Below I outline how the budget will help young people by tackling youth unemployment through the apprenticeships scheme.
You could say that the whole of the Budget is about young people because the Budget is about the future of the country. And the big message from the Government is that we don’t want the next generation to pay for the debts of the current generation. But specifically, the Budget helps young people by supporting investment in skills and training that helps young people find work, particularly through the national apprenticeship scheme. The Government is putting money into the scheme to encourage employers to take on apprentices, to cover the skills and training they will need, and to help with some of their employment costs. This is a really important reform that gives people a really strong alternative route to going into university.
The Chancellor reaffirmed his commitment to the big investment the Government has made into apprentices. Apprenticeships used to be a really important part of training people for work and we’ve wanted to make them today another really important route young people can take after school to get to work; a genuine alternative to university, where people can train on the job in a company doing something they love doing that will give them training and qualifications, and maybe even at job at the end of it.
There are now very generous packages available to employers. The Government will cover the training costs for an apprentice. The apprentice will be funded by the employer but there are also some very helpful grants that you can apply for that will cover some of those employment costs as well. Shepway is the only district in the whole of Kent where there is a separate fund, run by the council, to support apprentices and small businesses taking on apprentices. Businesses may find that most of the costs associated with taking on an apprentice will be covered by the Government funding of the training scheme and funding from the councils to cover some of the direct costs of taking on the apprentice. So the biggest decision I think the business has to take is not ‘can I afford to take on an apprentice’ but ‘why don’t I take on an apprentice’, ‘how will I use an apprentice as part of my business’. Once you’ve taken that decision, you will find that the support is there.
You can get information about the apprenticeship scheme from a number of different sources. I would certainly recommend contacting the Shepway Apprentices Scheme at Shepway District Council, talking to Kent County Council about it, and also talking to the Jobcentre in Folkestone. Sometimes businesses don’t realise that the Jobcentre is there to give them advice on recruitment not just to advise people looking for work. The Jobcentre team will be happy to give you advice on that and also on funding that is available to support work placement as well.
I attended an excellent event at The Grand in Folkestone where they brought together people who had done work placement schemes in different business in the town. The Grand itself is a great example of the success of work placement training, which has led to apprenticeships and full time jobs. Currently about half of the young people that have been on work experience programmes have gone on to find employment, often with the same business. So these schemes really do work and it’s a really important long term commitment we’ve made to skills-based training.
I find when I talk to businesses, their concern now is actually where can I find the skilled workers I need, where can I find the skilled people? What the apprenticeship programme does is makes the businesses trainers as well as employers and gives them the resources to train the people they need to do the jobs they’ll need to fill in a few years time. It’s a great resource for businesses; the training and employment costs are largely covered for you, and also, if you’re going to take on apprentices it can help you if you’re looking for other kinds of business support.
In East Kent, we benefit from the Regional Growth Fund. The money that is loaned to businesses through the Regional Growth Fund is loaned at 0% and over flexible repayment terms. The funding is linked to how many jobs the investment will help to create, and creating apprenticeship jobs counts towards those criteria as well. So what businesses could look at is if I am going to apply for an expansion in East Kent loan from the Regional Growth Fund to help me grow, if I can take on apprentices as part of that growth, there’s extra funding and support available to cover their employment and training costs. So it’s a really great package.
What we should be also be doing is getting out into the schools and colleges and saying to young people, there is a great career path for you through an apprenticeship scheme and you can take the apprenticeships up in any sector. It doesn’t just have to be in traditional manufacturing, or to become a plumber or an electrician, but it can be to work in the creative sector, in retail, hotels and catering, or any variety of career path. Whatever you might choose, they’ll be an apprentice scheme that’s there for you.
These are the key measures that affect young people in the budget, but I’m interested in what you think. You can have your say by visiting the Have Your Say section of my website, which can be found at damiancollins.com.