Issue - meetings

To consider the attached report.

The Executive Board:

(a)        NOTED that the November six monthly report will share the findings from the interim evaluation and ask the Board to consider the future funding position for the service.

(b)        NOTED the significant changes that are due from April 2017 with respect to the transformation of apprenticeships (the shift from apprenticeship frameworks to employer led apprenticeship standards) and the introduction of the employer apprenticeship levy.

The Executive Board considered a report which set out progress of the City Deal Skills Service to date and its achievement against key performance indicators.

Neil Darwin, Chief Executive of the Greater Cambridge Greater Peterborough Enterprise Partnership, presented the report and highlighted that the aim of the Skills Service was to help to achieve the City Deal objectives of promoting an additional 420 apprenticeships over the first five years of the Deal in areas aligned with the City Deal’s growth sectors and generally support the employability of young people.  Mr Darwin highlighted that significant changes, introduced by the Government, would shortly be made to apprenticeships and would essentially see apprenticeship schemes become employer led rather than led by the provider community.  The devolution proposal for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough also had the potential to introduce further changes, together with an Area Review that had recently been undertaken involving further education and how colleges worked.  These factors therefore had fundamental impacts on how providers would work and operate in the future in respect of delivering and supporting apprenticeships in the Greater Cambridge area.  

Mr Darwin emphasised that more engagement would be required with businesses in order to promote the benefits of apprenticeships and help employers better understand where apprenticeships could fit into and benefit their businesses.  He envisaged working with the Joint Assembly’s Skills Working Group to consider how the City Deal could influence employers in this way.

It was noted that the Skills Service contract commenced on 1 September 2015 and was approaching the end of the first year of delivery, which focussed on the following areas:

·         delivering events and activities that provided young people with information on the local economy and expectations of employers;

·         delivering apprenticeships events and providing information relating to apprenticeships to employers, young people, parents and staff in school;

·         engaging employers and connecting them to schools and apprenticeship providers;

·         supporting the development of strategic relationships between schools and employers.

Mr Darwin reported that Form the Future was reporting good progress against the key performance indicators in the contract for the Skills Service, meeting all targets and in some cases meeting them comfortably.  The report included a table for frameworks or sector subjects included in the 2013/2014 and 2014/2015 academic years, with the 2013/2014 data being used as a baseline on the basis of this reflecting a full academic year prior to the establishment of the City Deal Partnership. 

Councillor Roger Hickford, Chairman of the Joint Assembly, reported that the Joint Assembly had considered this report at its meeting on 7 July 2016. He reported that the recommendations contained within the report received unanimous support, but that the Assembly saw the target of 420 apprenticeships as a minimum and expected many more to be achieved.  A concern was raised at the meeting in respect of dropout rates and it was noted that there was currently a 71% completion rate of apprenticeship schemes in the Greater Cambridge Greater Peterborough area.  It was noted that Members of the Assembly also  ...  view the full minutes text for item 10

To consider the attached report.

The Joint Assembly:

(a)        NOTED the progress of the service to date and its achievement against key performance indicators.

(b)        NOTED that the November six monthly report will share the findings from the interim evaluation and ask the Board to consider the future funding position for the service.

(c)        NOTED the significant changes that are due from April 2017 with respect to the transformation of apprenticeships (the shift from apprenticeship frameworks to employer led apprenticeship standards) and the introduction of the employer apprenticeship levy. 

(d)        RECOMMENDED the continuation of the Joint Assembly Skills Working Group, with any necessary additional resources allocated to it to support the Group’s work.

The Joint Assembly considered a report which provided Members with a six month update on the progress of the Greater Cambridge City Deal Skills Service.

Stella Cockerill, Skills and Careers Enterprise Manager at the Greater Cambridge Greater Peterborough Enterprise Partnership, presented the report.  She highlighted that the role of the Skills Service was to help achieve the City Deal objectives of promoting an additional 420 apprenticeships over the first five years of the Deal in areas aligned to Greater Cambridge’s growth sectors, and generally support the employability of young people.  It was noted that the Skills Service contract commenced on 1 September 2015 with the contract focussing on the following areas:

·         delivering events and activities that provided young people with information on the local economy and expectations of employers;

·         delivering apprenticeships events and providing information relating to apprenticeships to employers, young people, parents and staff in schools;

·         engaging employers and connecting them to schools and apprenticeship providers;

·         supporting the development of strategic relationships between schools and employers.

Stella Cockerill outlined the types of activities that had been undertaken in support of the above and reported that baseline recommendations for monitoring the progress towards the additional 420 apprenticeships had been set with the following parameters and in consultation with the Joint Assembly Skills Working Group, with 2014 serving as the baseline year:

·         apprenticeship starts for young people and adults had been included, recognising that the Skills Service focused on young people but that the apprenticeship target was not age specific;

·         progress against target included apprenticeship starts where the delivery location was within Cambridge or South Cambridgeshire;

·         the sectors to be included in calculating the total target were set out in the report;

·         the way in which the delivery of apprenticeships was delivered and monitored may need to evolve in the light of broader changes in skills policy.  For example, Area Based Reviews would begin in December 2016 and as part of this the Local Enterprise Partnership would produce an economic assessment and skills conclusion, which could lead to changing those sectors determined as priorities.  In addition, in April 2017 the apprenticeship frameworks would be replaced with the new apprenticeship standards, which would have to be developed and approved by employers.  It would then be necessary to decide which of the new standards would be included in the targets.

Councillor Tim Bick reflected on the work of the Joint Assembly’s Working Group and said that a lot of its work so far had been determining the definition of what was meant by the specific target of 420 additional apprenticeships.  He said that it had not been a simple matter to define the baseline and outlined the complexities that had been experienced with the stem subjects and how they were counted by the area the apprentice lived, where the training provider was based or the location of the employer.  Councillor Bick referred to the table in the report which provided a trajectory of apprenticeship schemes that had commenced in 2014 and 2015.  He  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8