Minister says no extension to Kickstart but…
Earlier this week at the House of Lords Youth Unemployment Committee, the Minister for Employment, Mims Davies said “It’s important that young people are at the heart of the economic recovery”. She was adamant about focussing on delivery of Kickstart and not an extension. Mims said “The next stage of Kickstart could write itself if we deliver this stage”.
That means everything possible being done.
So, is everything possible being done? I’m not sure it is.
In March we launched Get Ready for Kickstart © on DPS aimed at young people who are interested in, or may become interested in Kickstart.
To date we have not had one enquiry through DPS.
That’s not what doing everything possible looks like.
If only 15% of Kickstart vacancies are being filled then that leaves a lot more room for improvement.
We know that Kickstart is working really well in some places and less well in others. Our team has successfully placed many young people in Kickstart roles and we are looking to take on Kickstarters ourselves.
So, what more can be done, especially if more young people need to be benefiting from time limited help?
Many of you will be familiar with The Life You Want ©, our flagship programme which gets long-term unemployed into sustainable employment.
When we ran 3 programmes for 18-24 year olds across Derbyshire earlier this year, over 50% went into work. How many programmes do you know that consistently achieve that?
I can’t name one that I have come across in 12 years.
Every jobseeker should have the right to access the best possible provision but that is not the reality for many.
I understand the consistent pressure to make referrals, but it should be pressure to refer to the best, it should be a competitive process to get clients on the best available provision. As it is, there is often little faith in much of that provision and people with far more experience than me will often say “It was ever thus”.
So, if DWP want to get as many young people, including those further away from the job market and fill as many Kickstart roles as possible before the end of the year, working with Recro will help you to do that.
As a reminder the details are:
Get Ready for Kickstart © is top line and fast paced.
It’s delivered remotely by Webex. These sessions will cover:
This programme is delivered by experienced recruitment trainers with a background in career coaching, outplacement, recruitment, learning and development and training. This is not delivered by generic employability tutors.
A case conferencing facility is available for work coaches who have referred clients to the programme as is coaching and mentoring support from the Recro team when they are on Kickstart.
We have already helped a number of young people from some of our other programmes go for Kickstart successfully when they have acknowledged they would not have had the confidence or ability to do so without our help. Case study here: I feel like this call was key to my confidence – Rapid Return To Work ©
