Main presentation title goes here

							Can Apprenticeships save the city? The
civic struggle to achieve social and
economic goals

Alison Fuller, Sadaf Rizvi and Lorna Unwin

LLAKES Conference, Senate House, University of London,
18-19 October 2012
City regeneration – multiple aims
From the 1990s onwards, evolved to encompass three agendas
(Hall 2002):

•urban renaissance (physical and environmental)

•social inclusion (improvement of the social conditions of
deprived neighbourhoods)

•economic competitiveness (productivity and innovation)

Thus, regeneration requires complex co-ordination due to the
involvement of multiple ‘stakeholders’

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Reconciling goals through Education and Training

• Longstanding tension between pursuit of diverse goals at
  different geographical scales – including level of the city

• Apprenticeship increasingly being used as an instrument of
  policy to pursue multiple agendas

• Development of partnership-based responses at local level

• Two cases of city-based innovative partnership approaches
  to using apprenticeship
Partnership Approaches at city level
• Partnership-based approaches increasingly used as
  instrument of national, regional and local labour market
  policies and for urban regeneration
• To address social exclusion, unemployment and
  competitiveness
• To ‘deliver’ local labour market strategies, to improve
  community social, economic and environmental ‘wellbeing’
• To build workforces more representative of the local
  community
Apprenticeship as an evolving model of learning
and vehicle for change
• Two cases:

• Public Sector employer-led partnership – improving life
  chances for disadvantaged young people, equity and
  diversity in workforce, community well-being (city on
  English South coast)



• Urban regeneration – vehicle for employer buy-in and
  social cohesion (city in North West of England)
Our Research
• Interviews with key informants representing all parts of
  partnerships (including city council, Job CentrePlus,
  employers, funding agencies, education and training
  providers)

• Interviews and focus groups with apprentices, in one case at
  start, during and after completion of their programme

• Interviews with workplace managers and supervisors
Role of Education and Training in the
Regeneration of Urban Landscapes
• Regeneration begins as attempt to ameliorate effects of
  deindustrialisation – then the 3 agendas emerge:

• Urban renaissance – physical & environmental

• Social inclusion – deprived neighbourhoods

• Economic competitiveness – productivity, innovation,
  national goals

• All involve education and training
Cleaning Up ‘Alcohol Alley’
“There was a massive issue about a blight in the area, that’s
 why these housing sites ended up being cleared, and I don’t
 think I could appreciate fully how bad it was, because when I
 arrived - I worked here in 2006 - some of the terraced houses
 were still here but they were getting fire bombed and
 damaged and everything, and it was horrific apparently. For
 people living in those communities at the time, they obviously
 had to move on because they (houses) were getting sold on,
 people were leaving the area because they didn’t have jobs,
 (houses) getting bought by private landlords or other
 interested parties and then sold on, and then just not being
 looked after. And that saw the decline in terms of those key
 communities.” (Regeneration Officer)
 Using Planning Powers to Secure
 Apprenticeships
• Local authorities 2 key ‘weapons’ in battle to maintain
  influence: planning and procurement

• Planning includes statutory power plus ‘softer’ levers (see
  Fuller et al, 2010, on www.llakes.org.uk)

• Council provides ‘free’ land to developer to build 400
  houses to be sold at relatively low price

• Developer must recruit 2 construction apprentices from
  local NEET young people and ensure 10% of workforce on
  site is local
  Apprentice as Beneficiary

• Robert, 18, previously unemployed for six months after
  college course. Connexions identified him and helped him
  prepare for the test and interview.



• Supervised by site manager and subcontractor. Attends
  college once a week -visited in workplace by assessor from
  training provider. Subcontractor carries out a three monthly
  review for the developer. Developer also monitors progress
Like I’ve got a good career behind (me), so if
anything happens you’ve obviously got a
career, but I thought I’d go higher like don’t just
want to do joinery, I thought I’d go up, step it
higher, do you know what I mean, my own
business or people working for you.

Its good because it’s (in the) local area and that
and it just helps other people to see like you’re
learning. Kids can do it, do you know what I
mean, it’s not just all about on the streets and
that. It shows that local lads can do stuff.
               Skills Funding Agency and
             National Apprenticeship Service

    Manchester City
       Council                            Connexions

Training Provider
                                           The College
                         Apprentice
TP Construction
     Unit

        Sub contractor                Developer


                    Developer’s
                    Head Office
 Who are the beneficiaries?
• Developer selling houses (tough in current climate) +
  satisfying its corporate social responsibility + ‘growing skills
  for the sector’

• Local young men have jobs (for now) + locals have better
  housing

• City Council able to reduce its NEET list

• College has more students

• Alcohol Alley gets cleaned up
Theorising the value of partnerships
• Social capital theory helps explain the (un)likely
  sustainability of partnerships – the value that inheres and
  has grown in the social relations of the network, trust,
  reciprocity, mutual engagement around collective LOCAL
  goals
• The leverage of local authorities and capacity of
  partnerships to secure new sources of funding is critical to
  the sustainability and expansion of new forms of
  apprenticeship scheme and generation of social, economic
  and environmental outcomes.
• Importance of ‘linkages’ (Woolcock 1998)
An employer-led partnership
• An employer-led partnership in a large city in the
  south of England – 4 public sector employers,
  Chief Exec level

• City Council, University, NHS hospital trust, NHS
  primary care trust and Job Centreplus, Learning
  and Skills Council

• Our focus is on the partnership’s apprenticeship
  scheme
The apprenticeship scheme
• To provide FT, fixed-term 12 month employed-status
  apprenticeships (Level 2) in Health and Social Care, and
  Business Administration in the 2 participating employers

• Target group unemployed 18-25s eligible for support from Future
  Job Fund (min. wage, 25 hours a week for six months)

• Supported recruitment and application process including pre-
  employment training, assessment centre and taster days

• Training and qualifications associated with sector frameworks
  leading to possibility of permanent employment on completion
Purposes and concept
• An ‘action-oriented’ approach to address local employment, skills and
  social issues: “we were interested in how did you get action happening
  on the ground that would make a difference” (KI1)

• Social and economic goals: “in terms of actually the economic and
  social regeneration of [city], we needed …to support this as a major
  employer” (KI2)

• High involvement: “we all took a mutual responsibility for developing
  the employment and skills escalator right from entry level jobs and
  moving people who are economically inactive into work, right the way
  through to high level…GVA skills that would attract inward investment
  and wealth.” (KI3)
Rationale for the Apprenticeship scheme
• Recognition that apprenticeship as a route to skills and
  employment can improve life-chances and community well-
  being:

  “[employers] could work with partners to raise that
  [educational attainment] a part of social justice…we can
  improve people’s education, they [apprenticeships] would
  get them potentially opportunities into work, which would
  reduce the pressures of other things such as housing needs
  but also in health needs.” (KI4)
Recruiting ‘non-standard’ applicants
• Standard criteria include sector relevant work/employment experience
  and reasonable educational attainment
“…if you look at all of our person specifications, they all ask for a logical
  and consistent working career history, which most of this group of
  people don’t have…” (KI4)
• Mitigating the risks (funding and workplace buy in)
“…bit of resistance at middle managerial level to do this from a risk
  perspective. What the FJF money allowed…we can bring in additional
  resources to help you do this… What they got were people they weren’t
  expecting to get. Because on paper they may have been weak, but in
  reality were generally very willing to learn and keen to actually do a
  good job (KI5)
Key Features
• Partnership reflects public sector employers’ social and
  economic interests (skills, workforce diversity,
  responsibilities to local community, in health of local
  community)
• Importance of employer involvement in all aspects of
  scheme from concept to implementation; contributions in
  kind and direct funding of (part) salaries
• Working with the grain of government policies and funding
  opportunities – partnering with Job Centreplus and Skills
  Funding Agency to lever funds and resources
Apprenticeship as source of change
• Lots of small-scale initiatives + greater aspiration required

• Local authorities key to urban improvements – act as ‘hubs’
  – planning and procurement are powerful levers

• Apprenticeship provides framework for development of
  skills + identity + maturity

• BUT – must be good quality – bad experiences quickly kill
  off initiatives
‘linking social capital’
• ‘Top-down resources and bottom-up capacity
  building need to be in a dynamic and cooperative
  relationship in order to assemble the range of
  people and materials capable of overcoming
  problems or to take advantage of opportunities.’
  (Woolcock 1998: 185)

• Importance of vertical and horizontal ties



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