That this Council:-
(a) welcomes the recent confirmation from the Department for Education that Sheffield has by far the highest percentage of young people undertaking apprenticeships of all Core Cities:
• Sheffield 7.8%
• Liverpool 5.6%
• Nottingham 5.2%
• Leeds 5%
• Bristol 4.9%
• Newcastle 3.5%
• Manchester 2.5%
• Birmingham 2.4%
(b) further welcomes that the rate currently being achieved is also among the highest of any local authority in England;
(c) believes that the commitment to apprenticeships made by the current Administration has played a significant role in helping to achieve this success with policies such as:
(i) a One Hundred Apprenticeship Programme for young people furthest from the jobs market;
(ii) a locally developed Skills Made Easy apprenticeship programme, which this Council played a key role in designing, that seeks to create 4000 additional apprenticeships across the Sheffield City Region and uniquely puts the purchasing power for skills in the hands of business, thereby meeting the needs of the local economy, young people and the business community far better than national programmes;
(iii) the RISE graduate internship programme, which encourages small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) to take on graduates; and
(iv) a pilot of a recently announced Employment and Skills event that will match young people with real jobs and advice on apprenticeships and other training offers;
(d) further welcomes the City Region’s success in securing the £5m Ambition Sheffield City Region bid, which this Administration also played a key role in designing and developing with the Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) and local authority partners;
(e) notes that the funding for the Ambition Sheffield City Region bid came from a reported huge £250 million underspend in the Deputy Prime Minister’s flagship Youth Contract, with reports suggesting just a few thousand businesses had taken up the programme despite the target exceeding 250,000, and therefore welcomes the fact that the success of the Sheffield City Region Bid shows that the Coalition Government has belatedly recognised the success of Sheffield in tackling youth unemployment, and that local authorities and the LEP in this area are better placed to deliver employment programmes for young people;
(f) believes that this Administration’s commitment to apprenticeships and related programmes is good for the City’s business community - helping to deliver the right skills to grow our economy and attract future inward investment – and helps to provide a positive future for our young people by giving them a more prosperous future, thereby representing real action on this Administration’s priorities to be business friendly and focus on jobs;
(g) further welcomes the fact that this commitment to apprenticeships is now reflected in the fact that the City has now seen the percentage of young people Not in Education, Employment and Training (NEETS) reduce to 6.5% - the first time the Council has recorded NEETS of below 7%;
(h) therefore believes that this is a track record the City and its young people can be proud of and is therefore saddened that the Deputy Prime Minister and the Council’s largest opposition group, instead of welcoming this fact and using it to promote the City to investors and the business community, recently chose to incorrectly state that Sheffield was lagging behind other cities on apprenticeships in order to seek short term political gain, despite the potential harm to the City’s reputation that such misinformation could well cause;
(i) confirms that the figures the Deputy Prime Minister and largest opposition group quoted for other cities were net total apprenticeships and that they compared this figure with net additional apprenticeships from the Skills Made Easy programme alone; and
(j) therefore calls on the Deputy Prime Minister and largest opposition group to immediately make a genuine ‘pledge’ to stop running Sheffield down for political gain and start standing up for Sheffield alongside the current Administration.
Minutes:
|
|
Apprenticeships |
|
|
|
|
|
It was moved by Councillor Leigh Bramall, seconded by Councillor Jackie Drayton, that this Council:- |
|
|
|
|
|
(a) welcomes the recent confirmation from the Department for Education that Sheffield has by far the highest percentage of young people undertaking apprenticeships of all Core Cities:
• Sheffield 7.8% • Liverpool 5.6% • Nottingham 5.2% • Leeds 5% • Bristol 4.9% • Newcastle 3.5% • Manchester 2.5% • Birmingham 2.4%
(b) further welcomes that the rate currently being achieved is also among the highest of any local authority in England;
(c) believes that the commitment to apprenticeships made by the current Administration has played a significant role in helping to achieve this success with policies such as:
(i) a One Hundred Apprenticeship Programme for young people furthest from the jobs market;
(ii) a locally developed Skills Made Easy apprenticeship programme, which this Council played a key role in designing, that seeks to create 4000 additional apprenticeships across the Sheffield City Region and uniquely puts the purchasing power for skills in the hands of business, thereby meeting the needs of the local economy, young people and the business community far better than national programmes;
(iii) the RISE graduate internship programme, which encourages small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) to take on graduates; and
(iv) a pilot of a recently announced Employment and Skills event that will match young people with real jobs and advice on apprenticeships and other training offers;
(d) further welcomes the City Region’s success in securing the £5m Ambition Sheffield City Region bid, which this Administration also played a key role in designing and developing with the Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) and local authority partners;
(e) notes that the funding for the Ambition Sheffield City Region bid came from a reported huge £250 million underspend in the Deputy Prime Minister’s flagship Youth Contract, with reports suggesting just a few thousand businesses had taken up the programme despite the target exceeding 250,000, and therefore welcomes the fact that the success of the Sheffield City Region Bid shows that the Coalition Government has belatedly recognised the success of Sheffield in tackling youth unemployment, and that local authorities and the LEP in this area are better placed to deliver employment programmes for young people;
(f) believes that this Administration’s commitment to apprenticeships and related programmes is good for the City’s business community - helping to deliver the right skills to grow our economy and attract future inward investment – and helps to provide a positive future for our young people by giving them a more prosperous future, thereby representing real action on this Administration’s priorities to be business friendly and focus on jobs;
(g) further welcomes the fact that this commitment to apprenticeships is now reflected in the fact that the City has now seen the percentage of young people Not in Education, Employment and Training (NEETS) reduce to 6.5% - the first time the Council has recorded NEETS of below 7%;
(h) therefore believes that this is a track record the City and its young people can be proud of and is therefore saddened that the Deputy Prime Minister and the Council’s largest opposition group, instead of welcoming this fact and using it to promote the City to investors and the business community, recently chose to incorrectly state that Sheffield was lagging behind other cities on apprenticeships in order to seek short term political gain, despite the potential harm to the City’s reputation that such misinformation could well cause;
(i) confirms that the figures the Deputy Prime Minister and largest opposition group quoted for other cities were net total apprenticeships and that they compared this figure with net additional apprenticeships from the Skills Made Easy programme alone; and
(j) therefore calls on the Deputy Prime Minister and largest opposition group to immediately make a genuine ‘pledge’ to stop running Sheffield down for political gain and start standing up for Sheffield alongside the current Administration. |
|
|
|
|
|
Whereupon, it was moved by Councillor Shaffaq Mohammed, seconded by Councillor Ian Auckland, as an amendment, that the Motion now submitted be amended by the deletion of all the words after the words “That this Council” and the substitution of the following words therefor:- |
|
|
|
|
|
(a) laments the appalling legacy of unemployment left by the last Government, including a 42% increase in youth unemployment between 1997 and 2010; |
|
|
|
|
|
(b) highlights that in the first year of the Coalition Government, spending on apprenticeships increased by £250 million – a 50% increase on the previous Government’s commitments; |
|
|
|
|
|
(c) supports all measures to help young people in Sheffield into jobs, including the Sheffield Apprenticeship Programme, Rise Sheffield, the City Deal, the Youth Contract and University Technical Colleges; |
|
|
|
|
|
(d) regrets that the Administration have attempted to reduce policies that have cross-party support to party-political point scoring; |
|
|
|
|
|
(e) reminds the Administration that criticisms of its policies are not coming from the main opposition group but from local businesses and highlights comments from leaders in the business community such as claims that the Council is “closing its doors for business” and has “lost touch with the business reality of the 21st Century”; |
|
|
|
|
|
(f) believes that the only people ‘running Sheffield down’ are the cynical politicians in the Labour Party, including: |
|
|
|
|
|
(i) the local Labour MP who predicted there would be a “post-soviet meltdown” in the city; |
|
|
|
|
|
(ii) the same Labour MP who – as reported by the BBC – warned of race riots on the streets of Sheffield; and |
|
|
|
|
|
(iii) the current Labour Leader of the Council who wrote to a national publication to claim there would be “Rising crime, increasing community tension and … the break up of civil society” in Sheffield; and |
|
|
|
|
|
(g) condemns the cynical hypocrisy of politicians in the ruling group and their attempts to yet again gag any opposition to their Administration. |
|
|
|
|
|
On being put to the vote, the amendment was negatived. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
It was then moved by Councillor Chris Rosling-Josephs, seconded by Councillor Denise Fox, as an amendment that the Motion now submitted be amended by the deletion of paragraph (g) and the addition of a new paragraph (g) as follows:- |
|
|
|
|
|
|
(g) further welcomes the fact that this commitment to apprenticeships is now reflected in the fact that the City has seen the percentage of young people Not in Education, Employment and Training (NEETS) reduce first to 6.5% and, according to the very latest figures, reduce to 6.2% - the first time the Council has recorded NEETS of below 7%; |
|
|
|
|
|
On being put to the vote, the amendment was carried. |
|
|
|
|
|
After a Right of Reply from Councillor Leigh Bramall, the original Motion, as amended, was then put as a Substantive Motion in the following form and carried:- |
|
|
|
|
|
RESOLVED: That this Council:- |
|
|
|
|
|
(a) welcomes the recent confirmation from the Department for Education that Sheffield has by far the highest percentage of young people undertaking apprenticeships of all Core Cities:
• Sheffield 7.8% • Liverpool 5.6% • Nottingham 5.2% • Leeds 5% • Bristol 4.9% • Newcastle 3.5% • Manchester 2.5% • Birmingham 2.4%
(b) further welcomes that the rate currently being achieved is also among the highest of any local authority in England;
(c) believes that the commitment to apprenticeships made by the current Administration has played a significant role in helping to achieve this success with policies such as:
(i) a One Hundred Apprenticeship Programme for young people furthest from the jobs market;
(ii) a locally developed Skills Made Easy apprenticeship programme, which this Council played a key role in designing, that seeks to create 4000 additional apprenticeships across the Sheffield City Region and uniquely puts the purchasing power for skills in the hands of business, thereby meeting the needs of the local economy, young people and the business community far better than national programmes;
(iii) the RISE graduate internship programme, which encourages small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) to take on graduates; and
(iv) a pilot of a recently announced Employment and Skills event that will match young people with real jobs and advice on apprenticeships and other training offers;
(d) further welcomes the City Region’s success in securing the £5m Ambition Sheffield City Region bid, which this Administration also played a key role in designing and developing with the Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) and local authority partners;
(e) notes that the funding for the Ambition Sheffield City Region bid came from a reported huge £250 million underspend in the Deputy Prime Minister’s flagship Youth Contract, with reports suggesting just a few thousand businesses had taken up the programme despite the target exceeding 250,000, and therefore welcomes the fact that the success of the Sheffield City Region Bid shows that the Coalition Government has belatedly recognised the success of Sheffield in tackling youth unemployment, and that local authorities and the LEP in this area are better placed to deliver employment programmes for young people;
(f) believes that this Administration’s commitment to apprenticeships and related programmes is good for the City’s business community - helping to deliver the right skills to grow our economy and attract future inward investment – and helps to provide a positive future for our young people by giving them a more prosperous future, thereby representing real action on this Administration’s priorities to be business friendly and focus on jobs;
(g) further welcomes the fact that this commitment to apprenticeships is now reflected in the fact that the City has seen the percentage of young people Not in Education, Employment and Training (NEETS) reduce first to 6.5% and, according to the very latest figures, reduce to 6.2% - the first time the Council has recorded NEETS of below 7%;
(h) therefore believes that this is a track record the City and its young people can be proud of and is therefore saddened that the Deputy Prime Minister and the Council’s largest opposition group, instead of welcoming this fact and using it to promote the City to investors and the business community, recently chose to incorrectly state that Sheffield was lagging behind other cities on apprenticeships in order to seek short term political gain, despite the potential harm to the City’s reputation that such misinformation could well cause;
(i) confirms that the figures the Deputy Prime Minister and largest opposition group quoted for other cities were net total apprenticeships and that they compared this figure with net additional apprenticeships from the Skills Made Easy programme alone; and
(j) therefore calls on the Deputy Prime Minister and largest opposition group to immediately make a genuine ‘pledge’ to stop running Sheffield down for political gain and start standing up for Sheffield alongside the current Administration. |
|
|
|
|
|
(Note 1. Councillors Simon Clement-Jones, Shaffaq Mohammed, Rob Frost, Sylvia Anginotti, Colin Ross, Joe Otten, Penny Baker, Diana Stimely, Roger Davison, Sue Alston, Andrew Sangar, Denise Reaney, Ian Auckland, Anders Hanson, Katie Condliffe, David Baker and Trevor Bagshaw voted for paragraphs (a) and (b) and against paragraphs (c) to (j) of the Substantive Motion and asked for this to be recorded.
2. Councillors Robert Murphy and Jillian Creasy voted for paragraphs (a) to (g) and abstained on paragraphs (h) to (j) of the Substantive Motion and asked for this to be recorded.) |