Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:06 pm on 16 November 2021.
Thank you for the series of questions that I'll try and address in time. About your point about the national conversation with young people, we've of course been having a conversation with young people, as part of the regular interaction that we have, about how the guarantee could and should work. We haven't done as much as I would have wanted in a more structured national conversation. We haven't been able to do that with the staff and the resources we have available. What we've done is, we've concentrated on getting this stage of it right, and the refocusing of Jobs Growth Wales+ in particular, which I'm genuinely excited about, as it brings together the successful Jobs Growth Wales programme that we know has helped young people to get into and to stay in employment. We know that similar schemes were withdrawn in other parts of the UK, but also with traineeships as well, and that's about helping to address the needs of people who don't perhaps have all of the qualifications they might want, or, indeed, need to be job ready. So, we're combining those two things; that comes from listening to young people about what they said they particularly want. And it's also from listening to young people who are not in education, employment or training, where they want to be in a job, and that's their preferred option to move forward. So, we've had to think about how we provide the right support for them. And that does come from the more than 5,500 people we've interacted with since May this year.
So, the further focus work we'll be undertaking will build upon that over the next two months, and I expect—and this is an open offer; it builds on, if you like, our previous conversation with other Members in the scrutiny committee last week about how we make available, on a regular basis, data that can give you some numbers of what we're doing and who's coming through. But what I want to be able to do, on at least an annual basis, is to provide a greater summary with more information around it, and not just figures, but about the feedback we're getting too. And not because a committee will demand it of us, but I think we're much better off being able to set out, on a regular basis, how and when we'll provide that information, and I fully expect that both from the Chamber and, indeed, the committee that you chair, that I and my officials can expect to be asked questions about that and whether we're making the progress that we want to.
On Working Wales to date, as I've indicated, they've dealt with 20,000 job adverts, they've had more than 12,000 interactions with individual young people since May this year. And when we'll be able to assess their success in rolling out and having oversight of the interactions of the guarantee—I think we'll get that from the regular information that I've indicated I want to be able to make available to Members and, indeed, the wider public.
I note your question and your comments about interactions with other parts of the Government as well, and so, I have had regular conversations with other Ministers in the lead-up to the guarantee, and in particular, a conversation between my officials, but also directly between myself and Jeremy Miles as the education Minister. Because we're in the fortunate position that about 360,000 young people are still in education. We have about 48,000 young people who are not in education, employment or training. So, we have a good base—the great majority of young people are in a form of education, but our challenge is how we do more to make sure that those people then have a successful start in their working life, during or post education, and, indeed, for those people who aren't currently in employment, education or training. And those 48,000 people is just far too many—it's 48,000 people too many in terms of their ability to get into the world of work, and it means for them, their families but also for the country.
So, we do expect that we will be able to work alongside other interventions. It isn't just about the good will and the good relationship between Ministers and officials within the Government, it is, as I've described, about making sure that we can signpost people to other interventions—the interventions run by local authorities, and, crucially, interventions that are run by the UK Government too. Because, if we're going to be able to do this as successfully as all of us in this Chamber would want too, regardless of our party, then we do need to understand clearly what the UK Government is funding and supporting in this area, so we don't duplicate or compete for the same people. That's why the employability review that I've mentioned before is so very important; it should mean there is time for us to understand where we are, time for us to understand what the UK Government is doing and how we plan interventions alongside each other. And this isn't a partisan and a party-political point because, actually, in the most recent past, we've actually been able to have interventions in Wales that have been organised in a way where they don't deliberately duplicate and don't compete with the Department for Work and Pensions. My ambition is for that to happen again in this next round. Some of what the DWP are doing has shifted a little, so we need to take account of that in the way that we run our own services.
On self-employment options, I'm going to make a further announcement about this in the coming weeks, so I won't spike that particular answer, but one of the things we are looking at is a previous scheme where we provided grants for young people to start up self-employed businesses. There was a grant, and I'm looking at whether we can provide the same sort of level of start-up grant, together with the advice and support that we would want to provide to any entrepreneur at any stage in their career to start up. And again, the useful thing is that we built up larger brands that people genuinely recognised. Business Wales houses many of these, but it's Big Ideas Wales, as part of Business Wales, which should be the right place. And actually, part of the value in what we're doing is that the main entrance point is Working Wales, and they can direct people to where they want to be. From a business point of view, they can go to any part of Business Wales, but it's Business Wales and the Skills Gateway for Business that are the main parts they'd look at. And also, for those people who have got self-employed options, they can go direct to Big Ideas Wales, or they can find an entrance point with advice and guidance to support them, and to understand their specific needs through the gateway that Working Wales will be operating for us. Most employers do understand that it's a skills gateway for them to access, to understand how they can support the guarantee. We already have a number of businesses that have inquired directly, but the 'We're in your corner' campaign that we'll be launching formally and starting off before the end of January in the new year will be another opportunity to remind businesses about how we want them to gather together with a call for action to support the guarantee as well.
I do think, though, that the questions about assessing the impact of the 'Feed Your Positivity' campaign, it's a little too early to assess the impact of that, but I'm clear that, in each of the interventions and the campaigns we've run, we'll need to be able to understand, within the Government, with Working Wales and other partners, how successful they have been, and then to understand if we need to do more of what we've already done, or if we need to try and further tailor our offer. And again, I hope that that will be part of the information that you'll be able to see. I know that today won't be the end of the questions, but I look forward to engaging with you in the Chamber, and, indeed, as I've said, in the committee.