 Mwneud i ni i fynd i ddweud yn y Sgolwch Cymru yn 2015. Felly, rydyn ni'n gwneud bod yn ddweud yn gyffredinol i Liam McArthur a Chick Brody, ac mae'n James Don and is substitute for Chick Brody. Felly, rydyn ni'n gwneud ym mwyaf James. Rhyw unrhyw i ddim yn ei ddweud ym mwyaf i ddweud ym 3, ac rydyn ni'n ddim yn ddweud i ddweud i ddweud i ddweud? Rydyn ni'n ddweud i ddweud i ddweud i ddweud i ddweud i ddweud i ddweud i ddweud i ddweud ac yn ddechreu они i thysgu ar gyfer, wrth gwrs pethau i ni'n ddesgrifynnol. Felly, rydw i'r llwyffyr yn y cyflei, mae'n cael ei anestherod tud wedi i'w munechau am y gyflwyffyr, ac mae'n ei wneud rhaid i gwybod eich cyfaintigau a cael ei eiri Gread Barn a'r coralwyr yn y cyfrannu cyflitchwyrgwyr a'r cofnwyr yn y cyfrannu cyfeirio. Felly, fel ffordd, y Cyfrannu Cyfrannu Cyfrannu, Barry McHullock, felly Y Llywydd Rot的ples and Paul Mitchell, the Scottish building federation. I thank you very much for your written submissions. Very interesting, it was too, but we're going to move straight to questions. Can I start the questioning, if you don't mind, with Mary Scanlon? Can I just open with the question on what skills employers are looking for when they're recruiting young people, either straight from school or from college? And I'm really I'm really looking at the importance of soft skills, as it's often known, and also formal qualifications, if you could just give us a brief introduction on that. I think that primarily employers are looking for young people that have got a good work ethic, that are able to turn up on time, they're able to communicate effectively, they're able to take initiative and to work as a team. I think that there has been an issue about some of the skills, the technical skills that young people might have before they go on to the apprenticeship, but there are opportunities through skills for work, through work experience opportunities, and there will be more opportunities coming out of the developing Scotland's young workforce and the Wood commission report to better prepare young people for a career in the construction industry. How would you know if someone came along to you at 16 and interviewed very well? How can you tell if that person's got a good work ethic and can work as a team? Is there anything that they can bring to the interview in terms of experience or qualifications that would help? You can clearly look at what they've done in school, if they've done a skills for work course, for example, if they've had work experience in the construction industry, if they have an interest as well in the construction industry, if they've done the research to find out a little bit about the job that they're applying for, and we would encourage young people, rather than just sign up straight away for a modern apprenticeship or construction, to actually look for work experience opportunities, to take an opportunity to find what it's really like to work in the sector before they make that commitment, and that also reduces the risk from the employer, because obviously the last thing we want is for a young person to start finding that maybe it isn't the career for them, it's better that they test it out beforehand. Employers, there are really simple basic things like does the candidate look you in the eye when they shake your hand, when they come in to see you? Are they tenacious? The construction industry is one of the few remaining industries where you can come in and chat the door and see if they've got an apprenticeship, leave your CV, come back the next week and try again. Those are the type of soft skills that employers are really looking for. I'm not sure to what extent employers look for academic qualifications when they're judging a candidate suitability for an apprenticeship. I noted, I thought it was a wee bit of a criticism of teachers in page 10, paragraph 6. What you say is, and I quote, undeniably developing the skills and knowledge of teachers in areas that are likely to have little experience in, for example, employability skills and enterprise is a challenge. Whether the funding provided by the Scottish Government will allow teachers' time out at the classroom to create closer links with business remains to be seen. You seem to be a bit sceptical about the role of teachers in preparing young people for employment. I just wonder if you would like to expand on that and suggest if there's more that could be done within schools in preparation? I think the general point that we were making is that the Wood commission is a challenge both for the education system and for businesses. Up until now, it's been fair to say that schools and colleges haven't been adequately preparing young people for the world of work. That is the crux of the Wood commission. How do we better prepare young people for that environment? The point that that paragraph was making is that what teachers have been asked to do traditionally has been very focused on qualifications, whether it be hires or now nationals. Now, in line with the Wood commission and the Government's response to that, they have been asked to build in different competencies, whether it's soft skills, the attitudinal behaviours and that itself is a challenge in how we get teachers to expose themselves to that different world and get businesses involved at the same time. At the moment, we don't know. It is a massive cultural change, but we are fairly confident that with the near 30 million that the Government is allocated to this agenda that there will be enough time to reflect for the teachers in particular. Are barriers being broken down or the silo working being broken down between schools because you say focus on qualifications and business is something that you do after you leave school and go out the door? What needs to be done to bring them both together? If I could just also finish on them, are there any specific skills gaps that you think need to be addressed and opened up? Again, that could be working with schools. We need to have better working with schools to prepare youngsters for the workplace. Is there any specific skills gap in breaking down the barriers between business and schools? I will give an example of that. I declare an interest in my wife as a teacher, so I can understand some of the issues that she has. From an employer's perspective, they find it difficult to engage with schools because they don't quite know how they can go about it. Are they encouraged into schools or not? If they are encouraged into schools, do they have to go through any checks before they can speak to young people? We need to have a better understanding of how employers can engage with schools. Employers do wish to engage with schools. Teachers and the leaders of schools certainly see that there is a role for their schools to work with their local employers. It is just how we get that together. There are just a few barriers that we need to overcome. Is that happening at careers fairs or anything like that? I think that there is that element. We need to get into schools on a more regular basis than that. A careers fair construction is in there. We are competing with tourism and all the other sectors. What do you get? You get 10 or 15 minutes to make your pitch in a year. I think that we need a bit more than that to be able to show the breadth of careers in construction, because sometimes careers people believe that construction is just for a certain type of student or pupil. We offer a breadth of careers that degrades at one level down to general operatives at another level. That is a huge industry with huge potential, with huge requirements of young people. Ten minutes, once a year, is not giving us the opportunity to make that case. Maybe bring in more women at the same time. Absolutely. I attended a developing Scotland workforce event in Carnegie. It was attended by a number of head teachers. I certainly did not sense that there was any lack of willingness to engage with it. There certainly was a lot of interest around the table. I think that there is a greater understanding among teachers of the academic roots. I think that it is certainly incumbent on organisations such as CITB through our network of field-based careers advisers and working closely with SDS and other careers advisers to highlight the scale of the opportunities that are available to young people in construction and where career and construction can take them. We have a construction ambassador programme where we train up people from the industry to speak to kids at primary and secondary school level to talk about their experiences of working in the industry. That has been quite a powerful tool to help teachers, advisers and young people to understand what a career and construction is like and where a career and construction can take them. Is there still, though, a problem of an misunderstanding or something else between industry and the education sector in that the education sector sometimes teachers themselves do not really understand the difference between construction and engineering and all the different elements? I think that is an issue. It is about working closely with the education system to outline the scale of opportunities and the career pathways across different sectors. You start off in one area and you can move on into other areas. It is making that much clearer and construction is changing. We have off-site manufacture, we have BIM coming through, we have new technologies. It is giving teachers and the education sector the scale of those opportunities that they can promote to young people. Are they doing it? As you say, we certainly have not found a lack of willingness to engage with that. I think that the levels of awareness are variable, but certainly with the schools that we work with there is quite a strong level of interest in that. I think that the Wood commission does provide an opportunity and a framework for schools to engage more in this area. Thank you, Gordon. I just wanted to ask a wee bit more about employers' responsibility to recruiting young people. The construction industry performs fairly well when it comes to apprenticeships. You get 7 per cent of the total employment and 10 per cent of the construction apprentices. That is still only 1,300 people out of 178,000 people employed in your sector. Bearing in mind that most young people in leaving school will go into either retail, hospitality or tourism, what proportion of that 178,000 people that you employ are actually young people? Is there a particular problem there why you are not recruiting? If you look at the scale of construction apprenticeship starting it is around 2,500, which is 10 per cent of the total that are coming through. There is a very strong employer commitment to taking young people on. If I could just give you one statistic through the recession over 2,000 young people lost their jobs in the period 1800 were replaced with employers. Employers made a commitment through the recession through very difficult training conditions to take on young people. A lot of those employers were small micro businesses. There is a strong commitment to taking on apprentices in the construction industry and a strong commitment to training. In terms of our levy, 15 million is levied from the construction industry every year in Scotland and 18 million is returned back in the form of training grants. The work could be done but employers are very much committed to taking on young people. We have seen that very recently through Muirfield, through that company going into administration and almost all of those apprentices have now been replaced with other employers. What is the age profile of the construction industry in general? We have an ageing workforce. That is my point. We have a bigger issue because we need 5700 experienced workers coming back into the industry and that is because of people who have left industry through the recession taking into account inflows and outflows. That is a challenge for us going forward. It is often quoted that 30% of the construction workforce is 50 years of age are over so that gives you an idea of the type of replacement demand that we are going to encounter in the coming years. Whether that means that 30% are going to retire remains to be seen. In terms of apprenticeship recruitment just to put some context around that for you prior to the recession SBTC, the Scottish Building Apprenticeship and Training Council were registering 2,700 apprentices each year in construction that does not include plumbers and electricians. By 2012 that number had dropped to just below 1,300 so more than half in a five year period Over the last couple of years we are starting to turn that around and we are facing in the right direction again last year 2014 we registered 1,550 apprentices so we are growing again and we would like to grow towards that 2,700 target and beyond. In terms of per capita recruitment Scotland has always feared better than a counterpart south of the border there remains in Scottish construction a strong culture to recruit apprentices and whilst I think there is room for improvement at the moment coming out of recession the figures are beginning to grow again. Example on the civil engineering sector is that traditionally you require a degree to be a civil engineer and by that time you are 24 never quite certain once you've got your degree whether or not it's actually the industry for you or not we realise that we have to get to the younger people quicker and we are introducing a foundation apprenticeship where we are going into schools at S4, S5 level and giving those pupils a taste of civil engineering and showing them what the career can be there and we are trying to offer them a career pathway where they are employed throughout a period from the foundation apprenticeship they then go to a modern apprenticeship technician role again fully employed when they leave school at the age of 17-18 and then we can offer a pathway showing two years HND two years civil engineering degree so what we are trying to demonstrate to a young person is that you can still get to a degree but you are employed across that whole period you can jump off at any time in that career path and also for something who has some university we can demonstrate that you'll get your degree without having the debt at the end of that degree as well you're employed over that period so more and more employers realise they have to grow their own we're competing out there with all these other industries the number of young people coming through is very low period historically so we realise we have to be better at showing young people all young people not just males, all young people that there is a career in construction where it's a lifelong career it's not a hire and fire industry so on that basis you're saying you have to grow your own are you supportive of the skills for work initiative that's taking place in the schools at the moment? OK You've finished there sorry? I've got another couple of questions but Mary wants to come in Mary's got a quick supplementary I think It's a very quick supplementary my son is a civil engineer so I know what it takes to get through that pathway Are you saying that the foundation apprenticeship the modern apprenticeship is 17 then you go on and do an HND at college you can do a distance learning or whatever as an ex lecturer but do you see an HND is equivalent to a degree or did you say after the two years at HND they would then have to go and do a two year degree so is there clear articulation from HND into into a degree course but those two years would be full time at university, the final two years You're employed at that period but they're released along that period yes They're released to university to do a degree for the final two years for junior and senior honours So we're working with You can do that by day release We're doing that with colleges just now Inverness college is up and running and doing that with I think it's Strathclyde University on the civil engineering degree and that's engineers who are employed and doing one day release and they come out with an honours degree in civil engineering attending college one day a week I'm not sure it's one day a week I'd have to come back to that but yes two years but they're employed in that period so they're working with their employer and also getting block release at B to go down to university to complete that course Block release I'd be interested in more information on the articulation convener at a later date I can do that My question for the FASB is we heard evidence or we've gathered evidence that small and micro businesses find it difficult to employ an apprentice they lack the capacity to provide the resources and training needed What are the difficulties Can you expand on them? I think it's fair to say that in contrast to the construction industry modern apprenticeships tend to not be the training that smaller businesses prefer the statistics that we have say that about 8 per cent of our members will recruit a modern apprenticeship that figure has been under about 11-12 per cent for 5-6 years so there's a steady pattern of disengagement Now when we ask our members about why that is what tends to come back to is that the model itself isn't flexible enough so the example that we get quite often is I build camper vans in East Lothan and when they go to their leasing college they come back and they don't add value so that's one particular issue but the other two key issues is time and cost pressures 98 per cent of all businesses in Scotland are small 94 per cent are under 10 employees or less and many do not have a formal HR setup so how they approach recruitment engagement tends to be quite risk averse and when you undertake a modern apprenticeship there is a commitment that you make and in the past it's accurate to say that the willingness to engage in a formal programme of training has not been taken up our members tend to prefer informal work-based training that they can dip in and out that it's much more bite-sized rather than the commitment that they make for an apprenticeship but overall I think it's the broad point that we would make is that it's very difficult to generalise and it depends on the sector it depends on the size of the business that you have in apprenticeships and rural areas have their own challenges whether that be distance to market distance to education institution for their release The one difficulty I have with that point you've just raised about small businesses and they don't have HR departments etc how many hairdressing firms have HR departments I mean, hairdressing has 900 apprentices predominantly small businesses with half a dozen employees how does that small business manage to take on apprentices straight from school and train them and yet other businesses that are of a similar size and scale don't? It harks back to the previous point about complexity and that in hairdressing for example modern apprenticeships is an established training programme so it's part of that culture of business whereas in other service sectors whether it be retail tourism, hospitality, it's less so so it really comes back to what is common amongst the businesses within that sector and what is the expectation from the business owner or the relationship with the college or the public sector If we're going to get people that have got the right level of skills and experience for small businesses to take on how do we do that? Whose responsibility is to get people that are what ready and ready for these small businesses Whose responsibility is to do that? I think fundamentally that's the business's responsibility they make that skills assessment they know their business is there a route for the public sector to assist them in that assessment absolutely that is what Skills Development Scotland are there to do but we are aware of the opinion that now the modern apprenticeship programme is only applicable to certain businesses in certain sectors and we need to start talking about how other businesses can access skills and training in a flexible way So how much engagement do you have with colleges on that issue or with schools in particular to encourage them to work for your members? The wood commission is a bit of a game changer I think it's absolutely fair to say In the past businesses have been fairly passive and now we're getting to a point where businesses are having to be much more involved they're having to be partners in that process it's too early to say whether or not that cultural change can actually be achieved whether schools are open and colleges or whether the businesses are willing or able to engage but we are only a few months into the Scottish Government strategy and I think it is too early to say but I think we are optimistic that now about one in four of our members want to get engaged it's just how they get engaged it's a tangibility of that engagement so when they speak to schools and colleges or have had that outreach it's been very specific of what you want from that business how can they help rather than come and engage in those schools can you provide classroom visits can you provide careers advice entrepreneurship, mentoring it's been very specific about what that type of engagement time requirements that would be that would be necessary ok, thanks for watching ok, thank you, George question is around attainment and the inequalities in attainment now one of the situations that the evidence has given us is the fact that we've got a there seems to be a problem in schools when it comes to and with parents when it comes to the idea of vocational and academic it seems to be everything seems to be weighed down now we constantly get told we're not getting people that are going into vocational side of business now and in times that I've heard stories of young people being encouraged to go to academic when they could have quite easily gone down the engineering route or something like that so how do we get, we've talked about it a wee bit today, but how do we get to the stage where we can we actually managed to change that culture within schools to try and move it towards a parity similar to the European models where there is a parity there's not look down on a point to go down the vocational route in school I think some of that is raising the skill of the opportunities available to young people and to the teachers there is a bit of a challenge some schools will measure the success in terms of the number of people that go on to university and I think we need to challenge that and promote careers, vocational careers is just as equally valid and I think through the Wood commission there is an opportunity through these new foundation and also through the senior phase at school where young people actually get an opportunity to try out different careers so they're not having to get right through to the end of their career at the end of their school time and then make a decision about what apprenticeship they want to go on to they've actually a chance to sample something through work experience, through an FMA through some other initiative which enables them to make a decision about what they actually want to do but there's still quite a bit of work to be done in this area, it's still a challenge one of the other things that tends to be coming up is that it's down to leadership within the local schools as well where it comes to either head teacher or everybody embracing it but I was quite interested we went to Westerhales education centre and they seem to have not a bad balance of working with the local college and also working with the vocational side but it's adding a bit of flexibility that a lot of other schools are looking at but one of the other things I wanted to ask is where do you see the relevance of employers in attainment and reducing the attainment gap I'm asking this question because perfect examples, my own father in the 1960s came out of junior secondary school after failing his 11 plus ended up getting an apprenticeship in a local business and then end up employing over 200 people in his own town himself now how do we do that? how do we do that nowadays because these opportunities aren't there when you come out of school for young people how do we make sure that we can make sure that the curriculum's there and it's part of the curriculum Certainly from the employer perspective one of the things that's been introduced recently is the investors in young people accolade and that's something that employers can work towards and we've got examples of a number of construction companies that have already got that award and if I just use one example GMG contractors in East End of Glasgow Jerry McGinn he's actually helped a lot of young people who've had quite a hard start in life got honours and apprenticeships with his company and many of them have stayed there's a very low churn rate there he's invested the time to actually support and help them and bring them through and there's many more examples like that right across the construction industry in Scotland I think as an industry we need to inspire young people to make a choice to look at construction industry across the breadth of careers that's available to them and going back to one of the points that Phil made of the young ambassadors that we have so there's no point old bloke like me going into school I'm not something they're going to look to but what we've got to get is the young people in the industry to go back and show look what I've achieved and across the breadth of all the different qualifications and careers that we have so we've got to inspire young people to actually make the choice to say you know what I want to have a look at what construction can offer me and we then got to make sure that the schools are in a position to work with employers to be able to offer these young people tasters, work experience somewhere along the line so they can then say yet this is for me or actually no this is not for me at all they want to do until they leave school and then they make a career decision that might not be the right one we need to get in a bit earlier and give them that taster of what is available to them I liked what you said earlier Graham about giving them the whole career path I think that's obviously the vision thing because one of the things you'll be aware that my own constituency in Paisley the UWS was traditionally a technical college and their big thing in the engineering side was effectively they had to tell the parents and the kids how much that child could earn within that industry to recruit them into that and it was only then that everybody started to work out what the future was can I ask from the entrepreneurial side like small businesses traditionally in Scotland regardless of background traditionally we don't seem to have this entrepreneurial spirit of people wanting to be self-employed or seeing it as an option it's always get a job or something else how do we get that kind of spirit into the young people regardless of their own socio-economic background certainly there's much more we can do but I think it's worth reflecting on the fact that since 2008 one of the upside of the downturn was this massive explosion in self-employment we had a 30% growth there was whether through distress or otherwise business and taking that leap and there are organisations like Young Enterprise Scotland or the Princes Trust who do good work the problem is that it's very patchy and it's very reliant on the relationship that they have either with the school or the education provider or with the education authority and there are organisations so it's back to leadership at educational I think it's about leadership but it's also about recognising that spirit of entrepreneurship within education has other implications and other positive consequences for young people whether it's building confidence whether it's engaging with young people in a different way the wood commission were right to point out that around 50% of those who do not go down the academic route are twice more likely to be unemployed it's how you engage them and make sure that they can make that contribution make sure that they're prepared for life in the jobs market because it will be incredibly tough for them first of all in the Scottish construction sector round about a quarter of all workers engaged are self-employed so there's still a strong element of self-employment in Scottish construction whether that's real self-employment or phony self-employment whether that's good or bad it remains a feature of the Scottish construction sector another feature within the Scottish construction is for candidates who started out on an apprenticeship to actually end up being the owner of their own company and he said there's that entrepreneurial spirit I can think of many candidates who started out on an apprenticeship and have ended up running their own company be that a small local company or a national company Bill Robertson, Robertson Construction springs to mind, started out in a jointing apprenticeship now employs hundreds of people in the construction industry and I think that's one of the reasons why we still retain this strong culture of apprenticeship recruitment and it maybe touches a point on the point that was raised earlier why the hairdressers still recruit so many apprentices part of the answer for that to me is because many of the hairdressers who now run businesses would have one day previously been the apprentice hairdresser themselves and that's an element that we still retain in Scottish construction to come back to your earlier point about the involvement of employers in raising attainment for me there are three elements there first of all careers advice information and guidance that Graham touched upon earlier we've got to get into schools as early as possible to start that engagement process the careers advice has got to be more modern it's got to be more interactive as Graham says there's no point in people like us going in and doing a power point presentation on construction we've got to get the kids hands dirty we've got to get them involved mock construction exercises et cetera I think the second thing that employers can offer is better work experience placements when I was at school we got one week's work experience in fourth year I'm really not sure how meaningful or beneficial that actually is that's got to be a far more meaningful way of doing that and the third element for me is employers have got to get involved in shaping the vocational qualifications at school level we can't just expect it to happen by magic employers have got to get in to organisations like the SQA and describe, explain outline exactly what it is they want in terms of vocational education at schools okay thank you very much Mark I've touched on attainment and I think there's been discussions on how you can improve attainment more generally but I just wanted to ask if members of the panel see the attainment gap and the difference in attainment in their most affluent and most deprived communities as an issue for your members and how that's impacting on the businesses as well I mean are you able to see a big enough pool of candidates for the posts that you're advertising or other particular pockets of the country where that's a bigger issue than others look at apprentice recruitment there is actually quite a healthy supply of applicants for each apprenticeship place it's about four applicants for each modern apprenticeship position and construction so there's clearly a lot of interest out there but some parts of the country for example Aberdeen where you're competing with the oil and gas sector it can be a little bit more challenging to get young people in but we do quite a strong piece of work there with the schools to try and promote the construction careers give them information about the wages they'll be earning and the career potential to try and get them to consider a career in construction so it does vary across the country I think what I would say the industry, certainly the civil engineering side of it, up to 18 months two years ago the main concern of the sector was workload just get us work please get us work it was a big switch by 18 months two years ago now the main priority is skills and development it's a case of where are the people to do the work that we've now got so employers have kind of woken up to that a bit late you might say but they've woken up to the fact that we really need young people people from all parts of society so the attainment gap there's a job for everybody in the construction industry so what we're doing as a sector is that we realise that we need to try and get a supply chain down through into primary schools so we're funding at the civil engineering contractors association are funding a project called Bridges to Schools where the institutional civil engineers have a bridge this is not just a wee silhouette bridge it's a seven metre bridge which goes in and it runs with primary six and primary seven school kids for two days and what they then do is they work together as a team they work out with the difficulties and they assemble this huge bridge and they walk across it so what we're trying to do is get into primary schools showing young people look this is what construction is about the bridges to schools thing is great because we're actually building a very very big bridge just not far from here and so the whole idea is once I've done that we then take them to the education centre at South Queensferry so they can show them the real bridge getting built you've built your bridge he's another bridge getting built and he's trying to get them early to get them encouraged enthused about it and we've got some iconic buildings in Scotland we've got to be better at using that to say is for everyone let's make our society better through building and try and sell it and then later on what we then do is show them actually it's a lifelong career and you can actually make some decent money in construction I think what's not well understood is that construction pays well I think a lot of people view construction as being a low paying industry no it's not it pays well so we can show that employers have a great role a far greater role than they've had in the past to sell the industry because if we don't then we've got big problems Can I ask about that particular programme and you talked about the issue of the industry being the the flow of people who are going to need to fill those roles the most fruitful areas to me would seem to be the areas of highest availability of people to come into those roles, is there a particular focus on areas of higher unemployment higher deprivation when you're talking about that bridges to schools or is that just that broadly across all that my point in this question is about reducing the gap the attainment gap rather than a broad increase in education on attainment and employment across the whole of Scotland we've got a grand plan there whether this grand plan will ever work is another thing but we're running these foundation civil engineering apprenticeships which is a partnership between a secondary school and a college so we're running two pilots we're running a pilot in West Lothian which involves West Lothian college Carlywc High School and some West Lothian high schools we're taking the bridges to schools for that secondary school so if you've got Carlywc High School it will have feeder primary schools into that we're taking the bridge to schools project in there because there is a route as we see it from primary school secondary school vocational foundation apprenticeship and then to the local college so that's what we're trying to do similarly we're trying to do the same up in Inverness with Inverness college and it's two secondary schools up there too so that's what we're trying to do it's not very early days yet but in those primary schools those with will have difficult entertainment and hopefully we can show them that there's a role for them in there as well too if I could just make a point as well we work very closely with the department for work and pensions we've just signed a strategic agreement with them which covers a number of areas and one of the things we're looking to do is look at the basis so we know where the skill shortages are we can then prioritise those we look at a long term five year forecast so we know where the skills are going to be we can then work with the DWP if they've got people on their books we can fill those immediate skills gaps we can also work with the skills to promote the careers in an area where we know those skills are going to be required and we can then offer sessions for their own advisers so that they're aware of the opportunities that are available in the construction industry to them and so far that's working fairly successfully and we've also asked every construction employer through apprenticeship week to make a pledge to take young people on for work experience opportunity with a view hopefully to have them moving on to either an MA or paid employment at the end building on previous comments I think it's worth reflecting on three points private sector employment in Scotland is at the highest level it's been since 1999 in a time when public sector employment has gone down the second point is that there is an untold story about the role of small businesses and taking those furthers from the labour market depending on what statistics you read about across the UK somewhere between 75% and 90% of those who are either inactive or find employment in small businesses they just don't have the CSR or marketing departments to tell people about it the third point is directly addressing the issue of skill shortages I think it's definitely the case that we haven't yet matched supply and demand and if we did there would be no unemployment but part of the answer to that is more local and robust labour market intelligence so whether, if you're in a school or a college how do you match what you offer in your curriculum to what the labour market can absorb either within the short term or the medium term until we get to the point where curriculum is both influenced by the private sector and produced for the private sector you'll always have these dislocations between the supply of the skills and the demand from industry Kate Catt I'll just raise one point Graham, you mentioned it twice now about the foundation apprenticeships in a relatively positive way and yet the Scottish Building Federation in the written submission said a significant level of concern remains regarding proposals to create foundation apprenticeships and craft occupations and you're going to list practical issues training issues and progression issues Paul, within your... I just wondered, you know it's come up a couple of times Graham seemed to be... I don't know if it wasn't in your mouth Graham but you seem to be reasonably positive about foundation apprenticeships but the written evidence from the SPF is very different I think first of all stand by the evidence that's in the written statement that there are a number of concerns in the construction industry regarding foundation apprenticeships and parts we could come to those in more detail in just a second I should say I have had some exposure to the programme that Graham's operating and I think it's excellent and so far today it has been successful but it is aimed mainly at more academic perhaps fully colour type occupations, technicians rather than guys that are going to end up on the tools or operatives that are going to end up on the tools if we want to come to have a look at foundation apprenticeships themselves I've listed some issues in the written evidence there that outline our concerns that broadly shaped into three categories the practical issues around timetabling around resources principally for me looking to get more vocational training into schools isn't necessarily a new idea the main reason why it hasn't happened in the past is because it's resource intensive you need low pupil to instructor ratios, you need materials you need a lot of space you often need transport to get to colleges it's often an expensive route to look at and there are academic alternatives or maybe not quite so expensive so that's one of the main reasons why vocational training hasn't really got off the ground in schools today I go on to look at the training issues and candidates wouldn't have that daily experience of being involved in the construction industry so at the moment embedded within the apprenticeship framework is the opportunity to go to college for a couple of weeks, come back to site practice your skills on site practice again and there's an inter relationship between on site and off site training progression issues, where does the candidate go if they don't manage to get an apprenticeship at the end of their school term if they undertake a foundation apprenticeship and start to work towards some of the SVQ where's the progression route after the finished school we're not quite sure on that point just yet but most importantly I think at the end of the paper we outline a positive alternative to the foundation apprenticeship which is skills for work and the national progression award the NPA in construction which offer candidates first of all employability skills but secondly they offer a taster of a variety of different occupations within the construction sector and that opportunity for candidates to make more informed career decisions is very beneficial at that stage in their development OK, thank you I'm not going to be keen to explore that but I know that some members have questions directly on apprenticeships so we'll come to that later but thank you very helpful for you to outline that next I've got Colin Beattie I'd like to go back to engagement between employers and employer organisations and the schools looking at the submissions that have come in there's a lot of aspirational stuff here but I don't see too firm a design a plan a way forward in terms of developing these relationships what do you think of the current levels of engagement between employers employers organisations and schools is it good and variable how do you see it some really good examples of good practice out there I mentioned earlier the construction ambassador programme which we have where we invite people from the industry to go through a one day course to enable them to go into schools at primary and secondary level and talk about their experiences of working in the construction industry and generally speaking schools are very receptive to that they're happy to have people come in so there is quite a strong link schools and colleges and employers could that be stronger yes I'm sure it could and I'm sure in some areas it could be improved but I think there's certainly a strong willingness from employers because they can see the benefits of the apprenticeship system particularly those who've engaged in it for a number of years they can see the benefits of engaging with the schools and the colleges and getting good calibre young people in as apprentices and most of these small businesses that take on apprentices will keep the apprentice after they finish their training because they want to mould them into the shape of their particular company so yes more could be done but there's some good practice out there what actual measures are being taken by again I'll say employers and employers organisations because obviously they would have a slightly different approach what measures are actually being taken to increase the engagement can I give an example of that is that we as an employers organisation run what we call a training and development forum twice a year and this is where the people within companies come together and we talk about our training and development issues what we've done recently is invite along schools, heads of schools and local colleges to these meetings and we had one about three weeks ago where we had a whistle in college and the head teacher from Carluke High School gave up the time and came along and that was very enlightening I think for both parties because it was a forum so employers were able to ask the question of the head teacher of a school which is the leader of that particular school what his views were and I think he got a better understanding of where employers were coming from so early days yet but we're hoping every time we do one of these ones we'll invite along teachers, local colleges to see how do we work together we're all trying to achieve the best thing for our young people they're trying to get the best for their young people at school we're trying to get the best for our industry and the best people into our industry so that needs to be working better so that's a small step but I think if we keep working that way that we get a better understanding of what each other's requirements are and the difficulties we have employers feel that schools are a no-go area for us we have to be invited in we're not able to we have to work to a set school timetable I think the head teacher said that's not actually the case and our employers weren't aware of that so I think it's just hearing it from both sides and working out that there are ways we can do this we also have 15 industry training groups within Scotland which are made up of groups of employers in regions all the way from Dumfriesach to the western Isles up to Orkney and Shetland and every year those groups will have targets for schools engagement and a number of the members of those groups will be actively involved in engaging with the local schools we have apprenticeship week coming up in May and working with SDS and bodies like SEICA and the Scottish Building Federation and others there are 40 events planned the length and breadth of Scotland and a lot of those will involve engagement with schools and young people so it's building on events like this to reach subjects that we want to get to in terms of the level of engagement between schools and employers In previous evidence sessions we've heard from various bodies that the schools don't seem to be putting together the mix of skills that employers are necessarily looking for and obviously that's why engagement is so important do you find that that is the case? I think there's probably a bit more work to be done to link in the construction offer into the curriculum for excellence and that's one of the things that we'll be doing this year in terms of actually mapping it I think there is a willingness of schools to engage with the process but certainly a little bit more work could be done in that area and I think it's also making the schools aware of the opportunities that are available construction and the career pathways that we talked about earlier The point that I would make is that in actual fact we don't know that much about small businesses engagement and education system in fact we know very little the only statistics available in Scotland were from a survey we commissioned a couple of years ago and that found that basically you can split small businesses 50-50 between those who engage and those who don't of those who do engage the top three types of experience tend to be things like work experience, classroom visits class talks but more importantly for those who don't engage some of the key issues are things like they haven't been contacted so there's this level of pacificity to an extent what hasn't been considered the cost time pressures but encouragingly what we've found is that there is about 25% of small businesses in Scotland who are willing to get involved and it's just how you broker that relationship we're hopeful that the investment in young people groups that have come on stream from the wood commission and the government's response to that their role is to build that bridge between the business model and education in a very practical way how do you get involved in holding your hand through the whole process because the process for small businesses is very important it's really critical to get it right so that it doesn't take too much time so that it's not onerous that it's reflective of their needs so yes, we're very confident that that will take place In your opinion and given your experience what is the biggest change schools could make that would support businesses If I had to pick one it would be positive outreach it would be a message to the business community that we are open I think that the point that Graham made is a very good one a lot of businesses expect that engagement to come from schools whether we like it or not I think that if they were to work with other parts of the public sector, particularly the enterprise network whether it's business gateway Scottish Enterprise there is an intelligence that we have in Scotland and how we can utilise that to make sure that businesses get more involved, I think could be a bit of a game changer because if you look at the experience in northern European countries where you have a model where businesses are much more involved your unemployment goes down in Switzerland for example 88,000 foundational modern apprenticeships are delivered per year they are quite stark on stats which is why skilled development Scotland are so keen to build that model notwithstanding the concerns that Paul raised Given that particular point that you have made there do you believe that it is primarily the responsibility of the schools to reach out to the employers I realise that there is a judgement here but do you believe that the schools should be the ones to reach out to the employers simply in some cases yes I think that there is increasingly a shared responsibility but from our perspective the role of schools in particular is to prepare young people for the workplace there is a philosophical debate about what the role of schools is but fundamentally that's your opinion so how they engage and make sure that those young people are ready for the workplace is important that's as important as the qualifications that they produce that's the most important for our members it's less about the abstract qualifications and how they apply that learning in the workplace which makes work experience and work placement so important To add to that employers can help at schools help guidance teachers when they're guiding young people as to what they're exactly looking for young kids are young kids or a job interview they're not going to have a huge CV they're just not because they're only 16 and they're a bit immature a bit shy and employers realise that but we need to be better at telling guidance teachers just a couple of things that these kids can do better and perhaps the personal statements they bring in rather than a CV a personal statement what's their interest what do they get involved in that's the type of thing an employer uses to make a decision on employing somebody they just don't have a CV and it's not all about academic achievement it's what they do out of school how they socially engage in many cases so sometimes I think schools just gonna well it's a kind of reform of CV and they don't spend enough time in helping the kids to understand it's not a formal job interview it's a chat they're having with their employer and the employer realises if they can get three or four decent coherent points out of it that's as much as they could expect and they make their decisions on that I think it's a mixture of both it's the schools reaching out it's also the employers reaching out and there's some great examples of good practice it's capturing what works well I don't think there's a lack of willingness for schools to engage but there might be a lack of understanding and knowledge about how best to engage and the opportunities are out there it's been offered by the employer links into the curriculum for excellence and I think just joining all that up would be a very positive way forward and I think the investment in youth groups is one way of doing that OK, thank you Siobhan we've covered a lot this morning about engagement with schools but I'm wondering what the barriers are to employers in engagement with individual pupils what would be the barriers there in terms of offering work placements often employers say to us that there's barriers in terms of health and safety there's perceived health and safety barriers they're not only to operate certain machinery until they're 18 years of age many employers like people who are going to go on to the building sites to have a certain level of health and safety training perhaps possess a safety card before they come on site I'm not sure how real some of those concerns actually are going to break them down we can overcome them but there's certainly a widespread perception and a hesitance amongst employers in the construction industry to have 15, 16 year old kids on their building sites the last thing that the employer wants is for school pupils to come out and have an accident on site so there is a concern but it's actually working with the employer to identify what are the real barriers OK, they may not be able to work in a particular piece of equipment but there is something they can do and it's not just making tea and coffee in the office they can have health and safety training there's bits and pieces they can do where they're shadowing, they're out, accompanied on site watching what's happening there and it's just sort of outlining what is possible and once we break down some of those barriers and again we've got some great examples of employers who have engaged and overcome those working with them very closely it works well so it's just on packing that a little bit to split the real from the perceived barriers I mean, the reason I ask that question is, and it goes back to Mark's point a lot of the evidence that we've heard this morning very useful as it is is all about what we can do with the wood commission and the responsibilities there it doesn't address the problem of the attainment gap of how when you go into a school the teachers have already selected the pupils that they think are the best for your industry or are the more apt to have a discussion with you or are better at presentations or whatever that may be we might be missing the real pupils who would adapt better to situations and so therefore the question that I was asking was trying to get to the point where employers have to look for those pupils in the schools because from where I sit that's already the barrier to you that you've already got the pre-selected pupils for you how then do we get into that gap we're trying to come up with evidence for a report that suggests we can do something practical in this gap it's all very well and good signed up to it about the practical measures that we can get to and the opportunities we can give pupils but if you're not getting to the pupils who can get those opportunities we're failing them already I think there's a lot about getting in there at an early enough point so you're not given pre-selected candidates that have been shepherded in a particular direction but it's quite a complex area it's not just the relationship with the pupils there's the parents there's the careers advisors at a very early point so not towards the end of their career in school actually at an earlier point S1 to S3 or even at primary school level to offer the opportunities and construction at that level so I think there's a great deal of work to be done with parents because they probably have the greatest influence over what young people do or don't do and speaking certainly to some of our apprentices in the college last week if their dad is left school at 16 they're probably going to be quite encouraging then less encouraging so it's actually trying to work with the parents through the parent forum and also linking in through my world of work for example SDS's website that's been refreshed for young people and through our own careers portal to help parents and careers advisors and teachers understand what opportunities are available and not necessarily push young people down a route which is not suitable for them so I think it's early intervention and it's outlining the scale of the opportunity at an early stage as possible Okay, and just finally in your evidence this morning or the written no one spoke about protected characteristics and the work that you're doing and that's all for instance the problem of not getting enough females into the sector, not getting enough people from an ethnic minority background not getting anyone with disabilities that didn't come up in evidence and clearly that's part of the attainment gap so what practical measures are being done to address that and how do you promote it because clearly you don't promote it in work that you give to us so it's all hidden away instead of being out in the open Well one of the projects under the joint investment strategy in the CITB submission talks about on-site which is a piece of work that we're doing with Equate at Napier University and that's specifically to address gender issues within the construction industry so it's work experience opportunities actually focusing on school girls that want to come into the construction industry but providing some additional support and help so what are the opportunities that are available what are the career opportunities what are the barriers that they might have to overcome real and perceived what support can they get around childcare costs particularly at 7 in the morning when you're going on to a construction site so Equate have worked very hard with us to identify some of those barriers and carried out a great deal of research captured as a theme within the new skills investment plan for the construction industry that we've fer into and the SDS launched a couple of weeks back we have had conversations with organisations like Stonewall around sexuality so it is a very real issue we're very aware of it, we know that we have only around 2% female in the craft modern apprenticeships although it's slightly higher at 30% in the professions and we're working very hard to address that but we have some great examples of what we've come into the construction industry and now doing very well for themselves running their own business and we have a number of female construction ambassadors that go into the schools and promote very strongly their experiences of working in the sector so I wouldn't like the committee to feel that we're not addressing this we are very much looking at these areas I'll give you a practical example of what we're trying to do on the foundation apprenticeship I keep talking about on the civil engineering the college has stated that it's going to be a 50-50 split between young boys and young girls and when they recruit the boys because they'll probably get more than the girls applying for it they will stop at 50% and they will actively then try and fill the remaining places with girls so small step I accept small step but it is an example of how we realise that we can't keep avoiding half of the workforce out there Just to be devil's advocate for a moment Graham If you're a parent of a young boy who's at school, who's applying for the very course you've just described and who's very able and very keen and unfortunately for them they're number 51 in the percent of that perfectly able and skilled individual and you're saying we won't take you but there are lots of empty spaces and we're going to try and find other people to fill them because you're not getting that space How do you think they would feel about that? As a parent I don't think I'd be best pleased by that I think that then the pressure would go back on to the college and to try and increase the number of spaces proportionately so you take on all the young boys but you make sure that you have the balance and get the girls coming through because with the foundation apprenticeship it's employer backed so there's employers out there who have signed up to and will give work experience to these young people in the second year of that foundation apprenticeship and employers realise they're not just after boys they're after young women too so we know what we've got to do but as a parent, yes, I would be a bit miffed I suggest I'm a bit miffed but really as an industry we've got to take a bigger picture on that The reason I'm raising it, Graham isn't that the problem is right back at the core of the start of this but actually encouraging young girls to apply for these in the first place I'm just trying to suggest that effectively it's about making sure that people whether they be young girls or from ethnic minority backgrounds or they say there's a role for you and there's an opportunity for you in these industries that's where the core problem is and I'm wondering about the means at which you're describing to tackle the core problem does the description you've given of a mechanism to try and help actually deal with the core problem of getting more young girls in this case to apply? I think it's a long game we're having to play here but I'll go back to what I said earlier we're doing work in primary schools to inspire everyone that there is a and give them a feeling that there is a career for them in this industry if they want it it comes down to choice at the end the industry's not saying we only want boys but there is a history of it being a male industry and we've got to break that down so we have to go into primary schools do the work there do the work as S1 and S2 pupils to make sure when we get to doing the selections the kids are doing the selections for the foundation apprenticeships that everybody wants to do it and I would agree with that that's directly the point I was trying to raise James Thank you, convener I congratulate you Graham on at least trying to break down some barriers which must be very difficult under existing circumstances I want to ask a couple of questions about apprenticeships I get the feedback on the main reason of motivations employers have for taking on apprenticeships particularly young people aged 16 to 19 year old and conversely the main reason why they might decide not to The main reason our employers would take on apprentices is because they see the benefit and many of them have actually been apprentices themselves so they've gone right through the system and they can see how it's helped them in their career so it's very much personal experience and they can see the benefit a apprentice can bring to the organisation you've got them for four years working for you so you've got time to shape them in the way you want in terms of your company's values and culture and usually the apprentices will stay with that employer so the retention is not so much of an issue once you've gone through the full training the employer will where possible keep that young person on and then they can see the career progression of the company perhaps into management positions as well so they see that journey of the individual right the way through some of the barriers well through the recession I think some of the barriers was the lack of work that was available and Graham touched on that earlier you know how can you make a commitment for four years to someone when your order books only sort of three to six months and that was a very real issue and we did see a number of apprentices who were made redundant and we had to work quite hard to make sure they were re-homed and thankfully is less of an issue now so I think that particular barrier is much less than it would have been two, three years ago and I think overall the employer see the advantages of it as against the disadvantages they get a lot of support from bodies like Scottish Building Apprenticeship Training Council Scottish Painting and Decorating Apprenticeship Training Council that set the wage rates they got a lot of support from CITB there's a very strong structured training programme and from an employer's point of view there's less of a risk to doing that because there's a clear support mechanism for that young person including welfare all the way through their apprenticeship I think some of the positives first of all we've already touched upon the culture within the construction industry to continue to recruit and employ apprentices apprentices bring a degree of energy a degree of invigoration to their employer and employers are also concerned about the succession planning we mentioned earlier that 30% of the workforce are aged 50 over employers recognise that they don't address that problem themselves by recruiting apprentices they can't expect other people to do it for them in terms of some of the reasons why employers might be a little bit hesitant to take on an apprentice I think cost is a major factor there the aggregate wage cost to take on a construction apprentice across the four years is just north of £50,000 so it's a significant investment from particularly small employers there's also the off the job training element so in your average construction apprenticeship you would lose the candidate for round about 32 weeks as they go to college you need to be able to plug those gaps with other resources whilst the apprentice is engaging in off the job training and lastly I would mention the pipeline of work it is a four year apprenticeship so employers have got to be confident that they have a substantial pipeline of work for the four year duration which is going to be able to sustain the apprenticeship itself there's broadly for those for the small firms that engage in the programme it's a cost effective route to tackle skills deficiencies summarised all the main benefits for those who don't the time cost pressures are particularly onerous looking forward we can look to some of the innovations in the apprenticeship programme and how we can either embark on shared apprenticeships or mixed apprenticeships so that you can create bespoke apprenticeships depending on I'm sure we'll have different opinions on that but how you can allow those who don't have the capacity to take on that apprenticeship over the course of four years could share particularly in industries like tourism where there is seasonality where they don't have the work coming in to cover that workload so how do you then work with another employer in the central belt who does have that capacity let's see a larger teller to share that skill say an employee across the board Graham do you have any comment on this following on what fool was saying I hope that we've expressed to the committee today that the Scottish construction industry has a history of supporting apprenticeships and I don't see that changing in any way I think what we could try and do is increase the numbers that we take on and the breadth of people that we employ as apprentices we can see workload ahead of us which is strong and that's encouraging so I'm encouraged in terms of apprenticeships and the strength in the Scottish construction industry and I can see us taking on many more in the coming years I'd like to hear it Can I just move on to the small and micro businesses that you talked about earlier on the question that I was going to ask was about how employers might best access the opportunities to take on apprenticeships and young people leaving school but earlier on I think that it was you that said that many of these companies don't see any value in apprenticeships how do we break that down I would probably say that it's not a case of value it's just a case of fit I'd say around about 66% of our membership don't see the relevance of the model for their business there's this belief that hard hat industries only I think that's very strong in the business community and if you're in the service sector if you're a retailer or you work in hospitality I wouldn't particularly be the best fit I think we see the foundation of our apprenticeship model as one way in which you can better promote that and introduce clear pathways through schools, colleges and into the workplace I think that would be the way that you engage early with the employers in a school make it tangible, make it quite focused and then the hope that it would have employment benefits the other part of it is probably around what can we do more to offset some of the costs if you're a microbusiness with five employees and you lose one of those for 30 weeks in a college how do you fill that gap these are the practical issues that our members come to us about they seek support from SDS or others on it's how the logistical elements it's if we have payroll how do we cover that do we get in contractors do we get in someone else and how do they fill that gap going on from that then let's talk about those who do want to take on apprenticeships how best do they access the opportunities to take apprenticeships on particularly those that are going to leave school primarily through training providers it would be the training providers who contract out from SDS who access the opportunities we do less better I think for instance those who are thinking about it but not quite there but those who benefit from the apprenticeship programme are evangelists about the programme there's no question about that it's those who aren't and who for all taints and purposes will go down a different training route and will embark on something more informal and more work based and will they evangelise to the other members of the FSB yeah absolutely so some of the most powerful change can come about through peers and peer-to-peer support that will achieve much more than any public sector organisation could do because our members tend to recruit through word of mouth so if you can get apprenticeships working in that model then you will see an uplift in employment okay thank you, does Andy else have any comment on those in terms of engagement from small businesses we have a lot of very strong support from the construction industry so it's slightly different in terms of how we recruit young people will apply for a construction apprenticeship through be constructive site which we have available for them to do that and then we have a team we've got 150 staff in Scotland and most of those work from home and they're all the way up from Dumfries up to Orkney so we've taken on apprentices I've expressed an interest to our companies that we feel should be looking at it and we will trap the door we will send out information and we will encourage the employers to give young people an opportunity and the two main recruitment periods the main recruitment period for us is around August, September and we have another intake again in January linking in with the college timetable but we really do not have an issue with employers not engaging with OK, can I just ask then the commission for developing Scotland's young workforce made the recommendation to focus more on level 3 apprenticeships but Audit Scotland suggests that many employers are not seeking level 3 apprenticeships what's your comments about that or any solutions to it and the construction industry at the moment the majority of apprenticeships that we offer are at SVQ level 3 so what's often referred to as the biblical trade in the red paper and decorating etc are all offered at SVQ level 3 and of the 1,500 or so apprentices that we registered last year around about 1,100 of those were at SVQ level 3 at SVQ level 2 apprenticeships which in contrast to SVQ level 3 apprenticeships typically are of 2 year duration rather than 4 have much shorter off the job training and normally don't finish with a skills test as it's known in the industry SVQ level 2 occupations include scaffolding aims taping general building operations steeplejacks a whole vast array of different construction specialisms that could be offered at SVQ level 2 there is within SVTC and within the construction community there's quite fierce protection of keeping the qualifications which are offered at SVQ level 3 at the moment at that level there's not much in the way of a campaign to dilute those and I'm very much hopeful that that was to the case in fact I would like to see some of the SVQ level 2 occupations uplifted to an SVQ level 3 apprenticeship It's really just a question of balance of what the industry requires when they may in the level 3 would be the known but there are particular parts of the sector which a level 3 isn't appropriate for that so that's when the level 2 modern apprenticeships would be used so all of the apprenticeship frameworks of construction are developed with full consultation with the construction industry so the frameworks that we have in place are reflective of what industry I've asked for and require About what the Audit Scotland report did very well with tease out this tension between quantity and quality and so if you have targets how feasible is it to bring in the quality where if you speak to Skills Development Scotland a lot of that demand is from level 3 and below and it's reflecting on how we can do both how you can change your contributions which STS are going through just now to encourage those from level 3 and above at a national level so you do get that uptake in key sectors Just one last question and it touches on the attainment gap that was discussed before the role of the apprenticeship programmes in addressing attainment gap where do you see the role of the apprenticeship programme in that? Promoting a career in construction and the apprenticeship offer to all young people in schools so they're aware of what's available and what can sometimes happen is that the least stable candidates are pushed into a construction are pre-selected into a career in construction what we want to do is offer the range of construction careers and apprenticeship opportunities available to us why the selection of young people is possible so that they can make those educated decisions about what career is right for them Is there any work done this kind of touches on the point that Siobhan was making earlier on but is there any specific work done that suggests that what you'll do is you'll go to schools that maybe don't have a great record of academic attainment and target to try and give some of those kids the better chance of a good lifestyle by recognising the importance of going into construction for example Clearly we look at an area by area basis what the skills requirements are going to be where the skills shortages are and then promote the career opportunities in those areas which are going to lead to sustainable employment which is at the core of everything that we do and construction is slightly unique in the fact that you have to be employed by the organisation of the apprenticeship programme so they're getting paid from day one and they're employed right the way through their apprenticeship which is a fantastic opportunity for a young person so yes we would go in to young people from disadvantaged backgrounds and talk about the opportunities that are available but we would do that for all school children and primarily you're looking at where promoting where the jobs are and the opportunities are in those particular areas based on what work we know is coming through the pipeline over the next four or five years I think the only point I would add to that is that the construction industry has a requirement due to the health and safety nature of the industry is that we have regulated competence throughout the industry so you could take someone on who has low achievement at school but these people are developed within the company to get the skills and the lifelong learning in some cases to develop the skills they need and the competence they need to operate safely in the industry so there is, whilst learning isn't just finished just at school it carries on within the employers cos the industry demands that through all the different card schemes and company schemes that we have in the industry OK All right, thanks very much George Just from seeing that in certain areas you could probably see what was available work-wise and trying to recruit in these areas as well How do we address a situation like Aberdeen where in construction there's quite a lot going on at the moment but maybe a lot of the young people you might need to recruit are probably more likely to be down in the central belt How do we address that type of situation? I think it's when you're looking at young people within the schools the oil and gas sector is very strong there and a lot of young people will go into that sector but I think it's also exploding some of the myths that we all pay earlier construction does pay well and it's competitive compared to other industry sectors so it's a skill of the opportunities so it's not about saying well we're all just going to go into oil and gas we may as well just try and recruit from other parts of the country we'll promote the construction career and the opportunities within that area first and foremost to try and encourage young people in and we would encourage clients when they're procuring work to advertise through local employment vehicles to have engagement with the DWP with the schools to get young people in the area engaged around the projects that are happening there it may be that people have to come from other areas but we would start from the area we were in particularly around that in Aberdeen to try and encourage enough young people into the opportunities that are available I'm only asking because I spoke to a construction company that was involved in some of the contracts in that area and their issue is trying to get young recruits because mainly the demographic of Aberdeen is either it goes down an academic route the young people or they may go oil and gas as well because everybody again it's the parents it's again everybody's perception as well but his big issue was he didn't get the flexibility to be able to actually recruit younger people from down in the central belt to possibly fill that need It's a question of balance but it's certainly through what we've talked about the youth employment strategy between the schools between the colleges between the employers between the clients to try and bring it all together a bit more coherently than has been the case perhaps previously so I recognise that there is a real challenge in that particular area but we're keen to try and do what we can to help Thank you I've just got one final question I was just wondering there's been a trend in recent years for young people to stay on at school longer than there was in the past there was at school quite a lot of people left school at the end of fourth year that was a perfectly normal thing to do most people left at the end of fifth year and very few stayed on to the end of sixth year that's no longer the case it's very different now the pattern of school leaving has that change in the pattern over recent years had an impact on the ability of your industries to affect the recruit young people in that 16 to 18 year age range? There has been a change in recent years in the profile of the age of the candidates starting an apprenticeship and you're right to identify that that entry point has increased so we're finding far more apprenticeships now or far more apprentices are starting at 18, 19, 20 years of age having experienced some form of senior school one of the things that we always try to promote within the construction industry are apprentices aren't just for young people so the majority of apprenticeships that are offered almost 9 out of 10 in construction are for school leavers but we also have an experienced apprenticeship route which is available to anybody aged over 22 years the duration of the apprenticeship is reduced from 4 years down to 2 it's the same qualification the same college course but the door remains open regardless of a candidate's age in terms of starting out on their apprenticeship has it had an impact for anybody else as traditionally people went into many of the construction industries at 16 and learned on the job we have more apprenticeships is the modern version of that to a great extent but has that caused any difficulties that change in age profile change in age profile may have something to do with the recession that we've come through as well because there may not have been the jobs for the young people at the age of 16 so the option of going leaving school and not having a job or staying on it and trying to get more qualifications that was probably the advice that they would be given at that time those who can do it would be doing that I think we're seeing now is that employers realise that we need to try and get these young people and show them that there is a career for them from a young age but it's a lifelong career and they can go as far in different directions that they want as employers we've got to go back and make that change and try and repair whatever damage was done by the recession at that time OK Thank you very much I thank all of you for taking the time to come and speak to us this morning it's been a very welcome session and a very interesting session I think that the more we go into the subject the more complex it becomes that's unsurprising maybe but we will carry on again next week we will have a further session on attainment next week the committee has agreed to hold the next item in private therefore I close the meeting to the public Thank you