5/13/2008 8:33:00 AM
David Turner; FT ; 12 May
Ministers have spent tens of millions of pounds in bureaucratic costs on the third shake-up since the mid-1990s in services to teenagers not at school or working – only to return the system close to where it was in the first place.Whitehall’s latest attempt to change frontline services for “Neets” – teenagers not in employment, education or training – has forced it to spend £31.7m in two years on winding up one system and switching to another. The money has been channelled through a little-known Transition Support Fund. The figure broke through the £30m mark after the government was forced almost to double the fund’s budget in the last financial year, according to the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF). The fund pays out administrative costs including redundancy payments and legal fees, according to a government document obtained under freedom of information rules and seen by the Financial Times. Services for 16- to 18-year-old Neets have now come full circle after a complex journey that includes the latest change in Whitehall policy for England, which took effect last month.These teenagers used to be the responsibility of local authorities until the mid-1990s, when the central government decided to contract out careers services for Neets and other young people to companies and charities in many districts.Then, in 2001, new “Connexions Partnerships” – specially created local bodies financed by central government – took over responsibility for a range of youth provision known as “Connexions Services”.The DCSF has now given the responsibility back to local authorities. While they were told they could contract out services to Connexions Partnerships or other bodies, most have not – saying they can provide front-line Neet services most efficiently in-house. As a result, most partnerships have been wound down A document passed to the FT suggests that much of the Transition Support Fund money has gone to Connexions Partnerships, but a substantial sum has also been used for the transition costs borne by local authorities taking over the services.Amid all these changes, the Neet rate rose from below 9 per cent of 16- to 18-year-olds in the mid-1990s to 10.3 per cent, according to provisional 2006 figures.The department told the FT it had returned the services to local authority control because “Connexions now needs to be integrated with a wider range of services that support young people in their local areas”. It said the fund would “assist” in ensuring “a smooth transfer of responsibilities, with no reduction in service”.But one former Connexions Partnership worker made redundant because of the latest change was cynical about local authorities’ decision to take services back in-house rather than outsourcing them, saying: “It’s much easier to plunder a budget that is fully under your control.”The DCSF has given each local authority a specific pot of money for Connexions, but it is not ring-fenced.Richard Birkett, the commercial director at the education charity CfBT, which has had contracts under all three systems, said the regular changes of heart over policy illustrated “the classic history of government services”.
CAMPAIGNS DELIVER MESSAGE TO ‘NEETS’
David Turner FT 13 May
Local authorities are having to spend money on marketing campaigns telling the public that local Neets services are still there, seven years after the last expensive advertising blitz.“A lot of money” was spent on advertising the new Connexions brand back in 2001, according to one industry insider.But despite this, one local council taking over Connexions felt compelled to begin a “marketing campaign” this spring “to reassure young people that the guidance and support upon which they have relied is still available to them”, according to a letter circulated within the local authority and seen by the Financial Times. This includes advertising in bus shelters and local papers.Some local authorities are also spending large amounts on new IT and data systems for Connexions. Most redundancy costs have been for headquarters staff at former Connexions Partnerships. John Coughlan, director of children’s services at Hampshire Council, estimated about 40 headquarters personnel from the former Connexions South Central had not been taken on by the county’s authorities, out of about 400 staff. Commenting on the transfer of Connexions in-house, Mr Coughlan said: “We felt we could do the job better and cheaper.”John Keelty, Connexions manager for Middlesbrough Council, which took over Connexions a year early in April 2007, said “double figures, not triple figures” of partnership staff had lost their jobs in Middlesbrough and neighbouring authorities. He said Middlesbrough had already reduced its Neet rate since then, because “we were able to target resources locally better under the new system”. Connexions Partnerships provided services for a block of local authorities – provoking accusations from municipal officials that services were not tailored enough to each locality.
Former Connexions Partnership executives dispute this.
General | FE/HE/ Skills
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