For the first time ever, the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP) will be participating in the fringe meeting programme at all three main party conferences this year.
As Britain seeks to climb out of its worst recession since the war, improving workforce skills and getting more people back to work have never been more important, and our 600-member employment and training providers are on the front line of this challenge.
In partnership with the Social Market Foundation, we will address three themes where policymakers and providers can make a real difference:
Liberal Democrat conference: 'No NEET solution?'
Monday 19 September, 20.00-21.15, Room 105, Jury's Inn Birmingham
With 1 in 5 young people now out of work, AELP believes that a more integrated approach to the NEET (not in education, employment or training) issue is required by the main government departments involved. Following on from the Wolf Review of vocational learning, AELP wants the Department for Education to join the DWP and BIS in signing up to the sustainable employment goal as a way of reducing the number of young people out of work.
We believe that the DfE's Foundation Learning programme can make a real difference to young people avoiding becoming NEET, but landing a job as a result of Foundation Learning should be officially counted as a positive outcome for a disadvantaged young person as a measure of successful support.
Labour conference: 'The Work Programme underway'
Monday 26 September, 13.00-14.00, Suite 9, Jury's Inn Liverpool
The Social Market Foundation (SMF) recently published a report warning that at least 90 per cent of organisations involved in delivering the Work Programme risk having their contracts terminated because of 'unreachable targets' set by the Department for Work and Pensions. While AELP is strongly supportive of the principles which underpin the Work Programme, it did warn at the beginning of 2011 of its members' concerns about the new scheme's financial viability.
Shadow employment minister Stephen Timms will be joining us for an important stock take four months into the programme, and I will be able to provide a view on whether the SMF has been too pessimistic in its predictions, based on the fact that over 70% of Work Programme prime contractors are AELP members and many more members from the private, voluntary and college sectors are sub-contractors.
Conservative conference: 'Skills that work: a better market in Further Education'
Tuesday 4 October, 19.30-20.30, Committee Room 2, Manchester Town Hall
The coalition government should undoubtedly be credited for the significant expansion of the apprenticeship programme since it took office. AELP members, who deliver the training for 75 per cent of the apprentices in England, have played their part too by beating by more than two-fold the creation of 50,000 extra apprenticeships target set for 2010-11.
The skills minister John Hayes will be with us in Manchester to outline how his latest consultation on further reforms to the FE and skills system should lead to a more dynamic response to the skills needs of the economy. On behalf of AELP, I will be keen to emphasise that while more reforms are needed and welcome, we should ensure that they never compromise the quality of provision offered to employers and learners