 For our February meeting, we invited officers from the Economy Team and Human Resources to discuss employment and skills within DCC as well as Devon as a whole. It was an informative and interesting discussion.
Key information:
- Devon's economy is performing well overall.
- 89% of businesses in Devon are micro (employ less than
10 employees).
- Health and social care is the second largest employer
after retail. Devon is more service based than industrial.
- 59% of the population are of working age and the
employment rate is currently high at 80.8%. Those who do not face a
barrier to work are probably in work.
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We have an ageing workforce and population. The
proportion of over 65s in employment doubled between 2001 and 2016. There
is a massive challenge in relation to the post 50 year group because we
need them to work longer to retain their skills. For example, Babcock will
be looking for 5,000 workers to plug gaps in retirements coming up and 35%
of our GPS are
due to retire by the mid 2020’s.
- 50% of disabled people in Devon are in work. 20% of
benefit claimants are disabled, which is in line with population
data.
- We are seeing wage growth for the first time.
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The gender pay gap remains a challenge at £525 - £434,
in line with the national average. Much of this is down to women being
predominantly in part time work, or working in sectors where pay has traditionally been
less competitive.
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There has been a growth in apprenticeships over the past five years, though the
last year has seen some slowing of numbers due to the change over to the
new levy system.
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Numbers of young people Not in Education, Employment or
Training have dropped and levelled. We currently have roughly a third the level of NEETs
as the nationally average, though there is always more to do.
- Skills do not match the developing economy.
-
Brexit is starting to effect the labour market in some sectors, with some studies
showing potential for impacts around agriculture, care and tourism. There is not a lot of spare capacity in the labour
market.
- Care leavers, young people with Special Educational
Needs and Disability (SEND) and those in deprived areas are groups
experiencing barriers accessing jobs and training.
- Business case for investing in groups experiencing
barriers: 5m extra for economy.
What DCC is doing:
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The Heart of the South West (HotSW) Productivity Strategy now
includes more about groups experiencing barriers, to close the gap.
- Investment in skills and learning across further
education network.
- European Social Fund programme supporting skills
development, apprenticeship support, support for NEETs and people
experiencing multiple barriers.
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A number of small interventions making a big difference
such as the Community Impact Support Scheme (building capacity of the
voluntary sector to support hardest to reach groups), RISE (working with
those with a history of substance abuse or homelessness), Devon Recovery
Learning (tailored learning support for people with a mental health
condition) and Magna Vitae (using an alternative CV for people with gaps
in their employment history, focussing on things they can do).
- Emerging
initiatives, like the Career Learning Pilot in Northern Devon and other
locations around the HotSW, will provide additional support around
mentoring, childcare and travel to test approaches. Partners keen to focus
on finding additional solutions.
More about the work of the Economy Team is available here: https://new.devon.gov.uk/navigation/economy-and-enterprise
Comments from the Equality Reference Group:
- Need to address employment needs of young people (under 25s) otherwise they will reappear in the system later with multiple issues, and there is often no funding for older workers.
- Young people who are having a difficult experience at school are ready to learn and take steps into work.
- Different funding streams means that skills development work is fragmented.
- The Young Women's Trust have achieved positive results from their mentoring programme.
- Mentoring is beneficial. It's also needed for older people who have lost confidence.
- A lot of older people have caring responsibilities because their parents are living longer or they may be providing childcare support as a grandparent - this will be challenging if also wanting them to work beyond preferred retirement age.
- High levels of unemployment amongst Trans people. A lot of people undergoing gender reassignment want a change of job even though they can stay with their employer, they seek a fresh start living in their true gender. Still have challenges of gender stereotyping in most of our sectors. (DCC welcome some ideas on how to address this).
- Women returners: skills set drops and confidence is lost if their employment needs are not being met and they become disengaged. More flexibility around transport and childcare is needed.
- Question why the peer support programme by the DWP is not going to continue; government rhetoric is different to the reality for disabled people. They don’t seem to be listening; the funding doesn't seem to be following. (DCC have also challenged a lack of plan). Because pilots were not successful in other areas, DWP are not supporting the Plymouth project. The DWP are very old fashioned in their thinking and need to be more joined up in terms of their programmes and working with the DfE.
- Funding for one year doesn't help people on Level 3 courses as these run for two years - if you can't secure the second year of funding you let down a lot of people; you have people just about ready for work and the programme is pulled. (DCC suggest giving examples of where it's not working to the Local Economic Partnership and politicians).
- Regarding the reduction of disabled people on benefits - we're worried access to benefits is getting harder, and people not getting what they're entitled to. The digital platform is a barrier to some.
- Devon Rape Crisis have reported that rape victims applying for PIP have been told they don't have PTSD. Mental health issues are not being recognised.
- People are exhausted; they're not claiming because they have been bullied.
- All we're doing is losing the person in terms of life chances and production by depriving them further; and we don't have enough labour/skills - it's not sustainable.
Increasing employment opportunities for disabled people in Devon
- Increasing the numbers of disabled people, particularly those with learning disabilities and autism into employment is a key component in DCC’s Transformation Programme. This ambition is based on what people have told us will help them to achieve as much independence as possible throughout their life.
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To achieve this ambition initiatives are underway across the organisation to drive culture change and raise aspirations for disabled people and their families, increase opportunities for individual’s to develop skills particularly when transitioning into adulthood and developing routes into employment for people who have not had a job.
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Devon County Council, NHS partners and DWP are launching a focused employment campaign this year targeting employers to direct them to clear advice and guidance on employing disabled people.
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To be successful the campaign needs examples of what's working in terms of developing meaningful employment opportunities for disabled people and would like people to send their case studies to sophie.holmes@devon.gov.uk.
DCC Workforce initiatives
DCC wants to be an exemplar for other employers in
Devon - it wants to use its size to help make a difference and reflect the
community it serves. DCC needs
a committed and engaged
workforce to ensure it meets its purpose and having a diverse workforce will help achieve this. It wants to access 'untapped talent', to sustain recruitment and retention and continue to ensure legal compliance. To support this, a number of activities are
currently taking place or are planned:
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DCC is developing an employability
programme to support Care Leavers and running some pilots for
Learning Disability Internships, which are also aimed at improving employability and access
to apprenticeships and other opportunities.
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DCC has an Engagement Officer focused on improving
services and employment for disabled people.
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The Young Person's Project is currently getting views
of young people inside and outside of DCC, to inform future work on the employment of young people
within the Council. 46% of young people leave
their job in the Council after 2 years and this is one of the areas to be addressed.
- DCC has recently reviewed and updated its Acceptable
Behaviour Policy and will be promoting it through posters and a video. It has also reviewed its guide to
managers on gender reassignment, is a Disability Confident Employer,
Mindful Employer and member of Employers for Carers. DCC also has an
active and well regarded LGBT+ staff network and LGBT Pledge for staff.
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Employment monitoring data currently includes a lot of
gaps and DCC are looking forward to introducing a new HR system in the
next eight months. The system will have a 'self service' option
so they will be able to encourage people to complete their diversity
profile.
Comments from Equality Reference Group:
- What is being done to support Black and Minority Ethnic people? Some people we work with have great skills but end up in low skilled work. (DCC discussed overseas recruitment to plug gaps in children's social care and how it is supporting BME social workers).
- The hassle of reorganising access to work and added challenges of adjusting to a new role means that disabled people often get stuck in a role and don't go for promotion; this holds people back and more needs to be done to help people move on.
- Apprenticeships are available to people of any age, so there are opportunities to broaden these to a range of protected characteristic groups, including Trans people who we discussed earlier.
- What is being done to support Deaf people who use sign language?
- If you get it right for groups, you get a lot back; it's a worthy investment. A lot of preparatory work is needed and volunteering offers the ideal opportunity. However there needs to be more support and funding in volunteering so that organisations can make reasonable adjustments for disabled people, and this will help make people ready for work. Currently Access to Work is not available for volunteers.
DCC has
prepared its Gender Pay Gap report to meet the Equality Act 2010
(Specific Duties and Public Authorities) Regulations 2017. The deadline for
publishing the first reports is 31 March 2018. The report only deals with the
gender pay gap (the difference between average earnings of men and women) and
is not a measure of equal pay.
The Government say:
a gap exists for a number of complex and overlapping reasons including that
"a higher proportion of women choose occupations that offer less financial
reward, many high paying sectors are disproportionately made up of male workers,
a much higher proportion of women work part time and part time workers earn
less than their full time counterparts and women are still less likely to
progress up the career ladder into high paying roles".
Part time is
significant factor in DCC - the Council has a high number of part timers because it is a
supportive, flexible employer - this should be seen as a great thing. So DCC also looked at the full time gap to identify at differences at various levels in the organisation.
DCC is looking
beyond the data and linking this to its workforce planning, developing
better career pathways particularly for roles that don't offer natural
progression opportunities (these are also where the women are).
The full report will be published by the end of March.
Comments from Equality Reference Group:
- Psychological/emotional skills are not valued highly (nationally) - this could explain why women who are predominantly in caring roles are paid less.
- Would like to challenge the Government's view about women "choosing" roles that offer less pay. It's not that they actively choose low pay, it's often about necessity - caring roles are often part time and can work around their own caring duties and suit skills they have developed. The issue is how these jobs are valued in society and the economy as a whole.
- The lessons we learn about gender should translate across other protected characteristics.
 In our December edition we talked about the updated Acceptable Behaviour policy which has been reviewed in light of sexual harassment cases worldwide. DCC has now developed a short video to raise awareness of the policy and create a culture where it's 'OK to say it's not OK' to incidents of harassment/discrimination, however small. A poster version of the video is also available.
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Staff Diversity Reference Group
DCC already has an LGBT staff network, in addition to this it has set up a Staff Diversity Reference Group to consult with people with other protected characteristics such as disability, gender identity and ethnicity.
Further support for unaccompanied asylum seeking children
Devon County Council has successfully applied for funding to support unaccompanied children, often fleeing conflict in their native country, who arrive seeking asylum in the UK.
The nearly £200,000 from the Government will help the Council recruit and train foster carers, and to appoint volunteers to help children settle into their communities. Read more.
Supporting carers in the workplace
DCC have invited staff to take advantage of its partnership with Employers for Carers, a dedicated service provided by Carers UK for carers and their employers. They offer essential high-quality guidance to both employers and employees, with the aim of helping carers to carry on working.
 March will be dedicated to a review of Adult Social Care and Health services, including a workshop with the leadership team.
Other ERG meetings:
24th April (children's social care)
3rd July (TBC)
6th September (TBC)
6th November (economy and employment update)
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