This of course also includes the workshy, the incapacity claimant benefits (both bona fide and otherwise), the in-betweens, the illegals etc.
I've just completed a review of the new report 'Tackling worklessness' mentioned in PT's article 'Council apprenticeships and 'taster' schemes proposed to tackle unemployment'.
The report pushes all the right buttons and ticks off all the words with buzzword management speak.
'Partnerships, neighbourhood, contribution, roles, sustainable, flexibility, delivery, framework, empowerment, commitment, coordination, radical measures, transparency, simpler, more frameworks, asessments, integrated budgets, engaging, good practice, working together, agencies, sharing information' and so on.
Though the authors have done a respectable job the one question you ask is what have local authorities and local agencies been doing for the past 20 years since the last time we as a nation were 'employment challenged'?
And I don't want to belittle the report since it makes some very good recommendations which will no doubt be superceded by some more perhaps in another few years time when these set of proposals have not been implemented or worse have made no difference (just being swallowed up in the current economic wave I fear).
But, for all of the focus at the moment on the 'input' side i.e. trying to get unemployment down or people into jobs, it's the wrong one.
Some weeks ago I blogged on the national scheme being introduced where effectively 'recruitment brokers' are going to be paid squillions targeting employers to take people on in a 'push-demand approach' in a simlar vein. Very good but very limited and arguably a mis-allocation of resource funds.
The point is the killer-one-line' in the 'Tackling Worklessness' report, namely 'ACTIVE ENGAGEMENT WITH EMPLOYERS - BEING DEMAND LED' (actually its a bullet-point on page 20). Amen to that.
You see in all of the excited agitated initaitives and fire-fighting by the national Government and it would seem in some circumstances local government, the problem is you can spend as much money as you want but if you can't get new employers, from two-man bands upwards to mega-corporations, hiring you're stuffed. Simply trying to stoking further demand from over-indebted consumers is a facile way of thinking. PERIOD.
For some impact you need to reduce business taxes and local contributions, boost R&D investment (but outside the university sector), ensure trade credit (I'm talking here of the invoice payment gap) is supplied.That's economics.
Yes - you can even get the local authority being the biggest employer and also procuring to all of the local companies to keep the local economy alive but in the end you'll go bankrupt because insufficient wealth is created to sustain it.
This basic grasp of economics seems to be above many. The government seems to think that offering SMEs loans will solve the problem. Pathetic.
Evidence: You only have to look at the localities where the local authority is the biggest employer to see that they suffer the worst in a downturn.
I would sugggest that another report be commissioned that provides both strategic and tactical operations that defines the skills cluster a locality has and what it needs to sustain itself and which industries it can grow human capital and deliver value with - a kind of 'locality centre of excellence' if you like (once basics are covered) - we do have a few dotted around but far too few in number.
This report should also show how we can wean ourselves off the big local authority budget. For example, slashing business rates would be a good start.
But for that you need to cross power lines of political authority/mandate with vision and that's dangerous because ultimately it flies in the face of the big budget local authority.
Funny how we get our priorities wrong.............Because the problem is for all of the goodwill reporting such as the 'Tackling Worklessness' and similar reports/initiatives provide, the economic employer horse has already bolted and is dying from thirst...........
Also recent research showed that students and the recent unemployed are more likely to seek employment in the public sector (where they can) which is entirely understandable but ultimately futile nationally.
And yes there's been a lot of people who have become self (un)employed. Apart from (irrelevant) training support there's little else. To survive you need to transact business - training and/or support groups will be of little use.
That's what the market teaches you..............
