Fred Turok’s Blog
Reflecting on the year ahead, I’m filled with widely differing emotions.
Ecstasy at the thought of the Olympics and the huge potential the proposed legacies promise and pleasure at the thought of the great excuse for a party the Queen’s diamond jubilee offers. But I’m troubled by the senseless killings which took place over the Christmas period.
I’m depressed by the growing numbers of young people who are out of work and their limited job opportunities – let alone career opportunities. And, speaking to my colleagues who are interviewing for new employees, I’m disappointed at the lack of preparation amongst the candidates they have seen.
I just wonder if the three are related. Are young people so insufficiently prepared for the workplace that employers opt for experienced ‘job swappers’ when faced with inexperienced and ill prepared young jobseekers? Is this contributing to the swelling ranks of young jobseekers and is the resulting despair and disillusionment putting such severe pressures on our society that we have seen the most extreme manifestation of disenfranchisement from society and their fellow man – killings?
I’m neither a sociologist, or an analyst but surely there must be some cause-and-effect at play here. Whilst I have no readymade solutions, I do have three New Year Hopes:
I hope employers understand their role as ‘community citizens’ as deeply as they have their environmental responsibilities and their commitment to their employees’ health and safety at work and give a young job seeker a break in 2012.
I hope everyone involved in preparing young people for the workplace (universities, colleges, schools and NGOs like us) do a far better job with far more young people to make sure that opportunities are not lost. The economic climate does not allow employers the luxury of hiring purely on sentiment and a deep sense of social responsibility. They have to look for raw talent which is ready for the workplace and just needs polishing.
I hope the Government continues to act as the catalyst to stimulate and effect change. The announcement of ‘Wage Subsidies’ before Christmas for example could be a great catalyst … IF employers know about it and can access it. I know our sector has yet to be engaged by the current youth unemployment strategies, despite demonstrating a high degree of commitment to young jobseekers in the past … so what we need is new thinking, as well as new incentives.
Maybe this is a great opportunity to become a ‘Nation of Entrepreneurs’ (rather than a ‘Nation of Shop Keepers’ as Napoleon once described us) and maybe this is the destiny of this Government & this generation of employers … turn adversity into advantage
Today, over one million young people are unemployed and they represent almost 40% of the total unemployed population …. to me, that represents one million lost potential ‘talents’.
I’ve always argued that if we’re to win this war on waste, we need a far more effective partnership between employers, NGOs like us and government to ensure that we don’t lose this generation of talented young people to a lifetime of unemployment.
In this partnership, employers have to realise that they have a responsibility to the communities they work in – for example, one thing they could do to help the young jobseekers on their doorstep is be more imaginative about recruitment. As an employer, I’ve always encouraged my colleagues to look beyond the veneer of qualifications and try to spot the innate talents of the jobseeker before them.
And this is where the partnership comes in: employers should be incentivised for ‘taking a risk’ (as they would see it). One strategy is a ‘try before you hire’ incentive – ie as a society we should agree that it is in our interest to continue to pay jobseekers’ their benefits, whilst they gain valuable work experience, on an extended job interview.
From out of the left field came the CBI recently with their suggestion that every employer who hires a young jobseekers should be given a 12-month NIC (National Insurance Contribution) ‘holiday’ – which they think is worth £1,500.
Well, now there are two small rays of hope for every one of our one million jobseekers. The Government has listened and recently announced the Sector Work Academy initiative (ie work experience on benefits) and, in the wake of the recent record breaking unemployment figures, Business Secretary Vince Cable announced that every organisation that employs less than 50 people, which hires an apprentice, will receive a £1,500 grant.
Brilliant: the Government has responded and now it is the turn of the ‘Action for Youth Partnership’ (no such organisation currently exists … perhaps it should … however I’m sure no self-respecting marketing professional would allow such a clumsy name to make its market entry without a bit of ‘brand sanitisation’).
We have to find the young jobseekers, skill them for employment and act as a bridge into employment.
But is it churlish of me to suggest that the Cable Initiative should be extended to all SMEs (Small and Medium sized Enterprises) after all, they do represent over 95% of organisations in this country… and represent the greatest opportunity for economic growth?
Great idea Mr Cable, but let’s really make it work and ensure that it proves a real solution to our ‘lost generation’ problem.
”After what happened in August, I’m really dreading Christmas. There’re no jobs. There’s no money and the kids round here don’t stand a chance of getting a job.”
Not my words but those of a Community Leader from North London we were recently talking to. The conversation was probably one of the most depressing ones we have had since we set up TAG.
I accept that the recession will cause high unemployment. I understand why employers cherry pick candidates with the fanciest qualifications. I’m enough of a businessman to know that new jobs must be ‘real jobs’, not a PR exercise to massage the unemployment figures. BUT two things worry me profoundly.
After the recent ‘feral underclass’ comment, we now have Eric Pickles, Secretary of State for Communities and local Government referring to the summer rioters as ‘sub-class’.
Despite pledges to the contrary, the Work Programme isn’t working for those furthest away from the workplace – “…because the likelihood of them staying in employment is so slight, they’re not a priority for the Primes (the Primary Contractors of which 90% are private companies)..” said a Director of a charity which helped young people into jobs. The charity has yet to receive a single referral despite being part of two consortium bids.
Since when was it OK to attack the most vulnerable communities in our society and get away with it – especially when your highly championed strategy isn’t working.
Since when was it OK to ‘manage’ the truth. The spin doctors tell us that there were more than “…1300 apprenticeships on offer within three miles of Tottenham on the night the trouble started.” But you have to be in employment to be on an apprenticeship and many of the young people on the streets that night didn’t have jobs … so the ‘fact’ is mischievous and misleading.
FACT: apprenticeships are only available for those in employment.
FACT: you cannot treat those furthest away from the workplace like a commodity and impose a payment-on-results system when trying to address their unemployment problems. Is it any wonder that if you ask a (private) enterprise to bankroll the Work Programme and only pay on ‘results’ , they will opt for those nearest the workplace.
FACT: you cannot humiliate people just because you are in a position of power. Respect is paramount – it’s not an option.
Young jobseekers are staring down a barrel: many are devoid of hope and face the prospect of a lifetime of unemployment. They need help: they need guidance: they need mentored support: and they need help getting a job.
They don’t need further labels or treated disrespectively.
Beware Mr Pickles: a very wise man many once said “as you sow, so shall you reap.”
-Howard de Souza, Transforming A Generation
One of my colleagues recently interviewed a young man who uttered a line which has resonated around TAG.
‘We become who they say we are.’
Just think about that for a second.
Most middle class parents I know tell their children (and keep telling them) that they are the best … they worked really hard … they did really well…they can do anything they want to in life and they’ll succeed.
But most of the young people we deal with never get this sort of encouragement and support – not at home, or in school, or in any other areas of their lives. At worst, they are told they are or made to feel like failures, like fools, like social outcasts. Is it any wonder that they become who we say we are?
Added to this depressing mix is the fact that they sometimes carry baggage – a criminal record, time behind bars, no qualifications, no relevant work experience and/or track record – so it’s no wonder that they lose heart, they lose motivation and above all, they lose a deep seated belief in themselves and in their capabilities.
As a society we have to break this cycle of self-fulfilling deprivation and help these young people escape their cycle of self-doubt and lack of self-confidence.
Why do middle class children do so well? Because their parents constantly support them and help them.
Why will the summer rioters and the one million young jobseekers struggle to break through their social-economic glass ceiling? Because they lack the help, support, guidance and support which is vital to help them do so.
This is not a plug for TAG, but a call to action for all the welfare and social service strategists and deliverers. Initiatives like apprenticeships, the Work Programme and other welfare to work programmes are great, but engines without engine oil is a recipe for disaster … an expensive recipe which burns resources & time and leaves the most vulnerable still at risk.
We have to work together to ensure that the Summer of 2011 never happens again.
Employers providing opportunities: government acting as a catalyst: third sector working together to support, guide and act as a bridge between unemployment & work fuelled self-fulfilment and self-realisation is what we have to do.
If the model works for the few (the middle classes), why not make it work for the many (the most vulnerable in our communities).
We cannot have an Opportunities Apartheid.
Looking beyond the neo-colonial tone of that statement, used repeatedly by Britain’s ‘leaders’, I’m uncomfortable with the notion of labelling the summer rioters as it compounds a sense of ‘them’ not ‘we’ .
WE have a problem because thousands of young people decided it was OK to destroy and plunder their neighbourhoods and communities.
WE have a problem because these young people obviously felt that they’re on the wrong side of a deep schism in our society.
WE have a problem because almost 85% of this group already had some dealings with the police. That makes the riots a showcase for a profound problem in our society.
Calling for education of rioters, whilst in prison, sounds enlightened and constructive.
But what do we educate them in?
Citizenship?
Perhaps we give them some qualifications….enhance their functional skills? Isn’t that what our multi-million pound education budget was supposed to do?
Some talked about the opportunities the Work Programme and all the welfare-to-work programmes offer them …. but these are only available to the registered unemployed. I wonder how many of the rioters were on JSA (Job Seekers Allowance).
But the fundamental issues is how do draw that group of disenfranchised young people back into society – brand them as ‘feral underclass’ is probably not a good starting point.
As a businessman I applaud the current culture of payment on results.
But if you don’t engage with the ‘feral underclass’ because they do not want to start the journey by being part of a humiliating and soul sapping benefits system (which struggles to help them), then it’s no wonder we end up with summer-riot-behaviour.
OK. So what do we do.
1) don’t create a shoestring KPI-driven welfare to work programme for a community which lacks the skills, expertise, experience and confidence to get a job which interests them and excites them to stick to for two years.
2) don’t treat all jobseekers the same. Some are further away from the nirvana of getting and keeping a job, so fund strategies which help them kick start their working lives.
3) don’t assume there is only one solution: a supply driven solution results based one. How can we incentivise employers to partner Government and the gatekeepers of the multi-million pound welfare-to-work budgets.
Governments must learn from history. Marginalise the vulnerable and those who feel disengaged from the world they live in and the Summer of 2011 will repeat itself.
The world looked at us, on the eve of the greatest sporting event ever to land on our shores and they couldn’t understand what was happening.
The cost of repairing the damage to the buildings, rebuilding our society and reconstructing our reputation as a destination of leisure/sporting/financial/investment choice will far exceed the savings made on the welfare-to-work programmes available to this ‘feral underclass’
We must not knee-jerk our way out of this.
Fred Turok’s blog
Many explanations are being offered for reasons behind the despicable looting and rioting that occurred in London and other cities across England. The ideas for how to fix our ‘sick’ society are beginning to sprout. Cameron and Milliband took have taken their sides. The Prime Minister saying that the tough sentences being handed out are right and Milliand taking the broken society angle.
What should strike us most listening to the unfolding #national conversation on the social networks and in the media are the young voices we actually don’t hear often.
On Young Voters Question Time, Newsnight, and many specially convened news programmes, there was outrage and anger from older members of the audience but there were also young black and white voices and words expressing many of the same emotions.
Often halting and nervous as the camera turned to them, and they got their moment to participate in a national conversation, to say their piece, the young people tried to get their point of view across. Some were stammering and unsure and others were incredibly fluent and had practiced their question or comment either in their heads or in front of interested engaged family or schools.
Roving microphones and studio presenters had to frequently tell the young people to pipe down as the passions in the rooms reached fever pitch. As I sat glued to the TV and radio over the last week I really did hear voices that are usually shut out of national debate. Some spoke the ‘patois’ we seem to have such a problem with, others were squeaky and said ‘like’ a lot.
We think we hear what young people have to say because we get on a bus and hear young people being noisy. I work with young people through TAG and I get to listen to what they think. But how often do we really include them in our national debates? Young people’s voices are hard to find and political programmes aimed at young people are limited to Newsround or specialist channels like BBC Three. Throughout the week I found myself straining to listen, willing the speaker to reach their point, to pick up their logic. I witnessed a group of people trying to figure out what they think. Instead of dismissing them as inarticulate, half baked, ridiculous or just plain wrong, we should be encouraged that hundreds of young people want to be heard.
We should condemn violence outright and the shopping without credit cards that occurred was an outrage. But once the debate simmers down and the media moves on to new stories, let’s remember that whatever our political stance these riots happened for a reason. Unless we start listening to young voices, however irrelevant we think they are, we will not take away crucial lessons on what should happen next.
This is a group of young people who have systematically disengaged themselves from the community because they do not see what it offers them. They have no allegiance to a society that they feel has no allegiance to them. We can blame it on deprivation but the fact that the young people are helping themselves to the Sunday Supplement life they feel entitled to shows that there is something hugely wrong about their lives and that society has failed them.
The truth is that these are opportunistic burglars who are tarnishing the reputations of all young people, especially young people from vulnerable communities who need, deserve and ought to gain our help.
We must not make the mistake of thinking that this is indicative of young people, just as fighting and racist chanting football fans are not representative of the millions of people who go to watch football every Saturday.
The sadness is that looters are damaging their communities and damaging their reputations. They get all the attention, while stuck at home in an area hit by riots is a TAG learner looking after his terrified little sisters, unable to go to the job he fought so hard to get.
TAG works with young people in communities like Broadwater Farm in Haringey and we launched TAG on that estate. We’ve worked alongside community leaders like Clasford Stirling to recruit, train and mentor young people into sustained employment. We hope that once the riots are fully stopped, we will all take time to assess why a generation of young people felt that it was ok to commit acts of mass criminality, looting and violence. Only then will we be able to tackle the root causes and put our young people back on the right track.
Husniara Khanom talks about her TAG journey
Nickesha Malcom Talks About Her Experiences With TAG
TAG student Joshua Sarbaroche shares his journey
“After what happened in August, I’m really dreading Christmas.There’re no jobs. There’s no money and the kids round here don’t stand a chance of getting a job.”
Not my words but those of a Community Leader from North London we were recently talking to. The conversation was probably one of the most depressing ones we have had since we set up TAG.
I accept that the recession will cause high unemployment. I understand why employers cherry pick candidates with the fanciest qualifications. I’m enough of a businessman to know that new jobs must be ‘real jobs’, not a PR exercise to massage the unemployment figures. BUT two things worry me profoundly.
-
After the recent ‘feral underclass’ comment, we now have Eric Pickles, Secretary of State for Communities and local Government referring to the summer rioters as ‘sub-class’.
-
Despite pledges to the contrary, the Work Programme isn’t working for those furthest away from the workplace – “…because the likelihood of them staying in employment is so slight, they’re not a priority for the Primes (the Primary Contractors of which 90% are private companies)..” said a Director of a charity which helped young people into jobs. The charity has yet to receive a single referral despite being part of two consortium bids.
