Hansard

I thank colleagues for supporting my motion and for ensuring that the issue is raised properly in Parliament.

We are in the middle of a recession, and the situation for people who are looking for work in Edinburgh is extremely challenging. Fallout from the banking sector continues, which is bad news not just for banking staff but for people across the city. The pipeline for construction projects has seized up, as have opportunities for young people to find work. The voluntary sector is under massive pressure, and P45s are being issued as projects lose their grants. People across the city are taking redundancy, while other people are still looking for work because they cannot retire.

The labour market is tough. More people are competing for fewer jobs. To crown it all, Edinburgh has the highest proportion of young people who go straight on to the dole after leaving school. We must not return to Thatcher’s 1980s, when a generation of young people lost hope and opportunities.

That is the backdrop to the cut in employability services and why my motion calls on the Scottish Government to rethink ending its funding of £2.238 million to employability projects through the Capital City Partnership. The issue is political, but it is not just Opposition politicians who have asked the Scottish Government to rethink its position. I was first alerted to the problem in a briefing from Councillor Tom Buchanan, who is the Scottish National Party convener of the City of Edinburgh Council’s economic development committee. When we first raised the question in Parliament in a budget debate, John Swinney, the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Sustainable Growth, acknowledged in response to a point from Margaret Smith that he had received representations from Councillor Tom Buchanan and from Kenny MacAskill. The issue cuts across the parties in Edinburgh.

The amount of money is small, but its loss could do immense harm to our young people and to our unemployed people’s opportunities. We have not yet had a positive announcement. When I raised the issue with Angela Constance, after John Swinney’s comment that the Government was looking for a solution had raised my hopes, her reply was disappointing—people in the sector were greatly disappointed when they heard her remarks. I hope that the Scottish Government, in the guise of Alex Neil, will give us a more positive response today.

Training for young people who most urgently need support should be the last service to be cut at the current point in the economic cycle. What hope do people have if they have a learning disability, are recovering from a mental illness or from substance or alcohol misuse, have left a care home or are just unlucky enough to live in one of the bits of the city where many people are unemployed and where their parents have been unemployed?

The tragedy is that we know that the training projects that are under threat have done a fantastic job for young people—they have given young people a proper chance, let them rebuild their lives and given them the opportunity to succeed in life. Surely we can all support that.

Key agencies have come together to support those young people with a co-ordinated approach, joining up the private sector and working with the different parts of the public sector, whether the health service or the council. There has even been a placement in the Parliament for one of the young people involved in the joined up for jobs strategy. The approach is giving young people the skills and confidence to challenge social barriers, to find success and work, and to make their way into further education and training. It has been praised by various sectors in Scotland, but it is threatened by the decision to remove funding. There is a real concern that places will be lost.

Only last week, I attended the Access to Industry passport and transition awards. I called them the Edinburgh Oscars, but in truth they are more useful than the Oscars, because the young people whom we celebrated on Friday had succeeded against the odds. They had held down placements in companies and hotels, worked hard, committed themselves to moving forward, learned the skills to get into college and university, and prepared themselves for the job interview that could give them a passport to the future.

Over the years, I have met young people whose lives have been transformed by local training providers. Women Onto Work’s programmes have given women the confidence to train and to get the child care to help them to move on. The fairer Scotland fund gave people the chance to improve their employability and was aimed at early intervention and health inequality reduction. It delivered through the community planning partnerships, the fairer jobs fund and the Capital City Partnership. The loss of the funding stream will unpick those successes and the support that has been in place. In this financial year, it amounts to nearly 43 per cent of the city’s fairer Scotland fund allocation for improving employability and getting people into work.

People in Edinburgh’s training organisations cannot understand the minister’s decision to end the funding stream. Without those projects, young people will not get the chance to get work or go to college. Training partners in Edinburgh were stunned and surprised when the cut was announced on 23 December. Since then, everyone has worked together. Along with colleagues, I have had the privilege today to hear directly from young people about what the training opportunities have meant to them and what a fantastic difference those opportunities have made to their lives. They have got a petition together—they are working hard.

The projects under threat include youthbuild in Craigmillar, Barnado’s NETworks, Fairbridge, Four Square, Impact Arts and real jobs. The comments from young people get to the heart of it:

“Save the jobs that save the jobs!”

and

“Be fair to people ... give people a chance and a foot up to success. Funding here prevents rehabilitation later. Be nice”.

Young people, in their own words and actions, want to ensure that we support the next generation of young people.

The employment situation in Edinburgh has worsened dramatically. The proportion of young people in work is now lower than the Scottish average, having been higher before the recession. This recession is therefore doubly hard for us in Edinburgh. The employment rate for the city is lower than the rate in the country as a whole, and the number of people in Edinburgh claiming jobseekers allowance is about 10,000, or 3 per cent of the workforce. Now is not the time to make this cut. The labour force survey shows that economic inactivity is going up, so this is the wrong way to go.

I return to the point that I made earlier. I was first alerted to the funding problem by the city council. No one I have spoken to can explain how what is happening now is justifiable or sustainable. The real problem is not just the cuts this year. The 43 per cent cut will lead to cuts in European funding and in match funding from other agencies.

I hope that the minister can bring us good news today on an issue that unites the parties in Edinburgh. It also unites communities, from the most disadvantaged to those that have done well in the past. Training providers and private companies are keen to help young people to get the support that they need. These training services are vital. I hope that the minister will do the right thing and restore the funding. If he were to do that, he would have immense support and respect throughout the city. This issue affects people in their day-to-day lives. We cannot let people slip through the net, become homeless, and lose opportunities and hope for the future. Today is important. I know that people will not stop the campaign, but I hope that the minister will be able to give us a good response that will let everyone move forward.