Fry once observed ‘You cannot give a child love by act of parliament’. Nor can you by mayoral decree, but Mandy’s piece concluded with some very practical ways in which City Hall – leading by example – could champion fostering amongst its own employees: active promotion, time off to go through the assessment and training, flexible working. Then she suggested that ‘the mayor should use his or her voice to encourage other public, private and third sector employers to follow suit, as has been done with the living wage campaign’.
Coordinate Child Protection
Even better would be to prevent children needing foster care in the first place. Matthew Downie outlined some of the specific challenges London faces in protecting our children: ‘gang violence and sexual abuse within gangs; abuse of children through belief in spirit possession and witchcraft; and the problem of mobile and transient families where children at risk of abuse move frequently and easily across the city.’
He goes on: ‘The prevalence and seriousness of the issue commands political attention across local and national government, but so far not from either of the two mayors of London. Why not?’
We could, he says, learn from successful programmes in other cities, like New York’s Blue Sky programme or Manchester’s co-commissioning of children’s services across multiple local authorities. It is a complex topic with no easy solutions, but throughout this rough guide we talk about the importance of influential leadership, about the mayoral super powers, the voice, the visibility and the capacity to convene. Nowhere could these be better applied than on this agenda, making the case over and over again that enabling every child to succeed means ‘every child’ from whatever beginning, with whatever it takes.
(4) For Every Child: The First Steps into a Good Career
A Youth Compact with Business
A ten-year-old in our children’s discussion group in east London suggested schools make better links with banks so he and his peers could better understand how to work in one.
It is sobering to learn that work experience and the worry of getting a good job should feature in a child’s concerns alongside the availability of fizzy drinks. But it is also a sign of just how important access to the right job can be for children and their families.
For a minority of our children, the path from school to college, perhaps to university, and then on to the first rung of a good career is well paved, assisted along the way by good schooling, inspiring work experience, family connections and perhaps an unpaid internship or two.
For others the transition into work is difficult and traumatic, often unfulfilling and sometimes impossible – unemployment amongst under-25s in London stands at 25 per cent.52 With young people arriving in London from all over the world, the competition for jobs at this level is fierce.
The first step is to discover what is out there. Sally Rogers described how, ‘When children from working class families in places like Newham grow up and – aged fifteen or sixteen – are sent off for a couple of weeks work experience … they end up spending two weeks stacking shelves in Shoe Zone. These kids – far more than their rich contemporaries – need experiences of work that inspire and excite. Two weeks shelf stacking won’t do that.’
Changing London contributor and local councillor Jamie Audsley, along with a group of young people in Croydon, has set up #FirstStepCroydon to campaign for better work experience. Working with Croydon Citizens and Teach First, the campaign has already won promises for 200 work experience placements, with expenses, from a huge range of local businesses, charities and public sector agencies.
Unpaid internships for many of the top professions exclude those who cannot afford to work for free. Informal advertising of entry-level jobs is a further bar to those who haven’t had access to the internships and don’t have the family connections where these crucial networks are built up.
Instead, too many find themselves stuck in insecure, temporary, badly paid jobs with no training and no path for promotion or advancement. Apprenticeships traditionally provided a sure-fire route for those who didn’t go to university, and there has been a recent revival in interest, but there is far more a dedicated mayor could do.
Public sector employers are already beginning to lead the way. Andrew Attfield reported on Barts NHS Trust, for example, which offers apprenticeships to local residents, including into new areas such as operating theatres, pathology labs and the outpatients department. He observes, ‘if the NHS can do this at a time of great pressure on its services, other sectors should be able to do so much more’.
Much of the responsibility for delivering on this agenda lies with employers but a mayor exploiting the influence their position brings could encourage, cajole and coerce. Setting the agenda with a few of London’s largest employers could transform the rest.
The mayor could establish a Youth Compact with Business, setting the expectation that responsible businesses would do three things for young people starting out in their careers.
(1) Provide meaningful work experience in non-entry-level jobs for young people from local schools. The number of placements could be a fixed proportion of their number of employees, or could be related to their turnover.
(2) Offer apprenticeships in an ambitious range of roles for young people, particularly those local to the area where the employer is based. Again, the number could be in proportion to the size of the organisation.
(3) Only offer internships that are fairly recruited, with fair remuneration of at least the minimum wage, and clear contracts, and sign up to Intern Aware’s Fair Internship Charter.53
A driven mayor would have a range of tools at their disposal. Direct influence over parts of the public sector would mean the police and Transport for London could blaze the trail. Other public services, including the NHS and local authorities, could be quickly signed up, particularly because many meet these criteria already. They could be extended to companies contracted to provide public services.
Writing on Changing London, Jake Hayman and Amir Jabarivasal suggested that every college and secondary school have a staff member dedicated to supporting former students in finding a career: ‘Their job would be to source opportunities for work experience, insight days, internships and even jobs, to organise CV/interview clinics and have drop-in careers counselling services.’ Many students maintain strong connections to their school or college, and even those who haven’t done so might be more likely to return there for the support than seek it at the Jobcentre. £100,000 would be enough for the initial scoping, with a further £750,000 needed to pilot it.
As for private sector employers, Chapter 4 covers the mayor’s relationship with business. We argue that a thoughtful mayor with a campaigning mindset and a willingness to engage provocatively with businesses could skilfully convene and cajole around some core themes. A Mayor’s Pledge would set out our expectations of a good London employer. It would include the opportunity to take those vital first steps into a decent career.
If necessary, institutions could be built to help promote these aims, including, for example, a London Interns Service advertising decent opportunities and allowing participants to rate employers, or an Ofsted-style mechanism for holding employers to account in how they support young people into work, as suggested by Jamie Audsley and Emily Benn.
In addition, local control of the BIS training and skills budget would help to ensure that this important resource is directed towards the areas of deepest need and greatest potential, not least, perhaps, helping with this locally specific institution building.
(5) For Every Child’s Family: A Decent
