Robert Ashton shows why it's essential that grantmakers are flexible with organisations trying to help those most at need.
It’s a shocking fact, that three times as many 16 to 24-year-olds are unemployed as older adults. That’s why the National Apprenticeship Service age incentive of £1,500 is focused on this age group. If you employ a youngster as an apprentice, and they start their college course before their 25th birthday, you can get a grant of £1,500 after three months.
In Norfolk where I live, the county council has its own top-up grant scheme. This can provide a further £3,500 wage subsidy, paid over the period of the apprenticeship course, with 25 per cent held back to be paid when the course has been completed.
Added together, they make employing a young apprentice surprisingly affordable.
But inevitably, when public money is focused on resolving the greatest problems, others find themselves excluded from the help they need. It seems to me that wherever the line is drawn, there’ll always be people close to it, but on the wrong side, who get a rougher deal than really seems fair.
Let me give you an example. I was recently introduced to 26-year-old James. He’s been out of work for six months and, through a family friend, found the perfect opportunity. A local garage offered to take him on as an apprentice. In common with many small businesses, they could only afford to do this if the initial cost was reduced in some way. And then the ‘system’ threw a spanner in the works.
James was too old for his potential employer to qualify for a grant. If he worked some of the week for free, he would lose the benefit payments he needs to live. Yet his passion is cars and his ambition to train as a motor mechanic. He found himself on the wrong side of the line and continued looking for work; any work.
But the problem is of course that when you’ve been denied what you see as the perfect opportunity, it’s hard to be enthusiastic when applying for ‘second best’ jobs. It’s the beginning of a downward spiral into long-term unemployment; from where escape is very difficult indeed.
Fortunately I was able to pull in a favour from a local grantmaker. They met him, and the garage owner, and agreed to help. James is now employed by the garage, about to start his apprenticeship course, and costing his employer no more than if he was 24.
Of course this is a good result. But I suspect there are thousands of others like James out there, without access to anyone able to provide the help they need. Of course we need to draw lines and define scheme rules, but equally important is to have in place the flexibility to support others on a case-by-case basis. How can we make that happen?
