Agenda and minutes

The Chair welcomed everyone to the meeting.

Apologies were noted as above.

Declarations of Interest by individual Members in relation to any item of business on the agenda.

None.

R Adams introduced N Brewster who was the new interim Chair of the Board.

The interim Chair asked Members for their thoughts on the purpose and the focus of the Board.

A discussion followed which brought out the following points:

-       Lack of clarity around the role of non-constituent districts

-       Too much focus on the SEP

-       The SEP was one suite of documents on how to grow the economy – the Skills & Employment Board should go beyond that

-       Concentrate on the SCR level, not locally to avoid duplication

-       Aggregate common issues to submit strong cases to government

-       Importance of inclusivity

-       Too much emphasis on 16-19 year-olds

-       More concentration on adult employment and skills

-       The whole purpose was to ensure the workforce had the right skills in the right areas

-       Sustainable and future-proof projects essential

-       Quality of jobs, not quantity of jobs

-       Private sector engagement to ensure the projects provided were what employers needed

-       Discount things that the board would like to do but cannot, concentrate on the achievable.

The Board were reminded that previously they had agreed four general priority areas, although further details needed to be developed.  It was agreed that the document would be circulated to Members for them to consider before the next meeting of the board on 24^th February 2020.

It was agreed that the next meeting would be devoted to revisiting the Board’s priorities, deciding how the Board would deliver them and, if necessary, refreshing the Board’s Terms of Reference to align with the Board’s priorities.

None.

None.

Cllr Furness queried why he was listed as ‘guest in attendance’ in the minutes.  R Adams would look into this which was probably a technical issue.

RESOLVED:  That the minutes of the meeting of the Board held on 22 October 2019 be agreed as a true record.

K Wooffinden presented a report which provided the Board with an understanding of the client group engaging with the Health Led Trial, a sense of the likely outcomes from the trial and thoughts on next steps.

The objectives of the trial was to test whether employment support outcomes for people with health issues were improved if employment services were delivered in a health setting rather than through traditional DWP settings.  SCR and West Midlands Combined Authority were involved in the trial.

Members were reminded that the SCR programme was to take a proven employment support model, Individual Programme Support (IPS) which most commonly worked with people with severe mental health issues, and to modify it to deliver at a greater scale. The aim was to see if the same level of results could be achieved for people with more common mental and physical health challenges.

The report detailed the 8 Principles of the Individual Placement Support Model.

It was noted that during the referral period, 6117 participants agreed to take part, with 50% receiving the established service and 50% the modified IPS service.

The report detailed the key highlights, including:

·         Hospital referrals were significant at 25%, in the West Midlands this was 15%.

·         324 formerly unemployed participants receiving the IPS service had successfully competed for and secured a job they wanted.  It was noted that this could not be evaluated until the end of the trial to see if these numbers had been sustained.

Successes were also detailed in the report including:

-       Five well established Local Integration Boards across the SCR, held up as national good practice.

-       Offer of in-work employment, skills and health support was attractive to employers and employees.

-       The independent brand alongside the NHS logo had supported the attractiveness of the programme to health professionals and community members who associated DWP and LA brands with enforcement activities.

The Board was informed that at the end of the trial in October 2020, Hallam University would be commissioned to do a local evaluation.

REOLVED:  That the report be noted.

A report and accompanying presentation was submitted which provided Board members with an overview of how the Adult Education Budget was currently being utilised in the Sheffield City Region.

Members were informed that the Adult Education Budget (AEB) was the responsibility of the Secretary of State for Education and administered by the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA).    Devolution of AEB was an integral element of the SCR devolution deal with government.

The SCR had undertaken detailed analysis of the current nationally run programme in order to inform future options for devolved delivery if this occurred.

The presentation provided Members with an analysis of how the AEB was being utilised currently in the SCR and a profile of learners benefitting from the budget.

Members noted that currently there were a total of 250 providers delivering AEB funded training, of these providers delivering locally, 222 were based outside South Yorkshire.   Whilst some of the delivery was specialised and not available locally, much could be delivered by local colleges and training providers if AEB was managed differently.

It was reported that if the MCA was in control of minimum contract thresholds and set a minimum threshold of £100k this would reduce the number of grant providers to 21 thus enabling a meaningful relationship between the MCA and their providers.  This would give the opportunity for the Board to set clear priorities and mange funding effectively.  This was an approach adopted by the other MCAs who were all reporting significant improvements in relationships an delivery.

The Board were informed of the work being undertaken in preparation for the devolution of the AEB budget.

RESOLVED:  That the report be noted.

The Board received a report and accompanying performance dashboards which provided up-o-date performance information on all skills and employment programmes delivered on behalf of the LEP and MCA.

The report and performance dashboards gave details of:

·         Working Win – The Health-Led Employment Trial

·         Skills Bank

·         Local Growth Fund (Skills Capital); and

·         The Enterprise Advisor Network

The Board was informed that there were no areas causing concern at the moment.

RESOLVED:  That the report be noted.

None.