2013-05-22T21:32:15-04:00 Mark Lovell http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/author/index.php?author=mark-lovell Copyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc. HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Mark Lovell Good old fashioned elbow grease. tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1230237 2012-01-25T05:09:48-05:00 2012-03-25T05:12:01-04:00

Mark Lovell http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-lovell/
Helping people like Steven isn't easy, but it's not impossible. Sometimes it takes more specialised support, which is why the Work Programme is designed to include a variety of organisations, from the private, public and third sectors, which have the skills to help people into work. This year, Steven had a proper Christmas dinner because he finally got a job, and one that he loves. And this is because of the specialist support he received through Bootstrap, a charity based in Lancashire who have been delivering social inclusion programmes for over 20 years - just like A4e.

Bootstrap is just one of the 96 Third Sector partners A4e works with under the Work Programme - more than 51% of all our partners. We have worked with partner suppliers for over 10 years delivering services like these. But a recent report by the National Council of Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) indicated a more general worry - a sense of concern experienced by a number of charities who have been sub-contracted to deliver the Work Programme, particularly with regard to what they see as exposure to financial risk which is unshielded by the prime provider they are contracted with.

Being exposed to financial risk is something A4e is well versed in managing. We first started pioneering this approach in 1992. By delivering the Work Programme under a Payment by Results (PBR) framework - something we actively championed - we are absorbing risk on behalf of Government and taxpayers, and taking it on ourselves. We do this because we combine commercial skills with social values. I have learned from more than two decades of building a business that tackles challenging - and often new - public services with outcome funding commercial models how to plan for the risk and cash requirements of these types of contracts. It is difficult to model and fully evidence the finance you need to run a 'new' programme, particularly on the scale of the Work Programme, but that's the nature of PBR markets. It is the direction we are going in - our public finances means there is not an option - so we have to learn and learn quickly.

As a 'Prime contractor', we take very significant headline financial risk, but this is different to 'shielding suppliers from risk', which the NCVO asserts is lacking. When we talk about suppliers, the picture is more complex than simply 'third sector' and 'other'. We have some suppliers who provide the full range of services required to help get someone into work (what we call an 'End to End' partner).

These make up 17% of our supply chain. We have other suppliers who have specialist skills to support someone with a specific problem, like drug addiction, homelessness or a criminal conviction, either through short interventions or during their entire journey into work (what we called 'Specialist Intervention' and 'Specialist End to End' partners). These make up 83% of our supply chain. Some suppliers are local to an area, and some have a national footprint, some are third sector, some are public and some are private. In some areas, A4e is sub-contracted to another Prime provider. Between us all we support hugely diverse groups of people, such as particular ethnic groups, older people, lone parents, under 25s, people with health difficulties, very long term unemployed people, graduates, executives, ex-offenders, faith based programmes and so on. Very few suppliers have dealt with such a diverse range of customer groups and we have actively sought to develop these skills over the last 20 years. Public, private and third sector organisations all bring a rich diversity of talent and experience and we need all parties to make Work Programme successful. No one group has a monopoly on expertise.

The common thread is that all of us have had to build complex models to assess the finance we require to deliver our programmes effectively. We have done this on historical UK welfare programmes and in international markets in France, Israel and India. What many people fail to see is that we directly protect our Specialist Intervention partners by removing PBR requirements. These partners are brilliant at support on specific and challenging issues but they are not 'back to work' suppliers. We do not create contract models which link their payment to employment - that is our job. They help customers with particular barriers preventing their progress into work. It is hard to predict how many customers will need their services until we receive referrals from JCP but they do not have to manage 'outcome payment risk'. Out of these service partners, 54% are from the third sector - the largest single partner group we have.

When we consider financial risk, the nub of the issue is why some partners on the Work Programme are not receiving the referrals - and therefore the payment potential - they anticipated. It is a concern A4e shares, and it is a risk we have to take too. For a national programme of this magnitude, referral systems are working better than I have seen in many programmes in the past. At the last count, our partners are now receiving 33% of the total overall referrals to A4e. We expect that to continue to rise as long as we all hit our performance targets. There isn't a single third sector End to End or Specialist End to End partner on our books who isn't receiving referrals, and we work closely with them to manage fluctuations and variations. We also ensure partners get referrals that reflect their expertise and location - we do not send 'harder to help' to suppliers and 'deal with the easier customers' ourselves.

In five and half months of the Work Programme running, a lot has happened. JCP and Primes are working hard to get referrals working across all customer groups. Already thousands of people have moved into work - the focus is on making sure this is sustained. We continue to move referrals to our supply chain - voluntary, charitable, public sector and private. Very large sums of capital have been raised with banks to ensure the finance is available for the programme and massive investment is going to fund the services for the harder to help. We communicate openly and honestly with our partners and we listen when they have ideas and suggestions. We feed all of this back to the DWP, helping, where we can, smaller charities and suppliers get their message directly to Government.

We always knew it would be tough. I would be surprised if anyone who bid for a Work Programme contract would say otherwise. As early as 2010, we spent a considerable amount of time consulting with more than 1,000 third and public sector organisations ahead of the Work Programme, to prepare for the anticipated impact and to develop business plans accordingly. No one should have gone into this with their eyes shut and we worked hard with our partners to capacity build. To suggest that all charities are suddenly concerned about the level of financial risk they have been exposed to does a huge disservice to the business planning I know countless numbers of them have done.

Tenacity, determination and iteration will be needed to make the Work Programme effective. I know A4e and our supplier partners are doing everything we can to make the Work Programme work for the people who need it the most. At the end of the day, it's about the people who come to our branches and those of our partners looking for help. It's about people just like Steven.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1208675 2012-01-16T10:17:26-05:00 2012-03-17T05:12:01-04:00

Mark Lovell http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-lovell/
• 33% of JSA claimants have a criminal record;
• 26% of all claimants (just under 5m) have been cautioned or convicted in the last decade;
• 75% of people convicted in 2008 had claimed out of work benefits during the last two years;
• 50% of those released in 2008 were still claiming benefit two years later.

In addition, analysis of re-offending rates continue to show more than 50% of offenders reoffend and end up back in prison. If we are going to tackle this problem - and other public service challenges - this 'joined up' data and analysis across departments is essential. Only by considering the total system are we are going to get better public services, delivering better outcomes, at higher quality and lower cost.

Prevention of reoffending is an issue that is important to me. As A4e has developed, we have often employed people who have criminal records. Six years ago, when we started working on education initiatives in prisons, we wanted to employ an ex-offender on the team but due to the security requirements of the contract with the government, could not. I understand the risks but if we cannot show through public programmes how ex-offenders can re-engage with business, what example do we set to other employers?

More needs to be done and last year when I was at the Koestler Awards I talked frankly with a manager there about her problems in finding work with a record for white collar crime. The challenges she faced were significant. The links between stable employment and the impact on reoffending have been understood for a while. In 2002, the Social Exclusion Unit produced a study indicating that stable employment reduced reoffending by 30-50%. However, 'stable employment' requires a number of other support structures around the individual to assist in meeting that objective.

The media often focused on the willingness of employers - or lack of - to consider ex-offenders in various employment opportunities. This is a barrier that can be overcome. Many businesses will actively engage to work with ex-offenders - sure it needs more work yet, but some of the UK government's reforms will enable that. I want to highlight some other issues which need to be part of the UK 'rehabilitation revolution' if we are going to reduce recidivism significantly and for the long term.

Many departments/agencies of local and central government impact on the lives of an offender on their journey out of prison and back into society. My experience of A4e's work in providing employment and skills services to offenders on release as well as being a provider of education (not employment) services inside prison has highlighted a number of areas where various problems manifest in trying to develop coherent approaches to preventing reoffending. If we are going to introduce payment by results models, based on reducing re-offending - and we should - then we also need to find a way to commission services that will allow these issues to be addressed.

• Employer access: enabling employers who are willing to do so (and there are plenty) to come into prison to meet prospective employees and ensure training meets their needs. Similarly, prisoners need to be escorted by a guard to meet employers within the prison structure and, as resources reduce, this makes another potential barrier to supporting rehabilitation.

• Housing: given the movement of prisoners around prison estate throughout their sentence (which could see a London offender moved 200 miles away to the North West, then a week later shipped 100 miles east), finding them a secure place to live close to a prospective job is incredibly difficult. The reality is that an offender's 'home' location is, in the majority of cases, many miles from the prison they are held in. Therefore, the join up of housing benefit, finding somewhere, securing any other benefits pre-employment start and interfacing with probation services and other services is overly complex. It can also means that there is very little incentive for 'local' providers delivering with any proximity to a prison to provide in-reach support - the vast majority will be dispersed all over the country on release.

• Health needs: mental health difficulties in particular continue to be a very significant barrier to employment for many ex-offenders. The support in prison and the support on release requires much more coherent integration. Tackling mental health problems can be crucial in supporting people back into work- and more importantly sustaining it -so we must do more on this.

• Finance and debt support: the scale to which debt problems get worse for offenders whilst in prison and the challenges in dealing with finance on release are still very much underestimated. There are many ways to support this from current initiatives but agencies are insufficiently joined up and prisons are often unaware or unable to take advantage of plentiful available support.

• Social networks and family support: a key part of rehabilitation focuses on social networks and family engagement (often reengagement) to enable changes to previous behaviour. There is a proven and positive correlation between the number of social visits an offender receives whilst in custody and their outcomes on release. Again, this is an activity that is fragmented across the geographies of local government, service providers and the prison estate.

• Demand led training and employment in prisons: the activities in prison are too often focused on 'productive activity' - keeping people busy and not sufficiently aligned to the labour market prisoners will face on release. Much more needs to be done here. However, the reforms to prison education which will begin taking effect in Summer 2012 should finally address this.

My organisation delivers a range of these services inside and outside prison. However, even with that expertise, trying to join this up for prisoners and ex-offenders we have worked with is incredibly difficult. The requirement to work across multiple agencies in government, who are not tasked with integrating their service as part of a more holistic approach to keeping an ex-offender out of prison, means organisations in this space fail to make enough sustainable impact.

The implications of this are obvious. The longer it takes to sort out benefits or financial problems, the more likely the risk that someone might reoffend to resolve that issue. Similarly, with no stable housing or family support, and with the tendency to fall back into the same social networks which resulted in the original crime, the risk of reoffending increases. If mental health issues remain untreated or undiagnosed, this impacts on any chance of getting back to work and again, falling back into old habits of offending can easily happen.

So, what can we do?

The 'rehabilitation revolution' is the right strategic direction. Payment by results is the right direction, with providers and partnerships measured and rewarded on the impact they make in reducing reoffending. Joint working between MoJ and DWP is a great start, as is structured, focused work on early entry into employment & training programmes for offenders on release.

This 'join up' is only the start. I know it is hard - I have worked across more than 20 departments and agencies trying to deliver a coherent service to the same consumers. However, the issues I have touched on above cut across many agencies. The costs are high - to society, to the public purse and in human terms. Whilst social investment approaches - such as the Bond in Peterborough - provide the freedom to tackle these issues, they do not yet provide a framework for joining up existing services more effectively or reducing the system wide costs of offending. Most importantly, we are still a long way from integrating the support needed to fundamentally shifting the scale of reoffending.

The initiatives launched by the MOJ and DWP are an excellent start. However, we must explore how to better engage with other agencies and spending departments, for example via things like Community Budgets. This needs more innovation, more research, more pilots and we will have to take some risks in order to radically reduce reoffending. Make significant inroads in the UK and many other countries are keen to learn from our experience.
]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.1121065 2011-11-30T13:12:42-05:00 2012-01-30T05:12:02-05:00

Mark Lovell http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-lovell/
In implementing an approach like this, design is really important. It is imperative that the 'hand offs' and integration to other welfare, skills and education policies is well-planned and thought through. The 'community' programme needs to provide meaningful and rewarding activity that can help in people's journey into employment. For some people, the journey back into employment might be very long - a 4 or 5 year process - and so activities after the Work Programme, which build on personal activities undertaken during their participation, can be effective and beneficial.

Attention needs to be focused on ensuring the work activities in the community are 'additive' and do not displace or substitute for either employment opportunities or existing volunteer opportunities. Unlike Neil O'Brien, I do have a clear view, based on experience, of what can work. So do many other expert organisations steeped in good and bad experiences of Community Programme, Employment Action, Community Action, Project Work, Environmental Task Force, Intense Activity Period - to name but a few of the UK examples.

Sometimes there is a natural perception to view these activities as menial and/or 'labouring' jobs. The first person in Sheffield I put into work experience was an attendant in a Fire Station Museum. The first person in Leeds, a few months later, was looking after birds of prey at a sanctuary in Lotherton Hall (worth a visit - it is still there 20 years on). In both cases, the community work was based on what the individual wanted to do - even though they were 'mandated' to attend the programme. Careful planning and clear transparent systems can enable really good projects to be developed for people, projects which are valuable, interesting and in which they can take pride. Poor design or commissioning can mess this up.

Projects we have developed in the past have included community tv, radio and newspaper projects; maintenance projects in schools, estates and parks where no funds were available for such activity; landscaped gardens in alms houses which was lovely for the residents; hospital gardens for long stay patients and gardens for the blind; marketing and fund-raising campaigns for small community organisations and local charities; care and education placements; security fittings for elderly people's homes - a whole range of projects. However, all of these activities were in programmes designed to assess and ensure projects were not disruptive to existing employment and volunteering activity but as an aditional means of providing experience and building skills.

Patrick Butler wrote an article in The Guardian recently highlighting the challenges of working with voluntary and community organisations in the context of the current public spending environment in the UK. We have a rich, vibrant and plural market capable of supporting people post-Work Programme and as Patrick's article indicates,also on Work Programme. Big Society is often attributed to causing confusion about who does what on a voluntary basis, who is commissioned for services and how these areas integrate.

Many welfare providers have worked for a number of years with collaborative networks of local voluntary and community organisations. A lot of people on these programmes will already use voluntary services and this ought to be able to continue. What is not acceptable is the 'exploitation' of volunteer opportunities as an alternative to structured work experience under welfare provision. At A4e, this is not accepted and there is no drive to 'maximise profit' by using charitable services. At the same time, we do have lots of relationships that are non-funded with partners in the voluntary sector, where we receive referrals from them and our customers use their services to support their objectives. As Work Programme beds in, we need to have good, clear and transparent systems for this work. If we cannot get this right as a market, the community work programme will be very difficult to launch and operate effectively.

So, here are some of my 'top tips' in making a compulsory community work programme really work. That means a programme that is a valuable activity for the people who participate on it and works as effectively as possible with existing community organisations.

1. Continuity and Integration for personal journey: the programme must integrate with the action plans for participants on Work Programme - WP providers must make this data available to ensure maximum possible value for participants.
2. Projects and placements that provide added value: systems need to be in place to ensure that projects and opportunities developed do not displace or substitute for existing employed or voluntary position are essential. This will take planning and engagement in programme design between DWP and suppliers.
3. Challenging and interesting projects: the opportunities need to cater for all levels of capability and interest. For example, construction and building projects and environmental clearance projects can all be interesting if well designed. This principle needs to push the boundaries of point 2 above.
4. Involve local communities in project development: many of the best programmes will involve local residents, local government and many community based organizations to identify gaps or opportunities for projects to make a real contribution to the community and thrive. Their expertise is vital to project development.
5. Appropriate employment and progression targets: as the minister pointed out, this programme should be part of a 'ladder'. It should have sensible outputs that are measured and evaluated for re-engaging participants in employment, education and learning.
6. Social business and enterprise: compared with projects in the 80's and 90's, we have a much more mature social enterprise and social business sector. This can provide excellent opportunites for community businesses to grow under the programme and this growth should be a measured outcome.
7. Projects designed around interests of end users: there always needs to be a balance around getting activities for people to participate on and developing the activities on the basis of the interest and capaibility of the people on the programme. The more of the latter, the better a mandatory programme works and there is no reason 'choice of project' and 'compulsion' of programme cannot coexist. It is hard work but worthwhile and essential in my view.
8. Good transparent, effective and efficient administration: as with all programmes which involve public funding, risk, paperwork, systems and outcomes, it needs to be run well so that the focus is on the outcome for the customer.

Mandatory programmes can often be challenging to operate and run. There is a place for follow up activities and progression for people who do not find employment through the Work Programme. However, we really do need to draw on lessons and best practice from the past. We also need to ensure we take account of the very different public spending environment we now operate in to make sure these programmes operates well. As ever, it needs public, voluntary/community/charity and private sector organisations to work effectively together so that the participant gets a great experience and the community a valued project that makes a difference. And as always, the programme will need the 'elbow room' to improve and develop from day one so it succeeds.

There are some great wins for everyone involved, but it's a complex way or working and we ll have to learn from the past, commit to work openly and collaboratively to make these projects succeed for the benefit of our communities and those we are supporting into meaningful work.
]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.1118007 2011-11-29T04:07:04-05:00 2012-01-28T05:12:01-05:00

Mark Lovell http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-lovell/
It should not need saying, but this pamphlet has arrived at a crucial time - with responsibility for the UK's economic recovery falling to the private sector to create new jobs, enterprise and enterprise support need to come into sharp focus, and quickly. Alongside a more structured approach to expanding 'high growth' businesses, it's important that Labour also understands the need to create the conditions to support new business start-ups and that government enables people to build their own jobs through self-employment. This is a big challenge for politicians, the private sector and the country as a whole.

For me, the challenge is moving the political debate on so that it starts focusing on how we map enterprise support against our different local economies, thereby building a fair and lasting enterprise agenda which helps to engage the communities that need it the most. Currently, while start-up support and training exists throughout the UK, unemployed people are often left out of the equation. Targeted support to help unemployed people become self-employed has been in decline for a decade, and even where these targeted services exist, the link has remained weak between business start-ups and the unemployed. That has to change.

In the 20 or so years I have been at A4e, I have come to understand that in enterprise there can be no one-size-fits-all approach. Local economies need to be supported through new business start-ups which are tailored to the locality and personalised to the individuals moving into self-employment. It is only through looking at these issues in totality, breaking down silos between policy areas and encouraging innovation on the ground, that we can really start to make enterprise work hardest for those who need it the most. It is a challenge Labour should seize with both hands.

You can read our chapter in full, and the rest of the pamphlet, via the free download here: http://laboursbusiness.org.uk/


]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.1083818 2011-11-09T09:51:24-05:00 2012-01-09T05:12:02-05:00

Mark Lovell http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-lovell/
Two decades on and youth unemployment is centre stage again in the UK's challenge to restore growth and create employment in many of the communities where the spectre of generational poverty and joblessness lurks.

In his blog about the Work Programme and high levels of youth unemployment, Patrick Butler of the Guardian raises a very valid debate. Why, when the current Government has launched a new Welfare to Work initiative (Work Programme) which promises a new way of responding to unemployment, are we faced with growing numbers of young people out of work? And why, when there are experienced national organisations and exceptional specialist charities who have worked well in supporting young people - and many other groups hit hard by recession - into employment, are some of these partners not receiving the referrals they might have expected from Work Programme? As a Prime contractor for the Work Programme with local delivery offices across the UK, this affects us at A4e as much as the partners we work with - so we understand and share their concerns.

I am interested in two things. What can be done on Work Programme to get it working really well as quickly as possible so we help those in need and deliver this service with our partners? And what more needs to be done with Work Programme to tackle youth unemployment?

The issues, in response to Patrick's blog, are complex but they are being addressed by organisations like A4e and our supply chain partners, DWP and Jobcentre Plus. Launching the largest, outcome funded, 'invest to save' active labour market reform in the world, at pace, is not an easy task. Four things are worth noting.

First, for a large, national programme - rapidly designed, commissioned and implemented - referrals are going better than I have seen in the past. Work Programme replaced all the other UK welfare programmes and that is a big change. This is no consolation for someone out of work and wanting to get support and who is not yet on a programme - so we all need to work smarter and better.

Predicting numbers of people going onto programmes is the 'Holy Grail' of all initiatives but in reality, the most important thing is how you manage fluctuations and variations. During set up, this is the hardest issue for us all to manage and I empathise with the experience of New Deal of the Mind. Having built up A4e from being a small supplier I understand how challenging this is. Numbers are still building and as more people requiring either sector specific support or specialist intervention support (like New Deal of the Mind) so referrals will increase to all parts of the supply chain.

Second, Work Programme is absolutely designed to bring specialist support to the fore. It allows organisations like A4e to work with all types of experienced organisations, many of them charities, to support people on the programme. No other government initiative has sought to work like this before with so many different organisations. A4e aimed to have just under 50% (49.5%) of our partner supply chain from the voluntary and charitable sector when we bid. We've reached that commitment, but we still have lots of partners we are working with to bring on board so that the total amount increases even more.

We have shared many challenges in getting the structures in place with suppliers to make this work - IT, workforce planning and training, security, financial capability, programme design and so on - but we have worked through this together, even when this has made our progress slower than we wanted. As people are referred to us, so the referrals will build to suppliers.

Third, listening to and responding to the challenges faced by partners and charities like New Deal of the Mind is hugely important for us. Our responsibility is to resolve many of the issues within our control and accountability to do so, so that we may support as many people as possible into work. We have regular contact with the Department of Work and Pensions on improving and shaping the programme and its operation. As Martin Bright is right to say, this is an issue we all need to address together.

We are ready, motivated and willing to support the hard to help with services and fund them. We take enormous financial risk into our organisation to fund working capital on Work Programme, but it's not about the money; we are incentivised because helping people change their lives for the better sits at the heart of everything we do. We don't walk away from intractable problems, and we develop solutions which really work.

So, what are we doing to address the valid issues raised in Patrick's blog? We are working hard to get referrals working across all customer groups with DWP. We are sorting the contracts and processes to get referrals to our supply chain - voluntary, charitable, public sector and private. We are making sure the finance is available to fund the services for harder to help. I will admit, we need to communicate better with our partners and move quicker. But we are listening to the ideas and suggestions from everyone we work with, and making sure this is taken into account when we discuss feedback with the DWP.

Onto that last, and crucial, point: what more do we need to do to tackle youth employment? This is a complex and demanding question which goes beyond the parameters of the Work Programme, but there is more we can do once the Work Programme is effective and productive. First, let's allow young people to access support earlier - at three or six months into unemployment before they accumulate more challenges and lose confidence and hope. If we do, more referrals can flow to organisations like Martin's. Second, let's join up our investment in skills with our welfare programmes, and let's explore elements like personal budgets.

We will get Work Programme working as intended - A4e will be as open as possible in sharing the good stuff and the stuff that needs to get better - we owe it to young people to get this right, and we owe it to them now.
]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.1017056 2011-10-18T05:57:40-04:00 2011-12-18T05:12:01-05:00

Mark Lovell http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-lovell/
I spent a lot of time with delegates - young people - from many of the different countries, listening to their views on global youth unemployment and poverty. Of course, poverty in Brazil, Mongolia and Somalia feels very different to poverty in the UK, US and France. Nevertheless, an interesting set of suggestions and ideas came out of these discussions with people from very different backgrounds. There are three examples below that struck me.

Firstly, it was clear that many people were inspired by the idea of enterprise and entrepreneurship. It was also clear that, for the majority (not all cases), this was the first time they had been inspired to think about this option. One of A4e's customer's - Kelly, who started up her own business in February this year - was showcased and had the audience on their feet, despite being terrified at the thought of participating live on stage as part of Doug Richard's session on enterprise. Many countries education, skills and employment policies do not do enough to help stimulate ambition and aspiration to 'make a job not take a job' by setting up on your own. In the UK we need to do so much more.

Secondly, I was involved with delegates in a session by the Grameen Lab - the folk who drive innovation in social business and spawned out of Mohammed Yunus' work. Many young people, from all continents, wanted to work in social businesses. This chimes with messages we are seeing in the UK. There is a desire for business to be socially accountable in itself, not just trade carbon or have a 'CSR' department as a way of pacifying a corporate conscience. Those of us on the Global Business panel got a good set of challenging questions on this and young people were wanting to set up new businesses and work for companies who 'got' this new approach.

Finally, some delegates from Africa also approached me - in talking about Millenium Development Goals - about making access to the internet a 'universal right'. Social media was a massive part of the conference - communities and people disengaged from access to technology are disengaged from opportunity, employment and skills. Most importantly, they are cut off from the networks that can help them progress. A key part of tackling unemployment - especially with young people - is connecting them to new networks where people are in work or are running their own companies - different to their traditional networks. Social media liberates this in new ways that drive opportunities and jobs as well as helping people who often feel alone, isolated and unique in their combination of problems. Social media can help connect communities of interest who then share the progress they are making.

What does this mean for young people in the UK? The way our media works often paints a very bleak picture of employment and opportunity as the recession lingers. But talk to young people in many countries and similar themes emerge that are relevant to our local communities. A key issue in the UK is keeping the ambition and aspiration alive. More people are starting their own business and opportunities abound. Access to technology helps create networks for jobs as well as the new media itself creating new job opportunities. Social business is such a 'hot' issue that young people with ideas can help transform existing business and create new companies relevant to our economy - an issue this government is keen to sponsor and support.

There is more to be done on helping young people develop a broad range of skills - resilient skills - that helps future generations of the workforce respond to the economic shocks that will inevitably come over the next 50 years of their career as they have in the last 50 years.

Workforces now and in the future need to be mobile and prepared to move to find work in the global economy. They need to develop the broader social and soft skills need to make them employable. Organisations need to provide technical and sectoral skills training and there must be an expectation to keep refreshing these over the long term.

This is where there needs to be a clear focus in the support for young people into work - I am all for Work Acadamies but let's equip unemployed young people with a broad set of capabilities and competencies, not just a narrow set for one job. Prepare people for a career that will evolve not just a job. And, like Kelly (http://www.schoolforstartups.co.uk/smallgiants/entrepreneur/kelly-currie) let's get more young people starting their own business.



]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.969340 2011-09-19T07:19:53-04:00 2011-11-19T05:12:01-05:00

Mark Lovell http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-lovell/
At the same time, reports in the US and UK continue to identify skill shortages as a challenge in recruitment and growth. Recent reports from the US and UK cite both a lack of specific industry skills as well as general entry level and basic skills. Interestingly if you also look at European youth unemployment and the challenges in India and China around rural skills training similar issues emerge.

A common thematic globally is the mismatch between the skills requirements of employers compared with the supply of those skills from education and learning providers. Often the responsibility for these areas of policy sits in two or three different parts of government, and then is split between central/federal and state/local government. At the same time business tends to talk about immediate skills shortages and is often less effective at identifying what it needs over the next 3-6-12-24 months.

It is very difficult to plan for an economy's skills requirement. You do need to have a view on emerging industries that may require upfront investment such as green technologies. Similarly, there are specific geographies where it may be clear that investment in particular skills or retraining is required. However these are the exception and not the rule. More important is designing a system that provides for resilience in the labour force and a more dynamic policy approach which allows the suppliers of training and employers of labour to broker the right skills at the right time.

Internationally, from my work there are four crucial approaches that enable this, In my view, these are essential in dealing with global recession/growth and inequality in the match of skills to business needs where there is relatively higher growth.

1. Integrate employment and skills provision. Too often skills provisions are supply driven with too little focus on what employers need. Employers can be poor at articulating positively what they will need next year as opposed to what they need tomorrow. This requires better advice for individuals and businesses and a dynamic not static education and learning system interfacing with business.

2. Pay for results. Funding needs to be linked to progression, outcomes and impact. This is both in employment and also in skills/accreditation of the individuals but within the world of work. Again, governments have divorced these issues and as a result we have employed, unqualified people and qualified, unemployed people.

3. Personal budgets/vouchers/coupons. Where people re-skilling do not just have access to funds providers by suppliers, they tend to be able to make better and more informed decisions. This requires some bravery and it is difficult in policy terms, however, personal budgets secure ownership and in many cases people are prepared to make their own financial contribution. This last point is essential in the link to work, because the thought is 'how do I pay it back?' it is linked to employment. Where this is used with quality advice on real employment it has a positive impact on closing the mismatch on skills availability and unfilled jobs.

4. Intervene earlier to prevent crisis. re-training and utilising flexible skills is critical in avoiding skills atrophy. At the same time, people acquire lots of other 'challenges' if they are out of work for a long time - debt, mental health, loss of confidence, loss of housing, family breakdown. Too often the access to employment and skills support is 'too late'. By using payment by results, utilizing savings from future spending reductions and tackling the issues earlier rather than waiting for crisis, better, cheaper and higher performing services can be developed.


Predicting recession is hard. Improved resilience of flexible and transferable skills in communities is crucial to lessening the impact of recession and enabling economies to recover. Learning across boundaries is vital. Increasingly this needs to be done by deliverers such as further education, school providers, higher education operators, welfare and employment organisations. Governments have to set up a policy context but the hard yards on the ground are the responsibility of the operators in the public, private and voluntary sector.


]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.931253 2011-08-19T09:54:01-04:00 2011-10-19T05:12:02-04:00

Mark Lovell http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-lovell/
Around 350,000 consumers a year use a wide range of service in my organisation, A4e. Some we provide directly, some through partner organisations. This includes access to debt advice, health support, skills and education services, employment and business start up, legal aid. Many of our customers are on benefits or low incomes and a large proportion are young. From my work, it is clear that public services need to be more joined up and coordination is needed. The unrest involves criminality, frustration, blatant hooliganism - but the solutions needed are complex. There is no one answer or cause. Education, access to employment, enforcement, community links, parenting, respect, peer pressure, aspiration and enterprise are all issues that need addressing.

I am not an expert, nor in a position to comment on the riots. I am in a position, however, to make sure I make a contribution and do something positive in the areas where we work. On the issue of 'opportunity' and 'there are no jobs', I can comment. When I left University, I worked a range of jobs to pick up any money I could. Then, when I was unemployed, I signed on and headed to the job centre. Nothing was beneath me - I needed to earn and the main view I had was that I had to start at the bottom to get anywhere. I also wanted to start a small business and grow it internationally. One day I found an opportunity and I took it.

Enterprise and work ethic are two of the things I am most passionate about. Opportunity and aspiration are too. If you do not help people aspire and dare to dream, they will never see opportunity. Unless you give someone an opportunity, you will never know whether they could confound your belief. Whether it is employing someone with a criminal record, no qualifications but raw talent, placing someone young into a position of responsibility, someone older in a role they might never have considered - the list is endless. Business has a role to play alongside government and citizens in contributing to solutions. I have done all the above - and more - and my organisation continues to work to provide as much opportunity (and address and sort as many problems as we can) for people using the services we provide.

"What are you going to do about it?" This is the most common question I ask myself. It is a challenge to find solutions, improve circumstances. I am restless and relentless - to the annoyance of people I work around - in walking towards difficult challenges. This means I have to accept things will need iterating to success; mistakes will be made and accomplishments sometimes take time.

We polled a number of young people on our programmes last week asking their views on the unrest and work. We listened - as we often do - to our customer. They have come from a similar background and are facing some of the same challenges. Here are some messages that we will be responding to, in the words of our customers:

- the rioters have just made it worse
- police need more power and authority and sentencing needs to be harder
- getting arrested is just a badge of honour
- a sense of belonging and being valued needs to be emphasised
- there's a sense there are no jobs or skills in these communities and in the media.

Their solutions were interesting. Getting into communities and talking to both adults and kids about real opportunities for skills and training was key. More important however, was instilling a sense of ambition and opportunity through the dialogue and hands-on work regenerating and bringing enterprise to communities. So, their ideas combined tougher sentencing, belonging and family as well as enterprise and aspiration. That's an agenda we will try and respond to - to make our small contribution to improving this situation.
]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.911705 2011-07-28T05:52:29-04:00 2011-09-27T05:12:01-04:00

Mark Lovell http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-lovell/
All this is a slightly academic debate - my optimistic view says everyone can work, eventually. However, working through people's personal barriers, health issues, problems at home and so on, doesn't become any easier following this assessment. One good thing about some recent UK reforms to welfare and other public services is that people who previously could not access support or help can now do so. That is a good thing.
However, public service providers must do more to treat their customers as individuals. For example, it is essential that new welfare approaches from the UK government which allow operators that freedom (the Work Programme) respond to that challenge.

Personal budgets, which were an important component of the government's recent Public Service White Paper, are a significant part of this. One way my organisation has sought to differentiate its services to customers is the way we personalise what we offer. We seek to design and deliver the services around the needs of individuals. We are a business built on tackling issues and generating positive outcomes. We will not shirk away from walking towards difficult or intractable problems- we will try to find solutions.

The range of markets we work in - health, legal services, debt, skills, independent living - reflect the needs of our consumers. Our customers have personal advisors who broker and deliver the support they need and help people address the difficulties they are dealing with. We need to work with lots of different organisations expert in these areas to ensure the individual gets the support they need. Where customers can use personal budgets, it is amazing to see the positive decisions they make, the changes in their behaviour and often the savings created as they take responsibility for managing the services to address their needs.

Through our services for people who are unemployed, one of the critical issues we deal with is the raft of other problems that people accumulate as they spend longer being unemployed. As well as a loss of confidence and self-esteem, disconnection from the labour market and loss of skills, there are deeper issues such as mental health problems, debt, family difficulties, housing issues and, in some cases, drug and alcohol addiction that must be taken into account.

An important aspect of how we approached welfare services in the UK and overseas, where we are funded on outcomes based on supporting individuals, is the 'black box' approach. We design tailored, specific services to address the needs of each individual on the programme in a personalised way throughout their journey into work. Each person's route will be different and our services - and those of our partners - must reflect that. It is not easy and we do not always get it right first time but we continuously need feedback from consumers on how we make this work better as well as delivering against the priorities of the governments we work with.

It might sound obvious but the needs of graduates seeking employment are very different to young people with no qualifications, quite apart from the social issues that might have a bearing on their circumstances. It's therefore vital that we have a range of support structures in place. A4e's holistic approach incorporates comprehensive support services, including; health, nutrition, technology access, motivational courses, and financial advice. Similarly for older people out of work, the range of services, and those who provide that, will be distinct from other groups of customers.

In recent years, many public services have become 'over programmed'. Every new issue was seemingly addressed by a new 'initiative'. Commissioners, suppliers, financiers, consumers - we all need to adjust our expectations. We must be bold and innovative. The Work Programme in the UK is at the cutting edge of this change - coupled with payment by results - and will need to be iterated to succeed and develop new ways to support people into work and self employment. More quickly, more people, for longer!
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