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Hello everyone, I’ve not blogged for a while as we’ve been preparing for our imminent Ofsted visit. However the release of the Labour Market Information figures yesterday prompted me to share my views. There have been many comments on the figures, however mine is that many of them are misleading and should be interpreted carefully.

For example, it is true that during the last three months the unemployment level has risen, but it has also declined since the previous month and is generally on a downward trend. It is also encouraging that the number of people claiming benefits has decreased, as has the number of unemployed young people.

I’m not saying that things are massively improving – it is still difficult to get a job with around five unemployed people per vacancy. However we must look forward to the growth industries in our area. Companies such as Jaguar Land Rover and Ocado investing will result not only in jobs but hopefully encourage more big names to invest. For more information about local developments visit your Local Enterprise Partnership’s website – for Coventry and Warwickshire this can be accessed at www.cwlep.com. 

Hi everyone, hope you had a good Easter (winter) break! I want to share with you the revised statutory guidance on careers guidance for schools which has now been published by the DfE.

You may remember that this guidance was first published in March 2012 to underpin the statutory duty on schools to secure independent and impartial careers guidance on the full range of 16-18 education or training options, including Apprenticeships for pupils in years 9-11 (13-16 year olds). This new statutory duty was introduced in September 2012.

This planned update to the statutory guidance helps schools to prepare for the extension of the duty down to year 8 (12-13 year olds) and up to years 12 and 13 (16-18 year olds) from September 2013.  

An equivalent requirement will be included in college funding agreements to extend access to independent and impartial careers guidance to young people up to the age of 18 in FE Colleges and Sixth Form Colleges. New guidance for colleges will be published after the Easter break.

Read about the new statutory guidance here: http://www.education.gov.uk/childrenandyoungpeople/youngpeople/participation/g00205755/statutory-careers-guidance-for-young-people

Its good news for Coventry and Warwickshire’s future after it has been successful in moving forward to the next stage of its ‘City Deal’.

The Coventry and Warwickshire Local Enterprise Partnership (CWLEP) led the City Deal bid called ‘Re-engineering Engineering: Raising our Game’.

City Deal is a Government initiative which plans to give cities and areas the powers they need to drive local economic growth and boost their economies through partnership working.

 Coventry and Warwickshire’s growth strategy as part of City Deal aims to:

• Provide 5,000 new engineers over the next two years
• Eliminate the area’s engineering skills shortage by 2020
• Encourage 25 per cent of Advanced Manufacturing Enterprise (AME) businesses to invest in research and development
• Eliminate the productivity gap by 2020 through investment and support for advanced manufacturing with an aspiration for 20 per cent growth
• Increasing the net number of jobs in the area by 30,000 and raise the proportion of workforce employed in key sectors to 25 per cent by 2020.

I back Cllr John Mutton’s statement that ‘the hard work starts now’. The Government has given the go ahead but we need to make the plans a reality in order to make the most of this brilliant opportunity to boost our region.

Employment figures fell by half a million since the same time the previous year in the quarter ending last November. It is the tenth consecutive fall and great news when combined with a cut in those claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance.

The number of women in work and the number of self employed people has also risen. However, we still need support for these groups to ensure that their businesses can succeed so that they can create jobs.

Additionally, the number of job vacancies in the economy increased by 10,000 to almost half a million at the end of last year, the highest number for four years. Therefore more awareness of local labour market information is needed to match jobseekers to local jobs.

Our new Coventry job shop has been busy since day one which is great news for us and the economy – let’s help to drive that figure down further!

A report out today by the Education Committee states that careers guidance services for young people have deteriorated and will continue to do so unless urgent steps are taken by the Government.

As you know I continually lobby for careers guidance to be available to young people and think that the duty placed on schools to deliver it is unrealistic as they have been given no extra resources to do so.  

I was on Radio 4 this morning talking about the report published today – just before me there is a Head teacher talking about the benefits of delivering in house careers guidance and then his students completely contradicting him! http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01pztjc (approx 50 mins in).

The full report can be accessed here: http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/education-committee/news/substantive-careers-guidance/