Employment (Yorkshire Forward implementing Action Plan)

Chair: Paul Jagger MBE

Members: Bill Adams, Naheed Arshad-Mather, Frank Carter, Cllr John Harris, Cllr Shelagh Marshall

The scrutiny of Employment was carried out between January and July 2007. The review looked at four areas of employment:

• Structures and process for developing employment
• Impact on people
• Impact on the region’s economy
• Future labour force requirements

The review considered how employment in the region is developed, and has assessed how well businesses and individuals are supported in their employment needs. Yorkshire Forward, Jobcentre Plus and the Learning and Skills Council are the three key public sector organisations responsible for developing and supporting employment in the region. Therefore, the review looked at all three organisations to identify the impact that their employment projects and funded programmes have on the region’s people.

In order to reflect the views of employers in the review, the Scrutiny Board held two Focus Group meetings with members of the Federation of Small Business and the region’s Chambers of Commerce. The employment review also used an online forum where Assembly members and other interested partners were able to comment on the draft scrutiny report and share their views.

The Scrutiny Board made nine recommendations on how employment strategy and employment support in Yorkshire and Humber can be improved, these include:

• The development of a statement that clearly describes the roles of the key organisations in relation to employment and how they work together
• To identify the next steps in tackling barriers to employment faced by individuals on incapacity benefits
• To influence Government to put greater emphasis on the teaching of enterprise and core employability skills in schools
• To ensure the Regional Migrant Workers Strategy specifically considers skills, qualifications and language issues.

You can download the executive summary of the review and the full report below.