Proposed by Councillor Phil Davies

Seconded by Councillor Jean Stapleton

(1) This Council recognises the importance of creating training or job opportunities for young people and preventing long term youth unemployment.

(2) Council notes that the successful Wirral Apprenticeship scheme was set up with precisely this in mind.

(3) Council therefore offers its support to the Backing Young Britain scheme which has been set up by the Government to help hundreds of thousands of young people to get their first step on the career ladder.

(4) This Council agrees to do what it can to help young people, either by offering an apprenticeship, or providing a young person with a job, or providing internships or work experience.

(5) Council further notes that taking this kind of action makes sound economic sense and that action taken by the Labour Government to help young people into employment has helped keep unemployment figures almost half a million lower than those predicted at the time of the budget and has saved the taxpayer around £2billion.

Amendment submitted in accordance with Standing Order 7(2):

AMENDMENT

Proposed by Councillor Tom Anderson

Seconded by Councillor James Keeley

Paragraph (5) delete all after ‘Council further notes’ and insert:

that 3,090 18-24 year olds in Wirral are currently out of work and that 19,800 people, of working age, have no qualifications.

Council notes that despite high youth unemployment, young people are being deterred from starting apprenticeships. Official figures reveal that in the first quarter of the 2009/10 academic year, 6,500 fewer young people started a new apprenticeship than in the same quarter of the previous year (ONS, Post-16 Education & Skills, 21 January 2010). The number of young people starting apprenticeships has fallen in each of the last three quarters compared to the previous year (ibid.). Despite a costly advertising campaign starring Alan Sugar, more than 20,000 fewer young people started an apprenticeship in the last six months than in the same six months of the previous year (ibid).

Council further notes that the number of young people aged 16-24 who completed an apprenticeship in 2009 was 184,000, down from 197,000 in 2008 (ONS, Post-16 Education & Skills: Learner Participation, Outcomes and Level of Highest Qualification Held, January 2010).

Council is also concerned that the quality of apprenticeships has also deteriorated. All apprenticeships used to be at Level 3 - i.e. equivalent to A-level - but now only around a third of them are (ONS, Post-16 Education & Skills, 17 December 2009). Between 2008 and 2009 the number of people aged 16-24 completing an advanced apprenticeship fell by more than 5 per cent, from 60,400 to 57,200 (ibid).

Council welcomes the support for apprenticeships from leading local employers such as Cammell Laird, Vauxhall and the NHS but recognises that Wirral’s small and medium sized enterprises are the engines of growth and the best route out of recession.  Council therefore calls for:

1.  The inspection regime for apprenticeships to be simplified to enable more small and medium sized enterprises to participate.

2.  SMEs to be given a ‘bonus’ for each apprenticeship they create.

3.  Extra support to be given for apprenticeships in science, technology, engineering and maths.

Council further notes that both the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties are committed to removing the age barrier to apprenticeships and therefore calls for the age cap on applicants to be scrapped.

The amendment was put and carried (41:20)