Contrast:

The issue

Birmingham has a population of just over 1 million. It accounts for almost two per cent of the UK population and it’s the largest city after London. A significant and persistent problem for Birmingham has been its high level of worklessness. Quarterly figures supplied by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) show that in May 2007 22 per cent of Birmingham’s working age residents were classed as workless. This figure is substantially higher than the national average of 14 per cent, and the West Midlands regional average of 16 per cent.

Despite a wide range of interventions over a number of years, workless rates remained persistently high in some neighbourhoods and communities in Birmingham.

What Birmingham didTop of page

How the employment and skills agenda is being progressed in Birmingham.

Context - Responding to the changing policy context

The changing policy context at national, regional and local levels, including:

• 2007 White Paper “Opportunity, Employment and Progression; making skills work”
• The new LAA which places a far stronger focus on economic regeneration and tackling worklessness, with the Working Neighbourhoods Fund resources
• City Strategy Pathfinder with an Integrated Employment and Skills System, and the West Midlands Skills Action Plan to tackle the skills gap
• City Centre Masterplan and Area Investment Prospectuses
• Birmingham Worklessness Protocol which has provided a unique opportunity to intensify and focus efforts on tackling worklessness, and in creating the conditions for growth and investment in priority neighbourhoods in Birmingham.

BCC Delivery Support Unit (DSU) Priority Review on Worklessness

Birmingham council recognised it had significant scope to influence the labour market by taking a more direct role. A review was undertaken of two broad areas where council policy needed to be better developed and aligned. Firstly, the council identified how and for what cost it could provide incentives to businesses to locate in its priority wards through developing area action plans that increase inward investment through improved infrastructure, environment and costs for businesses. Secondly, the council made entry-level employment more attractive to those on benefits by identifying how it could provide incentives for workless people to take up, initially, lower paid employment.

In September 2007, the DSU Review concluded that five key areas needed to be addressed to improve effective delivery on worklessness:

1. Birmingham City Council has a corporate lead on worklessness
2. Making priority areas more attractive to business and private sector investment
3. Intensifying efforts to place those without work into jobs
4. Strengthening BCC recruitment efforts in priority areas
5. Working with partners to streamline governance and delivery arrangements.

New ApproachTop of page

The Birmingham Worklessness Protocol

Improved partnership working sets out a new commitment between partners to deliver on worklessness outcomes, with clarification on roles and responsibilities, and agreement on key actions to tackle worklessness in Birmingham.

Renewed Leadership by the City Council

The City Council has acknowledged the critical leadership role it must take on this agenda, and has taken positive steps to address this:

• At a strategic level with partners – the leader chairs the Birmingham Prospectus Group and the chief executive now chairs the Birmingham Economic Development Partnership;
• At a corporate level - the assistant director, development planning and regeneration lead to drive forward integrated BCC interventions;
• A new position of director of employment created and;
• At a neighbourhood level - local champions to drive forward neighbourhood interventions.

Integrated approach

The City Strategy model provides an integrated employment and skills system with a single client offer and a single employer offer. A progressive system, which provides personalised support, tailored to meet client needs, and those of employers.

Spatial targeting

Partners have agreed to target all future commissioned resources to SOAs with a worklessness rate of 25 per cent and above, which is in line with the LAA National Indicator 153. This will include Working Neighbourhood Fund, European Regional Development Fund and Regeneration Zone funding, and will mean clear focussed and targeted interventions.

Delivery – strategically commissioned and locally delivered

The framework for managing delivery and performance is crucial for achieving a significant impact. Neighbourhood Employment and Skills Plans (NESPs) will be developed for areas with high concentrations of SOAs with 25 per cent and above worklessness rate, and Constituency Employment and Skills Plans (CESPs) for fragmented SOAs with 25 per cent and above worklessness rate.

These action plans will identify a coherent package of interventions, using the City Strategy model, and will provide locally tailored interventions to address barriers to employment and retention in employment.  The first elements are now in place using Deprived Area Funding and European Social Fund aligned to support delivery through prime contractors.

Linking the development and growth agenda with the worklessness agenda

The NESPs and CESPS will be complemented by Investment Frameworks and Area Investment Prospectuses, which address the demand side, and ensure linkages between job opportunities created through these developments with access to employment from priority neighbourhoods.

Mainstreaming employer engagement

The City Council is re-aligning its resources to establish an Employment Access Team (EAT), which builds on the success, and mainstreams the work of the Employment Hubs. The City Council is uniquely placed in engaging with developers at an early stage. The EAT will complement the work of partners on employer engagement and single employer offer.

Policy into best practice - Local Case Study – A new Tesco store in Aston

The targeted recruitment for jobs at the new Tesco store in Aston highlights the benefits of Birmingham’s new approach.

• BCC unique role with developers
• Joint work between partners – BCC – North West Development Planning and Regeneration Team, Disability Employment Solutions and Aston Pride New Deal for Communities, LSC and Jobcentre Plus.
• Clear project management

Over 63 per cent of the new jobs (including entry level, supervisor level) have been offered to people from priority groups. This is significantly higher than achieved in previous Tesco Regeneration Partnerships, where the average is 30 per cent recruitment from priority groups.

Take steps on the ground!

The Tesco Partnership Project - Community Recruitment Campaign

The objective and focus for the Tesco Partnership has been to maximise this opportunity to ensure that as many local people from the priority customer groups as possible obtain the new jobs.

We have a good track record as a set of core partnership agencies in Birmingham – BCC, JCP and LSC – in respect of working together to address worklessness issues. Examples evidencing this are the recruitment to Bullring jobs and the response to the Rover redundancies.

• Over 2,100 people expressed an interest in the jobs for the new store by attending a series of community-based Open Days held before Christmas
• After a selection/sifting process more than 350 people received pre-interview training in January 2008 and over 600 attended Tesco Open Days, resulting in 370 one-to-one job interviews
• 144 were selected by the employer to attend a six week customised training programme (a conditional job offer) – which started 11th February 2008 – and 99 were offered an unconditional job
• Of the 243 job offers made 85 people took up the unconditional job offers and 126 people accepted the conditional job offers totalling 211 unemployed people accepting job offers through the work of this partnership
• As a result of direct positive action 40 job offers were made to people with a disability, a health condition and those on health related benefits. This consisted of 26 of the 144 conditional and 14 of the 99 unconditional job offers
• This means the local partnership brought forward 63 per cent of the new workers – a new record for Tesco Regeneration Partnership projects nationally
• Tesco are very pleased about the work to date in Birmingham and as well as the Aston Together Regeneration Partnership Launch also organised a Learning Workshop for colleagues from other parts of the country (at Villa Park, February 2008).

Planning permission and initial community consultation

The Planning Committee granted planning permission for the new store (subject to government ‘call-in’) in September 2007.

Prior to that Aston Pride worked closely with Tesco to facilitate a number of community events during the lead up to planning approval. Although the purpose of these events was to answer residents’ queries about the prospects of a new store, during this time a number of people expressed an interest in working at the store. A database of 220 names was created, which formed the basis for invitations to the first community open day.

A Section 106 Agreement is linked to the development, which includes:

• £500,000 for the Witton Road / Witton Lane / Aston Lane roundabout and junction improvements;
• £50,000 towards a Town Centre Manager;
• £100,000 for an Education and Skills Fund and
• £440,000 towards community and business support initiatives

These projects must be located in the Aston Ward, but they are not linked formally to the community workforce recruitment campaign that has been instigated.

Formation of a Tesco (Aston Lane) Working Group

At an early point it was agreed, due to the location/geography and the Employment Hub strategy at the time, it was logical for the Aston Lane store to be ‘managed’ as a recruitment partnership project via the North West City Jobs Project Steering Group (already a partnership representing the core Employment Strategy Group members). Effectively therefore a local steering group was formed, known as the Tesco Working Group.

A fact-finding study trip to Mansfield was organised in July 2007 because Tesco and JCP had reportedly worked well together on a ‘regeneration’ store there.

The Tesco Working Group membership consisted of representation from the North West Development Planning and Regeneration Team, Disability Employment Solutions, Aston Pride NDC, North West City Jobs, Jobcentre Plus and the Learning and Skills Council.  Latterly Tesco and the selected training provider (via an LSC procurement process), Pertemps People Development Group were invited to temporarily participate whilst the training element was being delivered to present relevant information to the Tesco Working Group.

The group began meeting in August 2007 and worked up the organisation of the community campaign and the ‘pathways’ to employment with agreement from Tesco. To date the Tesco Working Group has met on 15 occasions keeping Action Notes to act as a guide and prompt between meetings. All of the meetings of the Working Group have been chaired / serviced by the Birmingham City Council North West Development Planning and Regeneration Team.

There has been a good attendance at the meetings from all of the key partner agencies and a practical ‘task and finish’ approach to the work.

Initially, meetings for higher-level discussion and policy development with the employer were held separately. These meetings were known as ‘Communications Meetings’ and it has been agreed that this latter group (although there are some overlaps in membership) has evolved into the proposed Aston Together Partnership Board.

Generating Interest in the Jobs

Community Partners Briefing Session (for VCOs): Once the Recruitment Plan was established (including priority customer targeting and assessment models) a Job Opportunities Briefing was held for the voluntary and community Sector. This was so that intermediary partners would understand the opportunities and begin to identify clients and customers to bring forward into the process.

Notification was sent to the three North West Birmingham Access to Employment Groups (Aston and North Birmingham, North West and Central and Ladywood) – good practice and information sharing networks – and over 100 individuals invited (from 75 organisations). The event attracted about 60 individuals from 50 organisations.

An Information Pack containing Agenda, Invitee’s List, Map (showing the location of the new store), Labour Market Profile, Recruitment Flow-Chart and Working Group Contact List was made available on the day and subsequently to those that couldn’t make the briefing. It went well – lots of interest, lots of questions…

JCP targeted mail shot to working age claimant group: A personalised letter and leaflet (advertising the community Open Days) was sent to the home addresses of 10,000 JCP priority customers in North West Birmingham – targeted by benefit-type and geography. Surplus leaflets / flyers, about 4,000, were distributed through Aston Pride, North West City Jobs and the two local Open Day hosts – Pertemps and City College. Many individuals responded to such a pro-active approach and also a strong ‘word-of-mouth’ momentum was generated.

Four weeks of Community Open Days: We considered having open days, roaming around a whole range of different community venues in the priority wards, but logistically this is difficult to organise and resource and difficult for job-seekers to understand what’s happening when and where. It was therefore decided to anchor the two days per week at two local venues - the Pertemps (Newtown) Office, Newtown Shopping Centre on Tuesdays and at the Aston Academy, Whitehead Road and City College on Thursdays.

North West City Jobs provided the administrative and organisational centre of gravity for the open days (creating the forms, colour paper co-ordination, photocopying, organising staffing schedules, ensuring no papers were lost) and have in fact, been responsible for the partnership candidate database, throughout the whole of the campaign. The partners acknowledged that this was an important role.

In anticipation of the potential numbers, staff from BCC North West Development Planning and Regeneration Team, BCC Disability Employment Solutions, Aston Pride NDC, North West City Jobs, Eastside City Jobs, JCP, Pertemps, Working Links, Work Directions, and the Outreach Team were invited to come and help. An operational briefing was held to ensure a good understanding of the process and consistency of approach. Because of the levels of interest, upwards of 40 staff per open day were fielded and the multi-agency and co-operative working has been a positive feature of the campaign.

Some organisations, for example ENTA (on behalf of the Kingstanding Employment Strategy Group), brought local people to the open days in a mini-bus. Many other VCOs supported individuals to attend.

BSL Signers were also present at some of the open days and forms were printed in large font to ensure equality of access to relevant information. Some of the advisers also had community language skills, which were called upon from time to time.

There were over 2,100 attendances at the community open days.

It is clear from analysis of the database and management information that the targeting of the campaign on priority areas and priority unemployed customers was a tremendous success; separate reports are available. This can be illustrated by looking at the 210 job offers figure which (if they are all accepted) would translate into outcomes as follows:

  
Candidates attending the open days completed an expression of interest form, undertook a supervised basic skills test and had a one-to-one assessor interview.  With additional scores/weightings for geography and benefit customer-type a total ‘score’ or mark out of 40 was awarded to each person, and this helped with the selection and sifting process.

Although geography was a key decision in terms of weightings across all candidates, positive action was also taken. For example, individuals who stated that they had a disability or a health condition and those in receipt of health related benefits were thoroughly considered. BCC’s Disability Employment Solutions also gave support through the Promote Ability Project’s Employment Development Officers. This ensured these candidates had individually tailored support through the recruitment process, as well as providing any necessary post employment support.

Outreach Team and Jobs Bus: The Jobs Bus carried the Tesco vacancies information during the period at its various outreach venues across North West Birmingham, and was also used at City College on the Thursday open days to provide extra interview space.

Candidate Selection Process

After the open days the Tesco Working Group formed a Candidate Selection Panel to agree a decision framework to select individuals for the pre-employment customised training, guaranteed job interview and review all of the candidate’s paperwork. With verification of candidate data and data-entry onto the Tesco client database being a major task due to the volume of interest.

Approximately 365 candidates were selected for the phase one, (pre-interview) training and ‘meet-the-employer’ Tesco Open days.

An additional 240 people were selected to attend a ‘meet-the-employer’ Tesco Open Day in January.

A further 1,500 individuals received a gentle letter saying ‘sorry – but try the Tesco open recruitment process’.

Training Provider Selection

Given the scale of likely contracts, the Tesco Working Group worked closely with the Procurement Team at the LSC to draw up a Training Tender Specification and, (in line with the West Midlands Regional Procurement Guidance), an Invitation to Tender Pack was agreed.

This Pack went out to a tender long-list of 18 training-provider organisations (chosen as JCP Mandatory providers or with links to the three North West Birmingham AEGs) and 10 submitted applications within the deadline.

A Decision Panel, with LSC and Tesco Working Group members, met in December 2007 to appraise and moderate the tenders and Pertemps People Development Group were chosen as the training provider for the two phase training contract.

Phase 1 Customised Training (January 2008)

This took place at Villa Park over 10 days in order to prepare candidates to present themselves at the Tesco open days and successfully complete (on the day) the official Tesco Job Application Form.

Feedback from the trainees and anecdotal responses from Tesco staff indicates that the pre-interview support was very effective in making-a-difference as to how the candidates presented themselves to the employer – and more of them were successful!

‘Meet the Employer’ (Tesco) Priority Customer Open Days

These also took place at Villa Park in January 2008. Tesco reported they were very pleased with the calibre of candidates. A number of people were rejected at this point and they were informed by letter. However, of the 600 attendees approximately 370 people were selected for interview. By now, Tesco had also opened their Recruitment Centre at Faraday Wharf, Aston Science Park, Birmingham.

Priority customer interviews

As with all interviews, some candidates suffered with nerves and some faired better than others. Ultimately the candidate selection is at the discretion of the employer. Following these interviews, Tesco advised that they were minded to:

• Offer 144 people the training option - a conditional guaranteed job offer
• Offer 99 people an unconditional job offer
• Reject 125 people

Each job offer was then subject to candidates agreeing the detailed job matches to actual jobs-in-store and the hours/shift patterns proposed by Tesco (which were matched as best they could against the individuals stated/preferred requirements). There was anticipated fall-out at this stage.

Candidates with disabilities, a health condition or on health related benefits that were rejected or who ‘fell out’ at this stage, were offered another opportunity through the Promote Ability Project. These people were invited to attend a workshop to prepare for the general public open days and another opportunity to ‘meet-the-employer’, have a one to one interview and also look at other retail opportunities within the area.

At this stage of the process, our analysis showed that anything in the region of 200 job starts from the Partnership campaign would equate to a significant majority of the starting workforce, which is a tremendous collective achievement.

Forward Strategy

The relationship with Tesco as a major employer isn’t just about the starting workforce at brand-new stores – BCC are interested in a deeper relationship. The retail sector has a high turnover of staff and although Tesco’s figure at about 50 per cent per year is good for the sector – BCC are keen to discuss their general recruitment, work trials, graduate level access. This is what JCP mean when they talk about Local Employment Partnerships.

There is also the role for Tesco within the wider regeneration context to consider, and we are keen for example for the new store Manager to work closely with Aston Pride on the Aston Business Think Tank initiative.

Clearly this work on the recruitment is helping BCC to achieve our goals in respect of Birmingham’s Worklessness Protocol and the potential of the ‘Aston Together’ Regeneration Partnership is a very good start.

‘Aston Together’ provides the vehicle to continue this work into the future.

Barriers, challenges and lessonsTop of page

Process issues

Birmingham City Council’s process of reviewing previous experience and then identifying key steps to improve performance was a significant and important step in changing the approach to tackling worklessness.

Building greater trust between the partners involved was crucial. The internal review highlighted the complex governance and delivery structures that had evolved and noted that one way to simplify these was for improved communication and leadership.

In particular, the development of the Birmingham Worklessness Protocol assisted this task through its assignment of key coordination roles. This allocation of tasks and responsibilities helped to avoid duplication of activities. The Protocol’s development was itself informed by the information and experience of staff and partners involved in the Tesco Partnership.

Delivery issues

The practical example of the Tesco Partnership Project provides evidence of the importance of improved relationships, commitment and trust with partner organisations. The effort and positive action required to move long-term unemployed individuals into jobs, needed the co-operation of numerous partners. Alone, the task would likely have been too large for either one of Birmingham City Council, JCP or LSC. This holds true in terms of staffing, funding, and the intensity of these types of schemes.

A major lesson learned was that an initiative to find employment for large numbers of long-term unemployed people generates a large concentrated workload. The entire process was demanding in terms of staffing requirements, so commitment from all partners was crucial. The Tesco initiative relied on supplementary resources from each partner beyond the core team.

Data / evidenceTop of page

Improvements resulting from Birmingham’s new approach to worklessness will not be evident from formal monitoring for some time. The most recent unemployment data show an 8.1 per cent gap between the 11 NRF priority wards and the city average, and a 12.8 per cent gap between the five wards with the highest unemployment rate and the Birmingham city average. Similarly, the latest release from the Annual Population Survey (September 2007) shows a gap of 11.6 per cent between the Birmingham employment rate and the employment rate of England.

The Birmingham Worklessness Protocol and Tesco Partnership Project helped to facilitate the new approach in three important aspects:

• It focused partners’ attention and as a result, there was greater impetus to be proactive.
• It highlighted Aston as a priority area for all partners concerned. Without this, some partners may not have been willing to commit as many resources to a single geographic area.
• The Tesco Partnership Project has recently been awarded the Job Centre Plus LEP Employer Award for Best Practice in recruitment.
• Birmingham is currently seeking tenth round ‘Beacon Award’ for raising economic prosperity through partnerships.

ContactTop of page

Denise Barrett
Telephone: 0121-303-4019
Email: Denise_Barrett@birmingham.gov.uk

Further informationTop of page