Agenda item

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 reported that this demonstrated apprenticeships in stem subjects were moving in the right direction but not yet at a rate fast enough to meet the target of 420. 

Councillor Bick said that the skills agenda was further complicated by the imminent Area Based Review and the result of the EU Referendum, with uncertainty about investment in the area and a potential skills shortage in the future being key issues.  He was of the view that more could be done to engage with employers to stimulate apprenticeship schemes where they did not currently exist, clearly identifying the benefits that apprenticeships could provide to their businesses.  Councillor Bick felt that the Executive Board should be alerted to the fact that it may need to consider putting in place additional funding or resources to ensure that the target of 420 additional apprenticeships was met.  He also wanted the Assembly  to urge the Board to continue the work of the Joint Assembly Skills Working Group.

Councillor Roger Hickford, Chairman of the Joint Assembly, was pleased that the target had been included in the Deal, which he felt would mean it would be achieved, and made the point that the aspiration should be to achieve more than that.  He also supported the continuation of the Working Group, which currently had Councillor Tim Bick, Councillor Noel Kavanagh, Claire Ruskin and Andy Williams as Members from the Assembly who had indicated that they would all be prepared carry on its work.

Councillor Bridget Smith appreciated that the target related to 420 new apprenticeships, but was concerned about drop out rates and asked how that element was being monitored.  She also questioned the perceived lack of engineering apprenticeships referred to in the figures for 2014 and 2015.  Councillor Smith highlighted that this was a very good piece of work for the City Deal and called for more to be done to make it known to the public. 

In terms of branding, Councillor Smith was keen for it to be made clear which apprenticeships or services were provided or funded as part of the City Deal and called for the City Deal to have its own branding in this respect.  Stella Cockerill reported that logos had already been designed and that branding would state specific apprenticeship schemes had been delivered by Form the Future and funded by the City Deal.  Councillor Hickford suggested that the Work Group should consider this issue further.

Referring to the point about drop out rates, Stella Cockerill confirmed that the completion rate for apprenticeship schemes in the county was 71%, with the figures in the report relating solely to the no of apprenticeship schemes that had commenced in 2014 and 2015. 

Councillor Noel Kavanagh was pleased to see that so many local business had engaged with the Skills Service and was interested to know whether they were from the sectors that the City Deal was targeting.  Stella Cockerill stated that the Skills Services was looking to promote pathways to areas of activity where there was not a large amount of apprenticeship activity, through a broad range of sectors.

The Joint Assembly unanimously:

(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.