of the financial year; clearly, that cannot just come from MCC but will need substantial input from Welsh Government.