The next item of business is a statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Training, Youth and Women’s Employment, Angela Constance, on developing Scotland’s young workforce. The cabinet secretary will take questions at the end of her statement, so there should be no interventions or interruptions.
14:09
I am grateful for the opportunity to set out the Government’s initial response to “Education Working for All! Commission for Developing Scotland’s Young Workforce Final Report”, which Sir Ian Wood presented to me earlier this month. I fully welcome the report, and I share without exception its ambitions for young people, employment and prosperity in Scotland.
I know that we all support the positive vision for Scotland’s young people that is evident throughout the report. I record my thanks to Sir Ian and the commission, and to all the people who contributed to their work, for presenting such insightful, pragmatic and clear recommendations.
When we asked Sir Ian to lead the work some 18 months ago, the Government was anticipating the need to address youth unemployment in the context of a more positive economic outlook. We presented the commission with an extremely challenging remit in asking it to explore how we might develop a modern, responsive and valued vocational training system, and how we might emulate the labour markets of the best-performing European countries.
In recognising the need to make most effective use possible of the skills of all our young women and men, I asked the commission to consider in particular how all young people could benefit from education and employment regardless of gender, ethnicity, or disability.
I was delighted to receive the report and its 39 recommendations, which represent a coherent, practical and powerful set of ideas about what more needs to be done to align our education system firmly, and for the long term, with the needs of the economy. The report’s treatise for further change and improvement is inarguable in my view, which is why we are embarking on a campaign to develop Scotland’s young workforce, taking the report’s recommendations as our starting point.
Our ambitions for economic growth will not be realised without higher levels of employment among young people. We acknowledge the scale of our ambitions and the radical reduction that is required if we are to reduce the rate of youth unemployment to among the lowest in Europe, so the Scottish Government’s goal is to reduce youth unemployment in Scotland by 40 per cent by 2020. Today I will set out what the Government will do to take immediate action on the young workforce and to work towards that goal. I will return later to the role of our partners.
As Sir Ian Wood said, developing the young workforce demands a culture change from all parts of the education and training system, and from employers, young people and those who influence them in the medium term. We have a world-class higher education system in Scotland; our young people deserve a vocational education offer of the same quality and value. The report recognises that the Government’s education, training and employment policies and programmes, including curriculum for excellence, college reform, and employer support measures, have established the right platform on which to create a world-class vocational education system that is valued by, and valuable to, our young people.
As the commission’s final report says:
“The introduction of Curriculum for Excellence in primary schools and in S1-S3 is already making a difference as a new approach to teaching and learning is helping pupils to develop many of the skills and attributes they will need to be successful in their working lives.”
Of course, there is more that we can and will do to act on the report now.
A key feature of a world-leading vocational education system is that it is shaped by employers and meets the needs of industry. I can announce today that I will make an initial £1 million available for the establishment of industry-led invest in young people groups, which will make the crucial links between employers and education that will, in turn, improve opportunities for young people. We will work with local authorities and other partners to develop those groups.
Strong and committed employer leadership will be the key to successful implementation. To achieve that, we will seek to work with a number of established groups, including those in Glasgow, Renfrewshire and Edinburgh that the commission highlighted. In the parts of the country where such groups do not already exist, we will work with local employers to support the establishment of new groups, in partnership with existing organisations and service providers.
I fully agree with the report’s recommendation that employers should be publicly recognised for the contribution that they make to developing Scotland’s young workforce. The Government is working with Investors in People to develop an investors in young people award, which I expect to be in place soon.
I turn to how we will further develop training opportunities for Scotland’s young women and men. Our modern apprenticeship programme stands out as an exemplar of an employment-based vocational training offer, and I want it to expand, flex and focus to help us to achieve even more for our economy and for all our young men and women.
This Government has committed to creating more MA opportunities by expanding the programme to 30,000 starts a year by 2020. Today, I announce further improvements to the modern apprenticeships programme, building on the recommendations from the commission’s report.
As we work with Skills Development Scotland to implement our expansion plans, we will deliver the report’s recommendations on modern apprenticeships, which will include offering more higher level MAs, and developing pilots for advanced apprenticeships, including to graduate level, thereby encouraging more MAs in the crucial science, technology, engineering and maths subjects.
I will also look to SDS to begin pilots for foundation apprenticeships. That will see SDS work closely with schools and colleges to develop more structured pathways from the senior phase of schools, where young people will be able to combine their general education with elements of work-based learning. Foundation apprenticeships will provide a practical grounding that will help to prepare young people for future apprenticeships, employment or further study.
I am pleased to announce that, in August, the first pilot of a foundation apprenticeship will begin in partnership with Fife College for school pupils who are taking engineering. That is an exciting development and one which will see the principles that are set out in the commission’s report made real for a number of young people in the coming months.
The campaign to develop Scotland’s young workforce is also a hearts-and-minds campaign to transform the view of what vocational education offers in terms of engaging learning and desirable employment prospects. Young people and the people who guide them should have access to high quality and current advice about the labour market and routes into that market. Better careers guidance tools will, in line with the report’s recommendations, be developed to inform young people and their parents about future labour market opportunities and the skills that they will need.
SDS will work with Education Scotland, local authorities, the unions and, importantly, employers, to develop services that will be designed to inspire and challenge young people’s career aspirations, informed by labour market intelligence.
The final area that I will address is equality. I was keen that the commission’s work should explore, in depth, problems around access to vocational opportunities. The report delivers that with an ambitious set of recommendations, which have been widely welcomed by a number of equalities groups.
Everyone in the chamber should acknowledge the disappointing figures on equalities that are contained in the commission’s report. Despite making significant progress in increasing the proportion of women who have benefited from the MA programme from 27 to 41 per cent, it is clear that tackling occupational segregation must remain a vital priority.
The report recognises the difficulty in changing the perceptions and culture that can drive the behaviours of young people and employers. In order to make progress, we must develop coherent approaches that look at all stages of the pathways to work.
Across the approaches, I have asked to see renewed focus on the needs of different groups of young people—in particular those who face the greatest disadvantage and barriers to good training and work. We will work quickly with Skills Development Scotland and the expert groups to develop action plans that will build on the good work that is under way.
I expect SDS to lead work to improve opportunities for the groups that are underrepresented on the MA programme. That will include encouraging young women and men to consider career options in non-traditional sectors, and supporting careers coaches, parents, carers and teachers in challenging and breaking down gender and cultural stereotypes.
It is important that Skills Development Scotland develop specific plans to address the gender balance in certain frameworks, and to increase participation by minority ethnic young people, young people with disabilities and care leavers. The action plans will help to ensure that all young people can secure real and lasting equality of opportunity.
In very large part, achieving our ambitions for young people is about focusing our existing resources in the most effective way. However, to kick start this important activity, I am allocating an additional £3 million to Skills Development Scotland to progress the work on modern apprenticeships, careers and equalities with immediate effect. Education Scotland will also receive an additional £500,000 to support action on developing the young workforce.
On the basis of those early actions, this Government will lead a concerted effort, jointly with local government, to develop Scotland’s young workforce. As ever, early intervention is crucial. That means action that is very often focused on young people who are still in the school system. Consequently, the development of Scotland’s young workforce will be a joint endeavour between us and partners in local government.
Many partners are involved in acting on the report’s recommendations—in particular, local government; the Government will work in partnership with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities over the coming weeks to plan for implementation. Together, we will develop detailed plans over the summer, which we will publish in the autumn, as we proceed to develop our 2015-16 budget plans. We have already made it clear that the resource implications of that effort will be taken into consideration in the development of our budget, and I look forward to sharing those developments with Parliament over the coming months.
We welcome the cabinet secretary’s statement on the important final report of the Wood commission, and we welcome her announcement that she will make detailed plans over the summer. I look forward to debating them with her after the recess.
I have met Sir Ian Wood since publication of the report, and I want to put on record the thanks of the Labour Party to him and the members of his commission for their work and their commitment to youth employment, which is one of the most critical issues that our communities face.
There is much in the report that we welcome. We welcome the renewed focus on, and rehabilitation of, vocational training, which will no longer be seen in Scotland as the Cinderella option but will take its rightful place as a valued, respected and prosperous option for young people who are planning their work and their careers. I particularly like Sir Ian’s recommendations that school pupils get more work experience and that there be more intense relationships between schools and colleges.
According to the Scottish Government’s own figures, youth unemployment has fallen by 25 per cent since the cabinet secretary was appointed. That leads me to ask her why we have such a modest target of reducing youth unemployment by 40 per cent by 2020. If youth unemployment has already been reduced by 25 per cent, why is she supplementing that by just 15 per cent? To me, that seems to be quite a modest target. I think that we should be seeking to eradicate youth unemployment.
My final point is about our colleges. The recommendations in the final report are underpinned by the success of our colleges. We have had many debates in Parliament about underfunding of our colleges. The cabinet secretary pledged to provide £12 million on the report’s publication but, as far as I can see, only £4 million has been allocated. Will the rest of that money be spent on our colleges?
I thank Ms Marra for her supportive comments, particularly those that she made about the value and importance of vocational training. It is imperative for the future of our young people and for the future of our economy that, in tandem with our world-class higher education system, we have a world-class vocational training system.
I say that because of what we have learned from other European countries. The European countries that have the lowest levels of youth unemployment—those that have maintained youth unemployment at the same level or have reduced it, despite the global economic recession—are all countries that have well-established vocational training systems that are highly valued by employers and in which employers have an active role.
In relation to the 40 per cent target, my understanding of the commission’s work is that, as I have done, it has looked at the best-performing European countries. At present, Scotland has the ninth-lowest youth unemployment rate in Europe. I concede that youth unemployment remains far too high—I am sure that that is a point on which we can all unite. The 40 per cent figure is illustrative of what we would need to do if Scotland were to become one of the top three or five best-performing European economies.
I reassure Ms Marra that we have not dampened our ambition one bit. We can unite around the fact that we want to eradicate youth unemployment, although we might have a difference of opinion on how best to do that.
I would certainly rather see this Parliament have a fuller range of job-creating powers. That is one aspect, but in terms of the here and now of the report, I very much hope that we can work together as we develop the implementation plans.
Ms Marra is right that £12 million has been allocated to kick-start our work to progress the Wood commission’s recommendations. I have allocated £4.5 million of that today. What I now want to do—I have started this—is work with our partners in local government, colleges and the Scottish Further and Higher Education Funding Council to discuss how we might utilise the rest of those funds. Those very important discussions have commenced and will continue over the next few weeks. We will, of course, report back to Parliament on them.
In the one minute that I have, I welcome the statement and the proposals, and put on the record the Conservatives’ support for Sir Ian Wood and his commission. It would be helpful to get an update on the careers guidance tool, which is to help parents understand better the merits of vocational education.
How can we track the progress of people who engage in vocational education, as was recommended by the commission through the new senior phase benchmarking tool? I very much welcome the additional levels 4 and 5, but as the cabinet secretary correctly stated, only 10 females did level 5 in the past year, while 114 males did so. How will that situation be addressed? Finally, like Jenny Marra, I would like to know whether the colleges will get their fair share.
I am grateful to Mary Scanlon for her support. I know that she has tracked the work of the Wood commission from its very early days and has attended and participated in a number of events with stakeholders, which is certainly appreciated.
In terms of the work and funding that I have announced today, it is around implementing the recommendations in the report with regard to earlier careers advice, information and guidance. We must, of course, do that in full partnership with local government; anything in and around schools requires very close partnership working. I am very keen that as we engage with our partners, Government agencies such as Skills Development Scotland are funded and ready to proceed with the recommendations about earlier careers guidance, because that is certainly something that chimes with me. We must get the right information to young people prior to their making subject choices.
In terms of the equalities agenda, we really need to start engaging with young children while they are at primary school. Many people would argue, with regard to the work that my colleague Aileen Campbell does on the early years, that there is work to be done on equalities even earlier in order to break down the crucial barriers that exist.
In essence, SDS will be primed to engage on earlier careers advice, and it is developing national resources and tools that can be used in primary schools and, crucially, with parents. I attended Forth Valley College yesterday and heard about the great work that it does, not only in engaging with and advising young people in that area on vocational opportunities, but in selling a message to parents as well. I feel that parents are absolutely crucial to the agenda, which is first and foremost about our young people. We cannot do without those who support our young people, including teachers in schools and colleges and employers, but we also need to ensure that the right information gets to parents.
Some work will be done around an occupational outlook that will take labour market information and information from skills investment plans and translate it into—if you like—simple and digestible language so that we can get information quickly and easily to the people who are helping young people with their choices and informing their opinions.
I know that time is short, Presiding Officer. I want to say that we have had many debates about how to improve the quality and participation of various young people, but the crucial thing about our modern apprenticeship programme is that it works. We know that it leads to sustainable employment, so there is an increased onus on us all to ensure that, irrespective of gender, ethnicity or disability, more young people, including those from care backgrounds, can get access to that opportunity. There is a wide range of recommendations, which take a life-stage approach that considers what is happening in schools, SDS and the colleges and makes us all accountable for that. Of course, we will all have to report back in due course.
If we could have shorter answers, cabinet secretary, that would be extremely helpful. That goes for the questions, too.
I am particularly pleased to see the report’s plans for schools and colleges to join employers in sustained, fruitful partnerships, which will be to their mutual benefit.
There are already employers in East Kilbride that are interested in those ideas. The same must be the case in many other places. Has any consideration been given to fast-track pilot projects for companies that are already concerned about skills shortages and that very much want to encourage local people into employment? That would be an excellent way to spearhead this very exciting initiative.
Yes, indeed. Employers are absolutely crucial to this agenda. The hearts-and-minds campaign, which involves persuading young people and their parents about how their career prospects will be enhanced by pursuing vocational training, is imperative.
The hearts-and-minds campaign also seeks to engage with employers. Many of them realise the value of young people in their workforce and the economic case for investing in young people. Given the nature of some of the employers in Ms Fabiani’s constituency, she might be interested to know about some of the early progress that we are making, in particular with the pilots for advanced apprenticeships. These career-level apprenticeships are likely to have an engineering focus, which might be of interest to some of the employers in Ms Fabiani’s area.
There is a lot of interest among employers the length and breadth of Scotland in advanced apprenticeships, and my attitude would be the more interest, the better. Anything that Ms Fabiani could do to encourage that would be great.
I thank the cabinet secretary and I very much welcome the content of her statement. I also put on record my gratitude and that of the Scottish Liberal Democrats to Sir Ian Wood and his colleagues, not just for his accessibility to MSPs throughout the process, which Jenny Marra mentioned, but for the positive vision that he has set out and the clear, comprehensive recommendations that he has put forward.
One of those recommendations is around closer collaboration between colleges and schools. That makes sense, and it should be an objective. It is not new, however. It has been tried in the past but has, to some extent, been thwarted, not least because of issues around funding and problems with double funding. Can the cabinet secretary share anything with us at this stage to give us confidence that some of those problems, which have perhaps inhibited closer collaboration, can be overcome?
Mr McArthur is right to intimate that there are already examples of good partnership working between schools and colleges. In West Lothian, my own area, there is a shared timetable for pupils in the senior phase.
I take the point that some measures have been tried before. What is different this time, I think, is the level of ambition, which has not been seen before either in its scale or in its purpose.
Liam McArthur is right about issues in the past around double funding. As we move forward, we are building on existing assets. The one thing that is different about schools now compared with in the past is curriculum for excellence. It was encouraging to see that Sir Ian Wood recognised the existing assets. He described our colleges as being re-energised, following the reorganisation, and he had deep praise for curriculum for excellence. There are now two things that will set us up for good progress and success with what I would describe as renewed partnership working between schools, colleges and businesses. Both schools and colleges must now be much more outward facing as they engage with industry.
The recent Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 has put in place significant steps to change the outcomes of people leaving care. Sir Ian Wood states, however:
“care leavers ... experience some of the poorest educational and employment outcomes of any group of young people”.
I welcome the recommendations on people leaving care. Will the cabinet secretary—I am sorry, I mean the minister—advise of any further detail on how they will be taken further?
I call the cabinet secretary.
I am sorry.
I am not precious about titles—Mr Campbell does not have to worry about that.
I assure Mr Campbell of my absolute commitment to care leavers. The Government and members across the chamber are committed to improving care leavers’ career and life prospects. I am a former social worker—I know that I talk about that a lot—and my former career has left a mark.
The report makes a number of recommendations on care leavers, which we are discussing with our partners. I am open to suggestions and particularly to anything that recognises and deals with the delayed and disrupted education that some care leavers have. I am open to suggestions about increasing age criteria for care leavers and other groups to access incentives and support.
Labour has long argued that the Scottish National Party’s obsession with hitting the target of 25,000 modern apprenticeships has come at the expense of meeting the economy’s skills needs. Does the Wood commission’s renewed focus on MAs at level 3 or above, tied to growth industries, prove that we were right?
No—I say with respect that it does not. The Government has always tried to do three important things, which will be expanded on as we progress with implementing the Wood report. I am pleased that 62 per cent of the provision under our modern apprenticeship programme is at level 3 or above. That compares favourably with the position south of the border and is a positive increase on the previous year.
I return to the three things that we are doing. We all know that apprenticeships work and that they provide young people with a great transition from education to work. We want to expand the numbers and to increase the focus on science, technology, engineering and mathematics and on growth areas, but we need to do so in a way that increases the representation of underrepresented groups. We could quickly increase the numbers, but that might be at the expense of STEM or women. We could increase the STEM numbers quite quickly, but we would not want to do so at women’s expense.
The three planks of how we will move forward are increasing the numbers, increasing the focus on STEM and growth areas, and increasing the representation of underrepresented groups. The progression is being carefully planned and needs to be implemented with care. The report talks about “a carefully managed expansion”. The Government accepts the report’s recommendations on the apprenticeship programme.
I was pleased to note the general reference in the statement to equality issues, which are important. Will the cabinet secretary outline the concrete steps that the Scottish Government will take to improve the gender balance in subjects that are traditionally dominated by one sex, such as STEM subjects and childcare?
I am glad that Ms Ewing recognises that it is important to get more women into STEM subjects; however it is also important to get more young men pursuing careers in childcare, particularly as Ms Campbell plans to expand the childcare workforce. That expansion will be much needed as we progress with our aspirations for universal childcare.
It is important to note that the report recommends for the first time that Skills Development Scotland and the Scottish funding council should report on progress that is being made on detailed action plans. We have made it clear that we need to have a life stage report that starts in schools and that there should be a range of actions and activities throughout the education system and the pathway to work.
I am very struck by current examples of pre-employability and pre-apprenticeship programmes, which seem to me to be well placed to target specific groups. However, there is no magic bullet, and Scotland is not alone. When I look around the best-performing European economies, I see that some of them do very good things on equalities and occupational segregation in particular areas, but there is no obvious world leader in tackling occupational segregation. There is a space there for Scotland, with collective will and action, to become a world leader in tackling things such as occupational segregation.
I welcome the minister’s statement and her support of the Wood commission’s work.
The minister will be aware that the number of young people between 18 and 24 who become economically inactive remains stubbornly high; in fact, the most recent figures show another increase, to 129,000 this year. So far, the Government has found it very difficult to halt that rise. Which things in today’s announcement does the minister expect to be of greatest benefit to those in that group who have withdrawn from the workforce altogether?
The part of my ministerial statement that I did not reach was about how we will progress the recommendations in the Wood report and how we need to refresh the youth employment strategy as part of that. We know that the economy is improving now, but the big task for us is to ensure that our young people benefit from economic growth. In essence, that was partly why we desired to commission the work that Wood undertook.
Youth unemployment and those who were disengaged from the labour market in Scotland in good economic times remained too high. I talk about this a lot, but in 2006-07, in a time of economic growth, youth unemployment in this country peaked at 14 per cent. We need a world-class vocational training system that establishes better pathways to work for all our young people when the economy is in good times and bad times.
What steps is the cabinet secretary taking to ensure that the expansion of modern apprenticeships is properly aligned with the skills that are required to support economic growth, as Sir Ian Wood recommended? How does she see the introduction and development of an industry quality and improvement regime that contributes to the development and promotion of higher-level modern apprenticeships, which she mentioned, and the development of pilots for advanced apprenticeships?
I hope that I outlined some of that in my statement. As a Government, we certainly accept Wood’s recommendations around the modern apprenticeship programme.
Education Scotland has an important role in the quality assurance of the job aspects of apprenticeships, and it is certainly involving more industry specialists. Having a range of good-quality apprenticeships and access to apprenticeships and enabling people who would not otherwise get access to the pathway to an apprenticeship are important, and having foundation apprenticeships in schools is very important in incentivising businesses to take on apprentices. Much of the work can be done in schools and our education system to prepare people for the employed status apprenticeship.
On the advanced apprenticeships, there is a really important message that vocational education is challenging and is not just for young people who have not done as well in their highers as they had hoped. Vocational training and education are for young people of all abilities and young people with a range of abilities.
The Wood commission commented on the need for additional funding if there is to be longer-term growth in the modern apprenticeships programme, but sectors are facing a reduction in funding right now after a 10-year freeze in contribution rates. Does the cabinet secretary share my concern that the report does not deal enough with contribution rates as they currently are, and that they should have to rise to sustain the quality of apprenticeships in future? Will she include training providers in any discussions, as they are among the major players in the delivery of the modern apprenticeships programme?
I absolutely agree that training providers are major stakeholders. I certainly have discussions with them and I am happy to have more. If Ms McCulloch wants to have a discussion with me involving training providers on the Wood report in particular, there is absolutely no problem with that.
As the member will know, the contribution rates are an operational matter for Skills Development Scotland. The rates have to align with things such as the cost of assessment and training and they have to reflect the Government’s economic strategy. Given the publication of the Wood report, Skills Development Scotland will have to have another look at everything in the round.
Will the cabinet secretary outline what recommendations the commission has made to encourage an increase in the number of employers who recruit young people directly from education, which is currently at 29 per cent?
Many of the recommendations in the report are focused on making a contribution to increasing the overall proportion of the young workforce. In Scotland, 29 per cent of employers recruit directly from education. I most certainly want that figure to increase. A crucial part of that—although not the only part—are the invest in young people groups, which in essence will act as local campaigners and champions. Those groups have to be employer and industry led, which is why I announced today £1 million to support the local employer partnerships to help to get that work off the ground. I am absolutely committed to making life easier for employers so that they can offer good-quality opportunities to young people.
Before I call Alison Johnstone, I say that I noted that the member came in almost halfway through the statement. I do not think that that is acceptable for any member. I remind members that you should be in the chamber from the beginning of a statement, because I promise you that, when we come back from the recess, we are going to enforce that rigidly.
I apologise unreservedly for missing the beginning of the cabinet secretary’s statement.
I welcome the recognition of the importance of vocational training and increased investment in it. In Scotland, as is the case globally, rates of business ownership among women remain stubbornly low. Will the greater focus on vocational training, equality and improved careers guidance result in more young women considering an entrepreneurial future?
I most certainly hope so. There is strong evidence that careers information, advice and guidance that bring to life earlier the world of work can encourage that. Employers, including female employers, can do much to promote entrepreneurial activism and aspiration among our young people. Although the Wood report is not about women in business as such, it would be credible to suggest that there will be direct and indirect spin-offs.
I certainly hope, Presiding Officer, that when we come back from recess I will have learned to be much briefer.
One can live in hope, cabinet secretary.
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