Scrutiny Committee - Friday 18 September 2026, 10:30am - West Yorkshire Combined Authority Webcasting

Scrutiny Committee
Friday, 18th September 2026 at 10:30am

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Cllr Dan Cohen
Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee
Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)

9 The Region of Learning & Creativity Programme

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Michelle Burton
Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee
Cllr Matthew Maude
Michelle Burton
Cllr Matthew Maude
Michelle Burton
Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
Cllr Sarah Courtney
Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee
Cllr Dan Cohen
Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee
Cllr Cllr James Lewis Leeds City Council
Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee
Cllr Dan Cohen
Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee
Cllr Suhail Choudhry
Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee
Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
Cllr Colin Campbell
Cllr Sarah Courtney
Cllr Cllr James Lewis Leeds City Council
Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee
Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
Cllr Penny Stables
Cllr Colin Campbell
Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee
Cllr Colin Campbell
Michelle Burton
Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee
Cllr Penny Stables
Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee
Cllr Penny Stables
Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee
Cllr Jason Townend
Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee
Cllr Jason Townend
Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
Michelle Burton
Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee
Cllr Katie Kimber
Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
Michelle Burton
Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee
Cllr Katie Kimber
Cllr Abdul Hannan
Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
Cllr Sarah Courtney
Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee
Cllr Abdul Hannan
Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee
Cllr Stephen Padgett
Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
Cllr Stephen Padgett
Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee
Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee
Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee
Cllr Brian Moughtin
Cllr Steve Ashton
Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee
Cllr Susan Lee-Richards
Michelle Burton
Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee
Cllr Susan Lee-Richards
Michelle Burton
Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee
Cllr Cllr James Lewis Leeds City Council
Cllr Penny Stables
Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee
Cllr Sarah Courtney
Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee
Cllr Sarah Courtney
Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee
Cllr Jason Townend
Michelle Burton
Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee
Cllr Matthew Maude
Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
Cllr Matthew Maude
Cllr Cllr James Lewis Leeds City Council
Cllr Sarah Courtney
Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee
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Cllr Dan Cohen - 0:00:00

I was rather like you, Chair, somebody who had the capacity for huge amounts of work

but always put robust challenge to power front and centre in the work he did.

And both in Leeds and here on WICA gave an immense contribution to both organisations over many years

and I just think it's right that we note the work he did and thank him for many, many years

of service, both to Leeds and to West Yorkshire too. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you. On that basis, can we vote to approve the annual report? Again, a show of hands.

Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee - 0:00:46

Thank you. Item 8, the approval of the work plan. Any

questions before we move to the vote?

None. Show of hands again for the approval of the work plan. That's unanimous again.

Right we'll move on to the only paper we've got to comment on and I'm

delighted to see four faces down at the end of the room. We've got in no

particular order Sarah Courtney, Councillor Sarah Courtney who's deputy chair of the

Investment Board, Councillor Lewis who's deputy mayor and leader of Leeds City

Council, Felix Cummee and Pofo, not sure if I've said that right, Felix who's

director of inclusive economy and finally Michelle Burton at the left hand

side who's head of employment and skills. They've been asked to come along today

to actually give us a brief insight into the contents

of the regional learning paper, item nine,

which we're gonna look at throughout the meeting.

So, on we go, over to officers.

Thank you very much.

Thanks for having us.

If it's okay, I'll say a couple of words at the top,

Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:02:12

and then I'll hand over to my colleague, Michelle,

who you've got some slides on your tables.

Unfortunately, tech has defeated us,

9 The Region of Learning & Creativity Programme

so we can't use the big screen.

Michelle will just walk us through the slides.

We are hoping that that will be helpful in setting the scene

for the context for what we're doing and why and all of that.

And hopefully that will be helpful in terms of the

conversation then that follows.

You know we've done a lot of work over the last few years

trying to make sure we understand fully what's

happening in terms of education, career skills, employment,

and all the support that we're able to support,

we're able to provide or enable in one way or another.

The mayor had a manifesto promise specifically

in this space which directed,

has directed a lot of activity,

but we've had devolved responsibility

for a number of years when it comes to adult skills.

And this is a fast moving space

because now with the new government

or the new prime minister,

We've entered a new phase in devolution,

and there's a lot of work that is going on.

And so we are transforming even more in this space

in terms of what we do and how we work with our partners.

So hopefully, the slides will allow us

to set certain things in context,

and then we can have a conversation afterwards

if that's okay.

And we've got, as you've just introduced,

counsellors also to my left who've been involved

in this work for a long time.

so collectively we'll be able to engage if that's okay.

Thank you.

Michelle Burton - 0:03:52

Yeah, thank you, thank you very much.

So the chair asked for a few slides

to put the papers in context,

so I'm happy to introduce those to you.

So the strategy of the Region of Learning and Creativity

flows directly from the Local Growth Plan,

which as you will know and remember,

sets out that low levels of skills across West Yorkshire

are a constraint on our economy, on our economic growth,

but also socially, so on the progression for individuals.

So flowing from that, the region of learning

and creativity strategy was produced.

You have in your pack the paper

that went to the command authority

when that strategy was approved.

And that strategy sets out four key priorities.

Inspiring futures, which is about young people,

young people's futures here in West Yorkshire.

Fulfilling lives, which sets out ambitions for adults

to be able to access work, progress in work,

and live fulfilling lives.

Employer excellence, just what it says on the tin.

It's about ensuring that employers both have access

to the skills and talent that they need in order to survive as businesses and to grow.

But also that we want to have the best businesses here in West Yorkshire that invest in their

staff and provide inclusive pathways to recruitment.

And finally building a system, an employment and education and skills system here in West

Yorkshire that works for everyone, recognising that a lot of the challenges that our businesses

and our residents face are structural.

Alongside the launch of that strategy,

the West Yorkshire Promise was launched.

The West Yorkshire Promise sets out four key commitments

to the region's youngest young people.

They include a commitment around a guaranteed taste of work

by the age of 18,

and an increase in the availability of apprenticeships.

I think most people around this table will know

that apprenticeships are really hard to come by

for a lot of our residents and really highly sought after.

The West Yorkshire Promise includes a commitment

to support our young people

to address their health conditions,

which exclude many from both education and employment.

And finally, to focus on those essential

and transferable skills that employers tell us that they need. In the

next slide we've tried to set out the rather complex investment landscape

around this fast -growing agenda and as Felix has said this region has seen

devolved investment in adult skills for a number of years now. That is the largest

blob, which is not to scale, I acknowledge. The paper in your pack today around the

region of learning and creativity investments relates directly to that

regional funding blob that you see towards the bottom of the diagram and

there are, that is being prioritised around employment West Yorkshire funding

for financial year 25 -26, so already halfway through that, and that's already contracted

and committed and well underway. But the paper that you saw covers those other three bullets

in the box, so needs and youth unemployment, all age careers, and de -risking hiring. So

just to put that investment in context, it is strategically extremely important, although

So the value is of course far lower than some of the other

devolved pots and contracted schemes that the combined

authority is responsible for, particularly around employment

support and adult skills and training.

As Felix said, there is significant further

devolution on the horizon.

And in this slide entitled rewiring the state,

We've set out a brief summary of the areas that were set out in the rewiring the statement

from the cabinet.

So there are four kind of key themes that relate to the region of learning and creativity.

Technical pathways from the age of 14.

So the government has set out that young people should have an entitled, children

should have an entitlement from the age of 14 to a high quality technical

educational pathway. We anticipate that this this may require legislation at a

national level. It's not yet about devolution, it's about working with

government to identify how that national policy could work. So that's the first

column. The second area is absolutely about devolution. So there has been a commitment

to full devolution of all funding for 16 to 19 education. There are a number of ways,

there are a number of strands to that budget. But in totality it could make up around 500

million pounds a year at a West Yorkshire level. The position regionally, and that is

revenue, the position regionally is that capital investment would be required alongside that

in order to provide the pathways that our young people need. The third column again

is about devolution of funding. So there has been a commitment to devolve employment support

to mayors and to mayor or strategic authorities.

Again, there are a number of ways

in which that commitment could be made up,

but the total value could be

over 100 million pounds a year.

Currently, employment support is delivered

and commissioned in kind of programme by programme

and by central government,

and it is likely that a particular strand

called support for long -time unemployed,

which is about intensive work search,

people who have been unemployed for more than 12 months,

it's likely that that would be the first strand

to be devolved.

And then the fourth area that's featured

in that cabinet office statement

was around joining up the system for young people.

We are yet to see detailed announcements around that,

but it seems likely that that would be part

of the response to Alan Milburn's review

of young people and work,

which is due to be published in just a few weeks.

So hopefully that helps set into context

the two papers that were provided in your pack,

which included the approval of the overarching strategy

and the associated investments,

which went forward to the last meeting

of the investment board just a couple of weeks ago.

Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee - 0:11:37

Thank you Michelle. We did have quite a feisty pre -meet, so expect lots of questions. Some

quite challenging, some quite probing. I think that we're all basically on the same sheet.

So, I'll open the room up to questions.

If anybody would like to go first and ask officers questions about the report.

Yeah, go on, put your hand up.

Cllr Matthew Maude - 0:12:10

Good morning. Thank you for being here and providing a presentation to give us, as you said, a bit of context.

One of the areas that is highlighted is the business of

guaranteeing a taste of work.

You highlighted, Michelle, the issue of apprenticeships being

hard to come by.

And the de -risking of hiring was also mentioned

quite specifically.

All of those things really fundamentally come down to the

fact, I would suggest, that it's about how an employer might feel

about taking on a person that is an unknown quantity who has come

through a system which I think there was a general consensus

around the room before you came in that there are aspects of

what happens in those earlier years that don't necessarily

fit young people for the real world of work,

whether it's a combination of life skills,

attitudes, expectations, and whatever,

which isn't anything about a shortcoming on their part,

but it's about what we do

to help to get them to the right place.

With that as a backdrop,

and I get it, this is supposed to be strategic,

not down in the tactical weeds,

but there are a few questions about,

just give us some examples of, okay, how are you really going to do this?

Michelle Burton - 0:13:48

So I think that's a great summary of what employers consistently tell us around their

concerns about hiring young people. And young people also tell us that they have fewer opportunities

to gain those experiences of the workplace

than perhaps generations before.

So there are far fewer part -time job opportunities,

for example.

So, you know, it is absolutely, you're right,

it's absolutely not young people's fault

that they find themselves in a position

of not having had the opportunity many times

to gain those skills and that experience.

What is more positive, I think,

is that the appetite from employers

to help young people to gain that experience is really high.

And yet the number of employers that do do so

is fairly low, it's only around 30%.

So there is a huge opportunity to fill the gap

between the appetite and what's actually happening.

And that is the pragmatic space that we can enter into.

Employers are, it's a difficult thing to do.

So the appetite is really high for employers

to engage with work experience, with apprenticeships,

with the many different offers around placements.

But it is really difficult to figure out

which bit to engage with.

And so that is the space in which we think

the combined authority and other partners

have got a really key role to play,

which can really help to turn the dial

in terms of giving more young people

than have currently got the opportunity

to access experience of the work that chance.

Cllr Matthew Maude - 0:15:35

Thank you, Michelle.

You've sort of put my question back to me because you and I are

agreeing furiously. My question was, okay, it is difficult.

There are a lot of very good reasons why it's difficult and

quite a few of them are about national legislation.

So how are you going to do that difficult thing?

Michelle Burton - 0:15:57

We would already be doing it.

But one of the things we're already doing

is a matching service to help employers

to access those opportunities,

and in order to connect with schools.

And we're seeing a huge appetite from employers to do that.

So we want to do more of that.

So we're already doing some of those things.

Really what we want to do is scale that up

so that employers that are already doing some of this

do more, and those that aren't do something.

So that's one of the areas.

But we're also going to, so there are specific activities in those different spaces.

So around helping employers to engage with schools, to do far more in that space, to

do far more to support young people to overcome their health condition, health barriers to

staying in education and to accessing employment.

but also to really ramp up opportunities to engage with the workplace so that every young

person has got that opportunity by the age of 18, which certainly is not happening at

the moment.

Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:17:13

I was going to just fast to Councillor Lewis and Courtney.

Cllr Sarah Courtney - 0:17:21

So there is good practise around.

So, for example, CNK Careers have a pro - and I am a director, it's non -precuniary, so

I'm a director through being a counsellor, I'm a director of CNK Careers.

So I'm sorry, I don't know if I should have said that at the beginning, but they have

a programme, for example, called Nexus, which is all about getting young people involved

in work experience with employers.

And they're often young people who are failing in the system.

So there are, I mean that's just one example, so there are practise, there are good practise,

bits of good practise around.

And I think one of the things about this whole programme

is about working with partner organisations.

So making sure that as an overarching strategy

that this work is going on across all five regions

of the combined authority.

But being able to then engage organisations

to be able to do that,

who have got that on the ground experience

to help support that link between say schools and employers.

Councillor Cohen.

Thank you.

Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee - 0:18:33

Cllr Dan Cohen - 0:18:35

So, two questions in fact, two quite distinct areas if I may.

The first actually follows on from Councillor Padgett.

We talk about, or you talk about de -risking hiring,

and that may well be the WICA strategy

and the mayor's strategy.

How does that sit in the national context

when as an employer I can see that more risk

is shifting to me as an employer on a daily basis?

So for example, whereas in the past, I had two years to determine whether somebody I

had employed was going to be able to actually take on the skills and the investment that

I want to put into them, now drops from January, waiting for some guidance, to six months,

which is a significant additional risk.

and I just flag that obviously,

I'm a great believer in employment rights.

There's lots that is good in the new Employment Rights Act.

Some colleagues will know I'm an employment lawyer

by trade, profession rather.

But the notion that it is not substantially shifting

risk and cost to employers is simply a nonsense.

So how are we, it's great that we're trying to,

but how are we, what are we doing with national

government to say hold on here,

we have a strategy of de -risking hiring,

and as fast as we're moving, you're radically moving

in the other direction.

and that's before taking into account changes around tax, national insurance and the like.

Not even touching on that, just on the sheer risk, day one risk that I as an employer take

on, number one, that's question one.

My other question is much broader relating to capacity, so we know that there is a skills

shortage but alongside that shortage there is a space shortage particularly

in vocational post -16 training and that then ramps up when we're talking about

young people with neurodiversity learning disabilities who we want to

ensure have skills to be able to make a valuable contribution to the workplace

but there aren't the college spaces available or coming on stream even in

the medium term to keep up with the capacity. Plenty of space for A levels

possibly too much space for A levels but as we look across West Yorkshire a

radical gap when it comes to vocational training. Those are my two questions

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

I'll deal with the first, Councillor Cohen.

I mean, if your question is, will a Labour mayor directly take on a Labour government

Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee - 0:21:57

over something that was central to the manifesto the government was elected onto years ago,

the answer to that is quite simple, and it's no.

So there are work that we are doing around, there is work that we do do with national

government, as we'll probably get onto the mayor's part of the Alan Milburn task force

on needs and things like that.

And clearly, you know, we do work on that level.

And it is likely with some of the changes

already happening, some of the changes

that like to come that will be a bigger part

of delivering and shaping national policy on a local basis.

So I think those are quite a clear role for us now

and a clear role developing forwards.

Cllr James Lewis - 0:22:38

Secondly, on college capacity,

it's something that we've all recognised.

we've got a backlog we've seen. I'll apologise for quoting the Leeds figures

but we've got our Leeds Young Futures Board this afternoon and I was reading

and I've got the figures from the papers for that meeting in my head. From a low

point in about 2001 to a high point in 2011 there was 4 ,000 more young people

born per school year. We've seen that coming we've only just got resourcing to

help the colleges in Leeds add that extra capacity,

even though, like I say, that cohort of young people

is coming, so there is work being done on that.

Leeds City College and the Building College

have received money that we, around that.

I'm sure colleagues will be able to talk about examples

from elsewhere in West Yorkshire, so it is a,

like I say, the,

that expanded,

that larger group of young people has been

known about for a while and we're finally getting some money in to deal with those college

capacity points as well.

Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee - 0:23:46

Thank you.

Cllr Dan Cohen - 0:23:53

So just on the first point, actually what I expect of the Mayor is not to necessarily

look at politics but what is respectfully to look at what's best for the region.

And actually, in part, that has happened because the manifesto

talks about day one rise.

I don't need to tell you what the Labour manifesto said.

The Press.

Can you talk more about the Labour policy?

I'm enjoying it.

Well, you know, frankly, as someone that works in business,

it's hugely depressing.

But we'll move on from that.

This isn't the place for politics.

What this is the place for is robust challenge and making

clear that while a move to six months was a right step from a

business and de -risking hiring, which is specifically what we're

talking about, respectfully it does not go far enough to

genuinely de -risk and therefore as much as Weicker might do,

national policy makes hiring significantly more challenging

and risky.

So that was the point I was making, although I appreciate, thank you for confirming that

the mayor's not going to challenge if it doesn't go against party policy.

In terms of college places, I think the concern is timing, because while you are absolutely

correct, and like you I can speak about Leeds with more

knowledge and authority than other parts of West Yorkshire,

the challenge is we almost need the spaces last year and they

kind of come on stream next year, the year after.

And the concern is as we move to and actually arguably quite

rightly away from post 16 academic study and a real push on post 16 having a

skill set type experiences we don't have the capacity coming on stream

that's going to be matching the demand and that's the worry so you're right I

Leeds is doing some brilliant stuff. I'm sure across West Yorkshire there's other

brilliant stuff. The problem is it's about 80 % of the brilliant stuff that we

need and 20 % of young people is still failing an awful lot of young people.

Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee - 0:26:39

Right I'm going to take, so in order of questions, so I've got Councillor Choudry

Cllr Suhail Choudhry - 0:26:47

Councillor Chaudry. Thank you chair. My question is more on the West Yorkshire

promise saying obviously we're going to reach out to all the young people so how

are we going to reach out to those young people that are not in schools, not in

colleges, not existing, they're contacting any services so we can ensure that we're

actually reaching out to everybody in an essence like at the end of it like you

might have a target or we're going to reach a thousand thousand young people

but those thousand young people would be easier for you to just come up from

schools and stuff, is there going to be any sort of percentage where you're going to think,

okay, we're only going to target 50 % from services which are easy to access those young

people and actually put some effort into those young people that are not receiving those

services. My second question would be more about like how are we going to, across the

five districts in terms of like how is it going to be allocation of resources. Thank you.

Thank you. I'll have a go at that and colleagues can come in.

Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee - 0:27:51

Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:27:54

We're still working through the specifics of exactly how we reach A or B, but the point

you make is absolutely valid. If history has taught us anything in terms of how we work,

then I'll say a lot of our work will be with our local authority partners who have a statutory

responsibility when it comes to young people at a certain age and so have the data and

the knowledge in terms of where these young people are, how to reach them. There's a lot

of good work when it comes to actually tracking young people, a lot of good work that's gone

on in Bradford for example that we can all learn from where they've got people that go

out almost literally knock on doors and try to reach people in that way. So there's a

of learning in the combined authority is not sat here

claiming that we've got those direct, that kind of

direct access.

We work with our partners.

Local authorities would be absolutely central to this.

There are also a lot of third sector partners that

we work with in the work that we're doing in a

programme that we call Healthy Work and Life,

which is to support people who are economically

inactive for health reasons and support them to be able

to get back into work that are able to.

We work a lot with our voluntary community sector partners who are really embedded locally,

provide them with the resources they need.

They have the local knowledge of who these people are, where they are, how to reach them.

Our job is to enable them with the resources that we've got for them to be able to reach

young people.

So even though we've not set in stone how we're going to do that, I would expect that

we will use channels like that to be able to get to the people

who need the support.

The second question about how we allocate resource, again,

we've not allocated any resource yet.

We've not made any agreements yet.

But how we've worked in the past is we do all we can to make sure

we allocate the resource to reflect where

the challenges are.

So if, and we've not done it, so don't quote me yet,

But if this is about how we reach the biggest numbers of people,

we have the data that will allow us to understand where the concentration of people are

and the resources will follow where that is.

So that will be our general way of thinking, but it's not crudely in that way.

There are times where we've worked this through in a way that there's a base level of resource that everybody gets,

because standing up that resource will cause the same for everybody,

and maybe there's a bit more that is added on depending on the concentration of where the people are,

where the population that we're trying to reach is.

So we will look at that when the time comes, but we are not at that point yet.

Thank you Felix. Councillor Campbell.

Cllr Colin Campbell - 0:30:49

Thank you chair. Can I ask you a general question then, perhaps something a bit more specific.

As I said in the pre -meeting, I remember sitting in this room having a very similar discussion

about five years ago, and I have a suspicion you were there, Felix, about the strategy

we were putting forward then.

And yet, Yorkshire stubbornly, or West Yorkshire stubbornly seems to be, or maintain its position below the national average when it comes to this.

And I wonder if you'd like perhaps to speculate, not too extensively, as to why, not just why we remain below the national average, but why we got there in the first place.

because there was an unhistoric impression, I suppose, that West Yorkshire was a powerhouse

for employment. And then can I ask you a specific question about one of your slides, and that

relates to may I develop regional, technical and vocational pathways from age 14. I wonder

if you'd like to just expand on that a little bit because we were having a little discussion

earlier on about the pressures within the education system which is in effect to get

you GCSEs, A levels and get you into university. And so that will take, so moving people towards

of occasional things will take a change in mindset from the education system. And given

the fact that we've got academies, trusts and the local authority school, how do we

foresee actually changing their, I think changing their opinion and their opinion of the school

perhaps more importantly changing the parents of young people's opinion about the value

of not necessarily good universities.

Cllr Sarah Courtney - 0:33:24

It's interesting that point, that second point about the attitude of people towards trades.

I was having through my day job where I had a meeting with contractors about how we look

at the skills gap and the shortage and about how it's very much been like where you end

up going into manual skills if you failed at school and actually we need to repurpose

and reposition that actually that's an aspiration,

have being a skilled trades person,

whether it's in construction or whether it's in

another field like working with animals or something.

There's lots and lots of really good, well,

skillful jobs that are really important

and have really high value.

And it is about, I think we can all, as influencers,

we're all community leaders.

the fact that we're here as councillors,

we're all leaders in our community,

and all of us can really sort of talk up the fact

that actually any influence we have

about helping people to feel that non -academic pathways

are equally valuable, and we really need those skills.

And actually, they're great to have,

so whether it's through our young people,

through our colleagues, through just general conversations,

through the work we do in our councils, I think we've all got a role to help play in

that. And through the combined authority, that's also a part to play in that, as we

all have. But yeah, I think it is really important. It's an important point.

Cllr James Lewis - 0:35:12

If I can just give a specific example on that. So down the road in Hunsford, there's a manufacturing

university technical college which was established eight, ten years ago to answer the question

from manufacturing businesses in the area about we've got an ageing workforce, how do

we bring a new workforce into the industry. You walk through the doors, it doesn't look

anything like the high school I went to many years ago and it is exactly that point. I

mean the point you make Colin about how it fits into the, sorry Councillor Campbell,

how it fits into the education landscape is, I mean first of all kids start at 14, I'm

old enough to have gone to middle schools when everybody in Leeds walked round at 14

but that's often not the way.

So it does mean that children and parents

won't have to make a decision to start a high school

and move on to another school and things like that.

But like I say, just as an example about, first of all,

how did employers and part of the education system

come together to address a known problem?

And secondly, how do you have that technical and vocational

education as part of school education, like I say that's just an example I can think of

now about where that happens. I guess the question moving forward, I don't have the

answer to, is how do you make that up, that's an individual institution, how does that become

a much broader piece of work, but I think it is an example of where meetings we used

to have where big business, where businesses,

managers of businesses in Leeds said,

we've got this problem, we don't have people coming in

ready to work and actually people sat around the table

and sorted it out, it can happen.

Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:37:01

If I may, Chair, just quickly to add.

Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee - 0:37:08

So there's a first question about history,

Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:37:09

which I won't answer directly because there's some

political undertones that as an officer

I shouldn't get into.

But we know a lot has been written

about post -industrial decline and all the challenges

that many parts of the country has faced for several decades.

There's a series of some really good books written

by Professor Paul Collier at Oxford

that I'm very happy to refer to that's helpful,

which catalogues this and sets out the issues very clearly.

I think, though, that when we have these conversations,

for the sake of simplicity, we use average numbers.

And so we talk about West Yorkshire's level compared

to the national average.

Because, you know, it's very difficult if we put all the

numbers on the table, it makes life very confusing.

But we all know that within West Yorkshire,

there are very different situations.

And so we've done some work, Michelle and team led in

Wakefield, which looks at higher level qualifications, which is almost 10 percentage points below

the national average.

Leeds is above the national average on that score.

But even within Leeds, once you dig into it, certain parts are, certain parts aren't.

And it's the same across the piece when it comes to educational attainment, all the way

through the various key stages.

Our areas play, it performs really differently.

Bradford, on certain measures,

really does not perform well at all.

But certain parts of Bradford actually

outshoots the national average.

Our employment rates, for example,

employment rates in Wakefield aren't bad on average at all.

But wages are quite low.

And so very few people are earning enough

to not have to worry about the paycheck coming in.

So within West Yorkshire, we have a very complex situation,

and this is the same in every region,

particularly across the north.

Our job is to work with our local authority partners,

with the private sector and with the third sector,

to make sure our policies and interventions

are targeted right,

targeted in the places and other people

that most needed, and we are responding to what the evidence is saying.

And on the final bit on post -14, when Michelle was speaking, she talked about the potential

of the need for legislation for us to be able to understand and then properly interpret

the role that we are being asked to play, because there isn't much of a recent precedent

for organisations like ours to play a role in that space.

Suppose what might be interesting is how this

begins to play out because currently the post 16

education budget will be heading our way from about

2028 onwards.

That will be a really powerful lever for the

combined authority to be able to direct and

influence certain behaviours because if the mayor and the

authority has that funding lever and is saying we are going to give you the money if you

do X or Y. That begins to change behaviours in ways that we should not underestimate.

But we have to see what will happen on the post 14 end so that we can have a more seamless

transition across the ages. We are still working that through.

Cllr Penny Stables - 0:41:01

Cllr Colin Campbell - 0:41:04

Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee - 0:41:11

Cllr Colin Campbell - 0:41:12

I think the first half was very similar to the one you gave five years ago. So at least

to consist. But, and I think even then we appreciated that obviously across a region

as diverse as West Georgia there are bound to be parts where they outperform others.

And I think it still doesn't detract from the point that as a region we are not performing

I'm still not clear why we think that's happening. I appreciate what you're saying about the

14th plus. I was just thinking when you were saying that when I was at school, sorry about

this, you could leave at 15, and many, well, several people who were in the same year group

as myself left school and got a job. Now, of course, you can't leave until you're 18.

But I think, sorry, I think the, I am not clear how, I know you talk about post -16 education,

I'm still not clear how we get over that.

And I think it's Ofsted based, because Ofsted will come in and measure schools.

And the league table relates to your A -Level scores, quite frankly.

And parents, when they're looking at schools, go on the Ofsted website and it says,

or this is a good school, they've got 97 % get three or more air levels, and that's the measure.

There's nothing at the bottom that says, oh no, they're really good at.

I just mentioned that.

And so I'm just wondering how you, I'm just still concerned that we're not being able to break that cycle of perceptions.

Let's put it that way.

Michelle Burton - 0:43:29

So my comment that in order for mayor developed regional technical pathways to be in order

for that to be introduced, my comment that that may require legislative change at a national

level is exactly around that point because there is not

currently in the national system an entitlement

to a technical pathway from the age of 14.

There are some individual institutions,

and Councillor Lewis talked about a great example in Leeds.

There are individual institutions where that happens.

But there is no entitlement.

And you're absolutely right that the system

is built in a way that does not recognise that.

That doesn't encourage that I think.

So my comment that I anticipate that there will be a requirement, this is about rewiring

the national education system in order that, I don't think you can do that bit yet for

exactly the reasons that you set out.

We don't currently have the levers to do what is set out by government as the end state

for the reasons that you set up.

Thank you.

Councillor Stables.

Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee - 0:44:50

Thank you very much.

Cllr Penny Stables - 0:44:52

So one of the other things that we talked about earlier was skilling for the future.

And we were talking about the fact that we wanted to understand whether as an organisation

you are looking ahead not just five years but 10, 20 years.

What are the skills that are going to be necessary

across the region?

I mean, I think this is a bigger thing for the government,

actually.

I don't know if the government's doing this either as a country.

But it seems to me at the moment there is,

there's currently a massive mismatch between the skills

that are needed, for example, construction.

We've talked about that there's going to be an increase.

But we're lagging behind.

We're on the back foot on it.

and the skills that need for the future,

and retrofitting, you know, for climate change.

You know, there's not enough people with the right skills

to retrofit housing for climate change,

are just two examples.

But, you know, clearly looking forward as well,

if we're looking to shift people out of cars

into public transport, we're gonna need more bus drivers,

we're gonna need, you know, tram drivers, whatever it is.

So, you know, are we looking ahead 10, 20 years,

given that there's a lot of talk at the moment about AI as well

and what the impact of that's going to be.

Clearly we don't know all the answers,

but are we considering all these things

in terms of ensuring that going forward

we're going to have enough places to train people,

not just with qualifications,

but the right skills that are needed to do the jobs

that are needed that we will have in this area in the future.

Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:46:37

I'll have a go at that and see where we get to. Colleagues might want to come in. We are,

but it's quite the challenge. And in this space, this is the multi -billion pound question

and has been for a long time. Some of us have been around in this space for a while. Many

months ago, I was a forecaster and a labour market economist,

and spent a lot of time trying to work things like that out.

In the Blair government, we had an organisation called the UK

Commission for Employment and Skills that did a lot of

forecasting and projection of the labour market and where things

were, really useful information that came out and it drove a lot

of policy behaviours.

But in the end, these are projections, they are forecasts.

It's not a prophecy.

And the economy and technology moves as it moves.

AI has been around for a long time,

but nobody really was projecting that it would explode

around this time in the way it has

and begin to bring the changes that it's bringing.

So it's really difficult to nail this.

And the extent to which you nail your colours

to what a projection is telling you

becomes a judgement call.

What the evidence and history has been very clear on though is that

if you have a labour market that is highly qualified, it is always easier to pivot as change comes.

So our challenge is, I would say, our challenge is not necessarily, yes, I mean Michelle can go into detail,

we do, we fund green skills and digital skills, construction skills and EV car,

We found all of that, bus drivers, we found all of that.

But our challenge, I believe, is more around

supporting and enabling a much greater number

of our workforce to be as highly qualified

as they possibly can be.

Because the evidence, if you look at recent evidence,

2008 financial crash, and even coming out of COVID,

The areas and the people that came out of it well tend always

to be the areas and the people where higher qualifications,

people with higher levels of qualification are based,

or people who have those qualifications.

Because they are able to pivot.

They are able to move from doing one thing to another.

It's a question of topping up their skills.

It's a question of having a certain mindset and being

available and being ready.

It's a question of just being willing to learn

those new skills.

people who have lower levels of skill tend to come out worse.

So our job is really to focus on that uplift to make sure people

are well positioned to take advantage of opportunities

that come.

We do not know.

I mean, some of you have said about, you know,

when you were in school and stuff.

When I was in school, I did not know my job existed.

I did not, you know, I did what I did and I ended up

where I ended up.

So, we cannot, I don't know what the jobs will be like

in the next 10 years.

We have a sense that they will be AI driven.

We have a sense that they will be tech driven.

We were having a conversation yesterday about

driverless cars and driverless, yeah,

driverless cars and what that would mean for taxi drivers

and all of that.

We have a sense what that might look like, but we

really don't know.

What we need, what we know is that it's unforgivable for

anybody to finish school these days without some digital

competency because we know that is going to drive what the

economy is going to look like.

And it's on us to make sure that as many people as possible are

confident with those.

What digital skills used to be optional probably now is just

basic skill and we need to make sure that what we fund makes

that possible.

Councillor Stables.

Thank you I completely appreciate that, of course.

Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee - 0:50:50

Cllr Penny Stables - 0:50:52

None of us know what's going to happen next year, let alone in 10, 20 years.

But the point I'd come back to, though, is that – and I'm going to look at it, mention

it on a national scale rather than regionally, but to give the point – in our universities

across the country, we are training too many of one thing and not enough of another.

So I know for example that there are thousands and thousands of lawyers being trained and

there's not nearly as many jobs at the end of the year.

Fifty percent of the people won't get a job at the end of it.

And doctors we've got, there's a shortage of doctors and yet those that are fully qualified

aren't getting the jobs into it anyway.

But there's a mismatch, my point is, between skills and employment.

And the other point is as well that, coming back to your point about skilling people to

the highest level that they can achieve, which I don't disagree with at all, but the other

issue that we were talking about was that there again, there's this difficulty now with

people that are skilled to the highest level and I know for example with both my sons who

have been through this recently and all their friends that you know, skilled up as graduates

and with masters takes a year to get employment and that there's something

wrong in the system where with the whole process of employment where you know

whether it's going through AI or not that you know there are if you're not

there is a screening that's happening that is screening people out too much

and let alone the people that don't take any of those boxes what happened to them

how do they get into employment so that's another concern about how do

people get through this screening process with employers to actually get employment

at the end. And I don't know if there is an answer to that, but about apart from working

with employers, I suppose. Sorry.

Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:52:54

I don't want to hold this. I completely agree with what you're saying. I think in the period

I had as a combined authority with devolution, matures in the new responsibilities that we're

to get. We are all going to have to learn how we use the levers that will come our way

and work through how we can use that to influence certain behaviours as I was saying earlier

on. I don't know what Nicky was saying about too many lawyers being trained, but many people

who might study and have a law degree or qualification of one type or another, if they can't find

a job in law are able to actually pivot

into other forms of policy or other forms of work

because they have the analytical skill,

the forensic investigation skill that they've learned.

And they don't need to necessarily need to practise law,

but I'm not an expert there.

But I completely agree with you.

And skills matches have existed from time immemorial.

It's heightened now in a sense because the economies

in the labour market is in a bit of a downturn

and so people are not finding opportunities.

There's also, I think, a failure in our careers work

and the information that people get

when they are choosing what career to embark on.

There's always been some myths that need to be,

we need to bust over time or even now,

probably need to do more of that now

to give people more accurate information,

not only about the nature of employment,

how much of that exists in an area,

what qualifications you need,

and how soon you need to be on a certain pathway

to either lock yourself in or out of certain opportunities.

Because decisions are made maybe too early or too soon,

not with the right amount of information.

The work we're doing on careers,

and we are pushing to have an all -age careers system

in West Yorkshire, a key part of the blueprint is to make sure that before somebody gets

to a transition point, they have the information they need. They are parents or guardians,

they are teachers, have the information they need to be able to make the right decisions.

So they either take this course or don't take that course knowing very well that it will

give you the opportunity to either be in this track or not on that track. There's a lot

work for us to do. It's not an exact science, but I agree with

the Lord what you said.

Right. Just before we move to Councillor Townend,

Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee - 0:55:34

I've got Councillor Townend, Councillor Kimber, Councillor Hernan, and then Councillor Patchett.

Councillor Rose as well at the end. The list is getting longer.

You might not be leaving here today guys. Councillor Townend.

Cllr Jason Townend - 0:55:56

Okay so a bit of my background so you understand where I'm coming from.

My previous role I was a college lecturer at Bradford College where I used to teach motor vehicles over there.

I found that the ladies and the gents when they turned up, a lot of them hadn't already

achieved the recommended maths and English that were required. They'd been at school

from 6 to 16 and yet they'd still not learned to be an acceptable academic standard in maths

and English. We then give them a further two years to get up to standard. If they can't

learn it in 10 years, what's the chance of learning it in two years? Yeah? So we're letting

the people down at that point because we're not getting them ready to go out into the

workplace. I found as well that I mentioned this before in the pre -meeting, it's a sausage

factory. We put them in at one end and we kick them out at the other. They get three

years and they do one level each year, but they're not really learning, I'm going to

put it in my context, they're not really learning to be mechanics, they're learning to pass

the exams and when it then comes to going in front of the actual customers themselves,

they're letting themselves down because they don't have the skills because it's such a

you've got to learn this, learn that, learn that and all we end up doing is just teaching

them what they need to pass the exams. They're not actually being the trade person, it's

you're somebody that knows how to get through the system and actually work it that way.

Together with that we're on about electric vehicles. I'm a level five electric vehicle

mechanic. I think there's only about 300 of us in the country. So I'm well up there. We're

doing electric vehicles and everybody's pushing for it. Labour want to push for this net zero

and all the rest of it. But the manufacturers are now pushing against that and going back

to more conventional cars because there's just not the appetite out there for people

to take on electric cars because the infrastructure is not there in the first place.

Yet we're still teaching, we're still pushing to have the electric vehicles, you've got

to have electric vehicles, electric vehicles, but the manufacturers are just getting further

and further behind and just saying we're not playing with that game, we don't do it, we

don't see the backup for it.

So the manufacturers are not even running down that road and yet we're still pushing

it down that that's what we're doing.

So we need to have some sort of fundamental force so we understand what people are actually

happening and how things are going to change within the education system.

And it doesn't, it needs to be rapid.

It can't be, you know, it can't change in three years time because you've missed the

boat at that point.

The boat's gone, the train's disappeared off down the track.

It needs to be more proactive in what we're doing so that when they do go out to the manufacturers

and they do go out to the garages, they're able to do the job.

What can we do about that?

Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee - 0:58:59

Cllr Jason Townend - 0:59:00

I'm very happy.

So the first part of the point you made about Martin English,

I couldn't agree more.

Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:59:09

We do have a challenge.

And in parts of our region, the pass rates

have not been good enough for too long.

And nationally, and we are just as young people

who do not pass their Martin English by 16,

I think around only about 20 % pass

by the time they hit 18 or 19.

So we do have a big challenge there, I agree.

This has been topical for a long time.

The government is looking at this,

this talk of, I think it's more than talk now,

functional, marked and engaged.

And to do this differently, to give people the opportunity

to be able to learn and to pass what they need

for what they are going to do,

whatever pathway they are following.

Whether that is right or wrong,

it's not the point I'm making,

I'm saying that is recognised

and there is a lot of work that is going into that

to try to deal with that.

So I'm with you.

The second part of the point you are making

about EV, I know you're using it as an example in manufacturing companies and as pushing

people down one route or another. I'm going to beg to differ on that, if I may. The evidence

is quite clear, and I could bring anecdotal personal stuff into it as well if we need

to, there is a huge shift towards electric vehicles globally.

As I said, personal stuff, I used to have two diesel cars.

I have one electric.

Now I'm selling the last diesel car.

And that is just me.

I did not have solar panels on my house.

I didn't know I was there.

Now I've got over 20 of them on my house.

There is a move globally in that direction.

It does not matter whether I'm not preaching climate change

or otherwise is just good for the bottom line.

It costs me less to run an electric car,

so it's great for me.

And electric car sales are going up and up

in this country and globally.

And the demand coming through our colleges

for us to be able to fund the training

is just going in one direction.

So on that, in terms of the evidence,

I will humbly differ, but I think where I agree with you

is that we need to work with the evidence

where the demand is from industry,

where the demand is not only from learners,

but where opportunity sits and directs our funding

in such a way that we have less of the mismatch

that we talked about earlier on.

I don't know whether our colleagues.

I'll just comment on one thing, because you asked a really straightforward and very clear

Michelle Burton - 1:02:10

question at the end, which was what can we do to ensure effectively that people are coming

out of educational institutions ready for the jobs that they should be trained for.

And I think that's a really clear and direct question that I think we should answer, which

is that as we gain greater levers, there is absolutely more that we can do to mandate

that educational institutions hardwire employers

into the design, the delivery of courses,

and ensure that there is clear line of sight

to jobs at the end.

So the slides that I shared with you

that show that incrementally,

command authorities will gain more direct control

over the purse strings,

that gives those directly but inability

to hardwire employers into the system.

And there are good examples of where

Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee - 1:03:09

Cllr Katie Kimber - 1:03:13

short ofumes. So the

and then I've got a second question if that's okay.

Just on accountability, obviously we're a scrutiny panel, so will we be getting high

level data back from this to look at on a district level, so in terms of like, you know,

people we send, care experienced people, are we going to get that data back here to have

look at, scrutinise. So yeah, those are my two short and sweet questions. Thank you.

Thank you. I'll hand over to Michelle in a second. She's the expert in this space.

Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 1:04:16

But on the work experience bit, I mean, given the conversation we've been having so far,

I'm sure we all agree how crucial that is. The work that Alan Belden has been leading

will report next month, and we expect that to have some really

forthright recommendations in this space,

this talk of participation service and tracking young

people and all of that.

The funding that we've got, the projects that we've got approval

for gives us some funding to begin to do some work

in this space.

When we've looked at this in the last year or two,

What has been gratifying is actually is that there are a

number of organisations that are doing this already that are

offering work experience and doing, you know,

given opportunity, many opportunities to young people.

And what we don't want as combined authorities to get in

that space and mess it up, you know,

do something that is messy.

As Michelle said, what we really need to do is to support and

enable and encourage those who are doing it,

but to scale that up to make it as easy as possible for every employer to do this.

And we don't have yet a defined or agreed way of doing this.

That is what we are working through.

We suspect that we will end up with a West Yorkshire -wide kind of service that does the

matchmaking and just ensures that every young person in every school coming up, once you

you are within a certain age group, this is the offer that

is available to you, and we make it as easy as possible for

employers to engage with that.

And going back to the very first question, where there are

barriers in the way, whether it has to do with costs or

liabilities or whatever, that is where I think we will have an

opportunity to make that as easy as possible, especially for

small businesses to be able to take part in this.

We have had a lot of, we've thought about the quality bit.

Should we, could we, how do we find some way of accrediting

or verifying the quality of the offer,

of the experience for young people?

I should have an email and Michelle

might say a bit more about that.

Suffice it to say, we are still working that through

and we don't have, I can't give you an answer yet,

but that's definitely one thing that we want to do.

Yeah, so the investment board paper that you got

Michelle Burton - 1:06:50

in your pack, what you'll have seen there is that

there is a strand of the package that's been approved

with other strands currently being co -designed

and co -developed with local authority colleagues,

as Felix has mentioned a couple of times.

And I think the considerations that you raised there

are exactly the ones that we're working on.

And I think there's something around,

I think with the quality point,

I think it is really important to recognise that employers are not necessarily the expert

on what young people need and Felix is therefore right that that is potentially the role that

we need to fill to ensure that employers are confident to provide what it is that meets

individuals' needs.

I think you asked a really good question about impact and I think the balance as we design,

as we design those elements that will go through

to approval in the coming months.

The balance will be to measure both outputs,

so who is being reached with something,

but also that long -term impact.

And I think that those are exactly,

to reassure you, those are exactly the questions

that officers are working through.

You asked about data, we will absolutely make all data

that this board wants to see available to you.

Thank you.

I think we can go back.

Yeah, because I think it's important that we,

Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee - 1:08:19

you know, doubling the number of, you know, is great,

but obviously we need to just see the, you know,

Cllr Katie Kimber - 1:08:23

how that actually works.

It's all right saying, yes, we've got X amount of,

of, you know, people doing that,

but without the data to back it up

so that we can have a look and see how effective it is,

I think it's, thank you.

and the

Cllr Abdul Hannan - 1:08:45

this is welcome and used so much investment that's coming

to the region

my question is

how do you tend to

reach out to hard to reach young people

specially post -covid

young people are still not recovered from that

and in particular

the bame community

that are sold post -COVID.

And as you know, the BAME community

contributes quite a lot to the region,

especially through various industries.

The question is how do you intend to reach out to,

how to reach young people in particular

to the BAME young people?

Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 1:09:27

It's a really good question.

I suppose I'll start by saying,

I know that's not what you meant.

that these young people are not hard to reach.

We are the ones who failed to reach them

and we need to work harder to get there.

They are not hard to reach.

Our local authorities have a lot of information.

They know every young person on their patch.

And if we can get our act together as we are meaning to

and we do better with tracking

and make that a more systemic thing across all the various

organisations that have a responsibility in this space,

and make sure the support is available.

I'm sure we can do that.

We challenge ourselves a lot here about the channels we use

to reach our target audience, whatever the policy

we are following.

We admit fully that, you know, sometimes we've not gotten

the right, but we are also very aware that we need

different channels and different means of

communication, of engagement for different

communities that are here in the region.

So whether it's, you know, black and ethnic minority

people, people from different heritage, you

know, our whites, backgrounds, whatever it

is, we need to be able to tailor our engagement for

that particular group and we are fully aware of that.

So all I can say to you is we are still working that through.

We have deliberately, we are reviewing how we do employment

support, there's Alan Milburn's work that's going on,

there's the devolution work that is going on.

All of these will come to a head towards the end of the autumn.

And so we are deliberately timing this and not getting

ahead of all of that so that when we come back to our various

boards and to you to say, this is what we are proposing to do.

You can see the work that has gone in to bring all those

strands together.

And at that point, I'm hoping that we'll be clearer with you

to say, this is how we're going to target,

this is who we're going to work with to target these groups,

and this is what success will look like.

Right now, we are in the middle of doing all that work.

And that's why the paper that came to the investment board a

of weeks ago spoke to two of the three strands and said for the third one we will come back

because there's more work that needs to be done.

Cllr Sarah Courtney - 1:12:13

So I've sat on quite a lot of different committees over the years here in the Combined Authority,

including the Economy Committee, and I've long been a, I wouldn't go quite as far as

a thorn in the side of Felix about the local approach.

But probably a thorn in the side is probably actually

quite accurate.

In terms of really being an advocate for making sure that

delivery as much as possible for a lot of different investments

that have come through are delivered by local organisations.

Because when you're looking at hard to reach,

when you're looking at people who have been out of employment

for a while, who have been economically inactive for a

looking at young people and especially people who feel disaffected that the system isn't

working for them. Getting someone who comes from, if you're in a community in a part of

Bradford or in a smaller, maybe more rural part of Calderdale or somewhere in the outskirts

of Wakefield, having someone come from Leeds isn't necessarily going to help. They're not

for making sure that money and commissioning goes down to organisations as far as possible

who are on the ground and can deliver.

And a lot of this strategy is about there's oversight from the combined authority in which

the combined authority is channelling money, but actually making sure that that delivery

is also at ground level by trusted organisations.

I think that this is a shift more towards that and I think that will help in getting

to have those conversations with people who are furthest away from working for them actually

but having those conversations from somebody that they trust because that's more likely

to give results than some faceless person who's come from a big corporation somewhere

else.

Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee - 1:14:27

Cllr Abdul Hannan - 1:14:28

I think the caveat to this is youth work. I think they are a big player in communities

and sadly the youth work industry is on his knees at the moment because there's not enough

youth workers that are trained and we need the universities back on board to start delivering

courses and getting young people, maybe through the

apprenticeship scheme, to become youth workers,

then they can become role models in their community,

and then young people can rely on for that support because it's

peer -to -peer support that young people need.

And then I think that's something that we need to look

at maybe how youth can play a part in this.

But obviously there's the complex issues of getting

trained youth workers, venues that are equipped to deliver

youth work, and ensuring that young people are at the

forefront, and engagement is very important.

And I'm keen to look at what the engagement looks like going forward.

Thank you, Councillor Hanlon. I'll just point out I've had conversations

Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee - 1:15:30

with Felix and Michelle before. So in respect of reaching these heart to reach

human people, I'm going to say this in front of colleagues from Bradford.

Bradford has something called skills hub which works really well with 16, 17 -year -old neat

people and I think Felix and Michelle are taking away some of the lessons learned there.

Right, on to Councillor Padgett.

Cllr Stephen Padgett - 1:16:00

Thank you for that. There are a couple of hooks that have come out of the recent points,

questions made and responses that I think are really, I'd like to emphasise and add

to, and also relate back to some of the conversation we had

before you came in.

So Felix, you said, I think, that a population that's more

qualified is able to pivot and is more agile was the gist of

what you were saying.

I could not agree more.

But I would just like to highlight a little bit about

what the qualified might mean.

Because some of it could be about getting a certificate that

says you can even be a lawyer.

But we all know how much we love lawyers, don't we?

But you're absolutely right.

But that's one type of qualification.

There are other qualifications that should, I would argue,

must apply to as many people in our population as possible.

And that's about a set of life skills.

Because if you have the ability to show some resilience,

to display a bit of confidence, leadership, teamwork,

understand personal budgeting and financing,

have some physical fitness.

Now, you might say the crusty old colonel would say those things, wouldn't he?

Because guess what he spent 37 years of his life doing with soldiers all over the world.

But it is so relevant to your adaptability to be able to flex

when the world changes around you through it as a result of AI

or whatever else it is.

And I would argue, particularly now working in training

and education, we are not seeing the 16 -year -olds coming out of

the system as it exists at the moment,

to my colleague's point over there.

Apart from the fact they don't have enough of the basics of

English and maths, they don't have so many of those other

basics either.

In my main day job, we get them for 12 weeks and do a year's

worth of college training.

Normal expected average is one improvement,

GCSE grade improvement in a year.

We manage three in 12 weeks.

In addition to which, we do fitness,

we do teamwork and all of those sorts of things.

And when you have those, you're so much more able to do other things.

All of that banging on, what I'm not seeing in all of the wonderful paperwork we've been

presented, is how you're going to have the right sort of influence before they even get

to the 16 -year -old looking for a career that will make the difference so that that 16 -year -old

is much better placed than they are at the moment.

Really, really good.

Really good point.

Obviously, there's mixed opinion out there.

Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 1:19:05

And we should be careful not to generalise too much.

But I agree with the general point you're making.

In the work that Alan Milburn has been leading,

he's recorded and reported working with,

speaking with a lot of young people

who also have all of those things

that Councillor Padgett has just set out.

There are many young people out there

who are ready, willing, able with the skills

and keen to work who are just struggling

to find that opportunity.

So I know that's not what you meant,

but just to round that bit off.

The idea of the West Yorkshire Promise,

when it started, when the mayor was talking about this,

was almost entirely about what you've just said.

We used to call it soft skills at the time.

We sort of stopped calling it that because we

don't think it's soft.

It's employability skills, it's life skills.

Life skills, yes.

And it's just as important as any of those qualifications.

Even though we don't quite know yet how we will do it,

we are determined that that will remain

a core part of the West Yorkshire Promise.

that we have some kind of approach, programme, intervention, support, that enables young

people to build those skills as they go through their teens before they get to the point where

they are looking to get a job and or to, you know, be self -employed.

We would love to hear more about the example that you gave,

and if there's stuff there that we can learn from and amplify,

then by all means, we will do that.

We know that there are others, other organisations that do this

and do it well.

There just aren't enough of them.

And more crucially, the young people who need it most are the

ones who find it most difficult to get access to it.

And our job is to remove those barriers to make sure that

That has not happened anymore.

So completely agree with the general point you make.

I'd love to work with you to understand more what you're doing and how we can amplify that

with others.

But it is at the heart of the West Yorkshire promise and what we're looking to do there.

Thank you.

Cllr Stephen Padgett - 1:21:29

Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee - 1:21:41

I'm going to have to run for a train straight after this.

But I'd like to agree with most of what's been said and raise a few more points very

briefly to correct the EV cars point.

Pure electric manufacturing sales in the UK were 19 % higher in 2025 than 2024 year on

year, plug -in hybrid was 35 % up year on year, electric vans were 36 % up year on year, and

secondhand electrics increased 46 % in just the last year on record.

But regardless, I agree with the point that we can't tell industries what jobs they must

create, which is I think the point that you were making there.

There are large -scale national challenges across all industries and across all ages.

I think young people get the pointy end of systemic problems.

People of all ages with qualifications and life skills are finding it more difficult

than ever to find work, while employers find it more difficult to fill vacancies as well.

While AI serves positive purpose in some situations, it's usually smoke and mirrors and causes

problems in others, including in recruitment, particularly for people who don't play the

game right, which disproportionately includes disabled people, older people, humble people,

and great candidates with fewer qualifications, which includes younger people.

It also gives good excuse for mass redundancies and people with support needs or people approaching

retirement have less confidence in their current employment than they used to as well.

We now have industries and jobs that shift every few years, so we can't confidently plan

20 years ahead.

This means we need to be training young people to be prepared for a fluid future, not just

rigidly pushing people into one of the six current high growth areas or just teaching

them digital and crossing our fingers.

There's a tonne of good stuff in the strategy, but I think it still leans a bit towards training

people more for the next few years than the future.

It also means we need to be preparing 25 -year -olds to be

retrained and change careers numerous times before retirement

and support people of all ages with that education

and retraining.

I think this is part of the intent of the

fulfilling lives piece.

But drilling into this strategy, the only bit that really covers

it is a link out into the adult skills plan,

which basically names the same six high growth areas and

defence and then says the combined authority will ensure

the cluster action plan aligns with national sector plans where applicable.

Nothing really says anything more clearly than that.

We recently have pushed back against a couple of national employers who announced large

work experience programmes by converting a large number of paid Christmas rolls that are typically

Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee - 1:24:05

filled by younger people into unpaid rolls.

And there are also businesses criticised publicly for overusing unpaid trial shifts to get free

labour.

And I agree with the point made earlier that the needle has been moved by day one worker

rights towards businesses, even though I think it's a really important policy.

And I don't think that education and training that teach people how to pass an exam actively

prepare people for workplaces, and that highly qualified, as said earlier, actually isn't

as important as highly skilled for the ability to pivot during a career.

So learning how to be a valuable employee is key.

So my questions that I don't think the current documents truly answer, and they're not questions

to answer now, but just to ponder, are number one, how do we get the balance right on work

experience versus paid roles for younger people?

Two, how do we respond better to eclectic business risk appetites?

Three, how do we better prepare young people for lifelong retraining and learning more

than training them for what we think the future holds?

and four, how do we better support adults in lifelong

rapid learning for emerging roles as they happen.

Thank you.

Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 1:25:17

I'll take the hint.

These are big questions that we will ponder as we develop this.

So thank you very much and a lot of your analysis we agree with.

There's a point you raised there about where you put the balance between skills and qualifications

and the extent to which one is a substitute or a synonym for the other and the extent

to which it's not.

A lot of the time we use qualifications as a proxy for skills because that is the most

measurable thing we can put our hands on.

It doesn't mean it's right or it's perfect,

but we do that because it's difficult to do anything else.

However, we do fund non -accredited work.

We do fund quite a lot of non -accredited skills,

but there's the balance that we need to strike all the time to

make sure we can.

We have a way of measuring.

When you come to scrutiny and you ask us, how do you know?

We have a way of measuring what we are delivering.

I agree with you.

And there's a point you also made about that balance

between an unpaid work experience replacing paid,

sort of maybe short -term roles that people rely on.

Business is always a step or two ahead of us.

And so I completely agree with the gist of the point

you are making.

I think, though, right now, the challenge we've got is

that they just aren't the entry level jobs, full stop.

So our first order challenge is just to work with businesses

to bring back, to recreate those first level,

entry level jobs.

And then there is a conversation to be had

about how we make sure there's a good balance

between paid and unpaid and all of that.

So thank you.

Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee - 1:27:26

Cllr Brian Moughtin - 1:27:29

Thank you, chair. Mine is a very quick question. The strategies for long -term ambitions is

Cllr Steve Ashton - 1:27:34

to have the number of 16 to 17 -year -olds who are neat by 2035. What performance monitoring

that you're going to do to make sure that those ambitions are met.

Thank you.

Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 1:27:49

We had some of this conversation earlier in the week.

We do know and accept that the data is not perfect.

A lot of the data we currently have has a lot of unknowns or not knowns when it comes

to measuring this.

and that makes it very difficult.

But it's still the best we've got.

Or put it another way, it's probably the only thing

we've got.

So whilst pushing with the ONS who are constantly looking

at their methodology, we will continue to use

the official data that is available.

And I'm gonna say hope, but that is probably

not strong enough a word, expect that if we can reduce that count, then in real terms

we are reducing the numbers. We just may not have our baselines as accurate as we would

want it to be. I'll go back to what I said about our local

authority partners as well. You know, they've got statutory responsibility. They have a

really strong, very good data. A big part of the devolution work that is underway is

is to clear the path so that there's better sharing of data

from national governments, local governments,

our third party partners, health, et cetera.

So I expect that in due course we will get much better.

If we reduce the unknowns,

if we can reduce the unknowns,

that will begin to be a win as well.

But we are in a space where the data is not perfect.

I accept that.

Council Lee Richards.

Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee - 1:29:39

Cllr Susan Lee-Richards - 1:29:44

I'm just having to scribble to thank the people for asking the questions I was going to ask.

Particularly we were talking about, well, on the point of EVs, can I say I've driven

one for 12 years and I'm very happy with it.

Anyone I know who's switched hasn't switched back to petrol or diesel.

also. And I would like to see obviously more green jobs in West Yorkshire, so if we can

teach young people skills that are transferable into a variety of green jobs, I think that

would be very beneficial for West Yorkshire. Oh, I need to declare, I forgot to mention

that I was recently appointed to CK Careers, so I forgot to mention that. And also, I was

I was hoping that as you go forward you could bring back some good case studies for us for

how this is developing and how we're recording the outcomes from the investment.

And finally, this is probably a bit cheeky, are we being ambitious enough?

Thank you.

Michelle Burton - 1:31:03

So I think the main question is that last bit around ambition.

I think councillors at the table will remember that they challenged really robustly on that

when this went through the economy committee and then the command authority when the strategy

went through for approval.

So in terms of the ambitions particularly to,

so some of the areas where they wanted to see

particular ambition were around reducing,

reducing economic inactivity and in an increasing

and reducing need rates.

I think it was one of the most robust discussions

that's ever been had in that committee

and there were a real range of views around

some people thinking that targets were too ambitious

and they weren't confident they could be achieved and others feeling they needed to be more

ambitious. So the combined authority on balance agreed that the ambitions that are in there

but I think what it's useful to remember you know actually there were a real range of views

around those targets as that worked through.

But they will be challenging to achieve.

And it's possible that for some of the indicators,

you know, the interventions that we are working up

will take some, there was a question before

about outputs versus outcomes, we'll do the thing,

but it will take some time for that young person

in particular to enter the labour market,

so you will see the impact on figures

quite some time down the line.

So I think on balance, we've hit the right balance between achievability and ambition.

Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 1:32:53

I think...

So, colleagues, my colleagues will, I'm sure, tell you when it comes to ambition,

I'm probably never knowingly undersold.

This is one of a range of outcomes

that we've set out in the work that we've done.

So in Healthy Working Lives, our ambition

is to have the healthiest workforce by 2050.

Many people have told us, you must be, what are you smoking?

That is not.

But we say, well, we're going to aim for that.

And we're going to do all we can to get there.

And if we fall a little bit short,

that it would be still miles better than where we are right now.

It's a huge ambition we set there.

When it comes to qualifications in the local growth plan,

our ambition is to have the number of people with no or low qualifications

and to give everybody in West Yorkshire the opportunity to reach a minimum level three.

We had a robust debate in this room about that.

But we say, no, no, we're going to do all we can to support everybody in West Yorkshire

who wants to get there to get to at least a level three,

because that is where you begin to have options to pivot.

And I'm reeling these off just to give you

a sense of the context within which

that particular ambition sits.

This is a really challenging one to resolve.

It's been decades in the building.

And it's per pound of intervention,

these are some of the most expensive things to attack.

So, actually, the numbers there which may seem modest, if we can reduce our numbers

to that, will be a significant, significant achievement based on where we are right now.

Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee - 1:34:54

It was just a little specific bit.

Cllr Susan Lee-Richards - 1:35:04

On page 99 of our pack, it mentioned that in a weak labour market, it's increased the

competition with school and college leavers competing with graduates for oversubscribed

vacancies.

how is this going to tackle that? How is this going to even up the playing field? Because

I do know of graduates taking jobs that are way below their skills and qualifications

because that's what's available and then the people with the lower skills feel like there's

nowhere for me to start. Thank you.

Michelle Burton - 1:35:42

So there are a couple of aspects to that.

So as you know, the package of interventions that you saw in the paper, as we said before,

there are elements that are still being tested.

And I think what we've talked about, what we're calling derisking hiring, but it's ultimately

this problem that you've just quoted around demand and that impact that it has on different

groups. That is so incredibly difficult to tackle that the investment boards have approved

development funding so that we can test different interventions and sort of working those up

at the moment with colleagues and partners. The point that you make about underemployment

is a really, really important one. I think that's the first time it's been raised today,

but it is really important because it impacts not only on that individual, doesn't it, so

they're not necessarily reaching the potential

that they could.

So something about the interventions we need

for that person to reach their potential,

but they're also taking up an employment opportunity

that may result in someone else being out of work.

And I think that's what the sentence that you read out

is ultimately saying, that there is an impact on,

we've got lots of people competing for roles

and you've potentially got someone who's underemployed

taking up that vacancy.

That's where we do have the retraining and the upskilling point for adults,

that's the point where we do have the direct levers and we are focusing adults

for girls funding much more on how we support people to progress into the

labour market so that they can increase their earnings and we have got really

good examples of people being able to, but through accessing sometimes

accredited, sometimes non accredited courses with clear line of sight

to a job, progressing in work, benefiting them and their families by gaining more secure

employment, better paying employment, but also freeing up those vacancies so that you've

got less competition. So I think there's different interventions, both supporting the person

who's coming to work but also that person who may be underemployed in our labour market,

which we do see a lot of in West Yorkshire, don't we?

I think that's a good point.

Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee - 1:37:56

Sorry, can I just make a very quick point just to follow on

Cllr James Lewis - 1:37:58

from the question. I think clearly we are talking

about the reason of learning creativity strategy this

morning.

The wider point about the availability of jobs in West

York is a much bigger part of the work we do around the

economic development and growth areas.

the meetings to go but those are identified in the areas where we believe with support

from the combined authority working with the councils, that's where actually the overall

number of employers with vacancies can be increased and that has to be seen alongside

this strategy, though obviously we're talking about the document this morning.

Councillor Stables.

Thank you.

I'll have another go.

Cllr Penny Stables - 1:38:44

Actually it's coming back, it's really related to what you were just talking about and it

comes back to the point you make, Felix,

about protecting entry level jobs.

And it was just the concern,

and I'm not expecting you to have an answer to this

other than raising the point,

that the rise in AI is likely

to erode the lowest level jobs.

It is those entry level jobs that are gonna go.

And interestingly, on the radio,

they were talking about the other day,

about one of the companies that created AI

having this problem where the lowest level jobs

are being done by AI, but then how do people actually

get into them, progress, did you hear that?

To progress up the ladder.

So it's actually a major issue that's

coming across everything, potentially,

unless it's addressed.

That there won't be a way to leapfrog

into the jobs of the future, and our young people

won't have the entry level jobs to go into.

Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 1:39:41

There isn't an easy answer.

I completely agree to quite an extent.

I suppose my little nuance or caveat to it will be the

extent to which we are in a world of unknown as a new

technology takes hold.

We were all this worried when computers came,

thinking about, you know, what is the future for

type -A's and for secretaries and this.

And the labour market evolved the same with earlier

versions of industrial revolution we've been through.

You absolutely spot on, Councillor.

AI does threaten certain types of job in our labour market.

I am confident that we will, over time,

we don't have a choice, we will adjust.

There are theories right now about

maybe AI is going to make us all so productive

that we'll be able to pay people not to work.

I mean, I'd love to be in that situation.

But we will see how it works out.

We are completely alive though,

and there's work, a lot of academic work that is coming out

around how we can use public policy to support

labour -friendly technological advances.

So, we are mindful of the need for people to work,

not always or only because of money,

but because it's just good for people,

for us to get out and commune with each other and do stuff.

How do we direct the technology we are developing

such that it enables more of that to happen,

And we are not blind to the labour market implications.

I don't have an answer, but we are aware of it.

And we'll see where it takes us.

But it's a really valid point.

Thank you, Felix.

Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee - 1:41:26

Before we move to Council Townend, could you ask a couple of questions myself?

So the first thing is, with the whole report, it all hinges on funding.

So what happens if the revenue stream vanishes?

I think everybody's missed that.

Second thing, or the second area that's not discussed at all,

is English speakers of other languages,

which is particularly important given the scale of the issue we've got in West Yorkshire.

So, and that's perhaps one of the reasons why the economy's not growing at the pace we think it's going to grow at.

The third area, which speaks to Dan Cohen's point, Councillor Cohen's point about de -risking

hiring is over 50s unemployment. So you've got vast amounts of workforce out there who

probably sat at home now trying to find a job. Huge amounts of experience. They can't

get past the gatekeepers because it's inevitable that recruitment managers or hiring managers

are going to perceive them as a threat to their role.

So how do we address that issue in the overall scheme of things?

And the last bit for context was the 18 to 24 -year -old needs,

where we're actually stating that we're

going to enhance their career paths or employment

opportunities of 3 ,100 of them.

But there's no context to that.

How many 18 to 24‑year‑old neat people are in West Yorkshire?

It's something that used to be recorded and the Conservatives pulled that requirement

in 2016.

So just a few questions and then I'll ‑‑ Councillor Townend afterwards.

Cllr Sarah Courtney - 1:43:23

So just a couple of points.

Just like for example with the 18 to 24s there is a claimant count.

So the DWP does have figures for claimants who are specifically in that cohort.

I'll send the link of where that information is, which is on one of the combined authority

dashboards, the young people in the labour market dashboard has that information on there.

That's not neat specifically, but it is about the DWP unemployment figures.

So there is that information out there.

Does that pass over?

Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 1:44:10

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

It's really helpful.

I think it goes back to a point I made earlier on.

We freely admit that we are in a world of imperfect information

in this policy space.

Claimant count picks up a section of that cohort

but doesn't pick everybody up, because if you are not claiming,

then you will not be picked up.

and you have to be of a certain age.

The NEET numbers that ONS puts out is really good,

but it has gaps in it.

And there are a lot of young people

that are a section of that age group that is classed simply

as unknown and that punches a hole in what we do.

The ONS puts out the labour force survey, which is survey based.

It's not exact, but it's the most authoritative labour market

source that we've got through the APS.

And it's what the ILO uses to measure unemployment

internationally.

But again, it's survey -based.

So we are approximating.

It's not exact.

So we are not in a space where we

are able to give that cast iron guarantee

that we know exactly the number.

And we had to make a judgement and go with the closest data

source that we've got with the longest stream of data

to give us some trend to base what we are talking about on.

We expect that on the back of Alan Milburn's work,

mayors and combined authorities will be given a responsibility

to track all young people until, I think, 24.

So we expect that over time, this is going to get much

better and we will be much tighter.

But we are not in that space right now,

so we are going with the best fit.

On ESOL, I completely agree with you in terms of its importance.

The evidence is very clear and we can share some data on this.

West Yorkshire residents for whom English is not their first language, or if English

is not your first language, the unemployment rate is much higher than the rest of the population.

The evidence is very clear that as soon as somebody

acquires that level of proficiency, their employment

rate goes up significantly.

Completion rates are much higher than most of the

courses that we put out.

And the benefits to the ex -checker is in the

hundreds of millions annually if we are able to

bridge the gap.

So it makes economic sense.

It's achieving well.

But we could put all the money we've got towards

and it will still not fix the problem because of the population that we've got right now.

We are doing all we can, but we have to balance it.

But we agree that that is really important, and we will continue to focus on that until

otherwise.

The point you made about over 50s, as I said when we spoke offline, is a bit personal because

some of us are over that age, so it begins to feel a bit threatening.

There is a lot of evidence coming through the labour market

about the role of over 50s, the pension age was put up

a decade or so ago for various reasons,

including affordability and all of that.

But it has had, according to the academic data,

some unintended consequences where younger people,

roles that in the past may have gone to younger people

Some are filled by people in their 60s or even more,

and it's not available then to younger people.

Now I'm not saying we should take those jobs away from,

for it's really important.

I think that what we are saying is that all of this,

this conversation is a function of the state

of the labour market right now.

We were not having this conversation in the late 90s

and through the noughties when the economy was incredibly

buoyant.

We were having a different kind of conversation.

We are having this conversation right now

because the labour market is tight.

So in the end, the solution is for us

to work together to grow our economy

and to create those positions.

And then hopefully there will be more to go around.

Which then brings us back to the 18 to 24 challenge.

I mean, depending on how you count,

need some count from 16.

But that is where the attention is right now,

and for good reason.

We have a certain million people in that bracket,

young people in that bracket.

So for good reason.

But we are aware that there are other challenges in the labour

market.

And the strategy tries to have that balanced view

to make sure we are having the desired effect

across our labour market of 1 .2 million people,

but we acknowledge that we have a particular young people

challenge right now.

Felix, sorry.

Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee - 1:49:22

Cllr Sarah Courtney - 1:49:24

Yeah, and as well, and I think it was in one of the slides

about the Healthy Working Life programme,

which is only one sort of like, again,

sort of smallish thing, except it's not small

if it helps you.

But that was all about specifically helping people with

medical conditions in terms of getting back into the employment.

Now, that's not only for over 50s,

but because the emphasis was on MSK and mental health.

So MSK, musculoskeletal stuff.

So things like supporting people to remain in work while they're

waiting for operations like hip replacements.

I'm saying that specifically because I was one of those.

I had a hip replacement at the beginning of the year,

and I can attest to the fact that there's support to keep

you in work, to help you keep in work while you're waiting for

the op, and to get you to make sure that you're fit enough to

continue working afterwards.

Now, it's obviously, you know, these sorts of things are not

one size fits all, but those sorts of programmes have been

really, really helping to keep people,

and it is mostly people who are over 50 who end up with those

So I think there are other levels of support and programmes around that, you know, it's part

of a national programme, it's not just here in West Yorkshire, but we're one of the trailblazers

to sort of pilot that, so that's another bit of support.

Thank you. I think it's only Felix and I who are in the vintage category. I think that's

I'm sorry, I thought you said it to me yesterday.

Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee - 1:51:03

So, Councillor Townend, final question.

Cllr Jason Townend - 1:51:06

It should be fairly simple and fairly straightforward hopefully.

So, you want to get everybody to a level 3.

I agree with that, alright.

In an ideal world, OK, everybody would be a level 3.

We know the average IQ in this room is probably higher than the national average, I would have thought.

Yeah, not everybody is available and able to actually get a level three qualification

because they just cannot take in the information and retain the information at that point.

So what are we going to do about that?

And a secondary thing to that, we found when we got people to level two and put them in

a garage, the garages were happy because they still had some funding available to train

them on and bring them up.

When we sent them out with a level three, there was no funding available then.

I work at a Volvo car and there's certain things I do, I go work at a Ford and it's

slightly different.

There was no training, no available funding to be a swap between the two.

So we found that quite a lot to be fair working in the colleges.

I don't know where you go on that one.

Michelle Burton - 1:52:12

So absolutely not everyone will get to level three.

There will always be jobs in the economy that don't require that.

So I think that is an important point.

The commitment is that everyone that wants to, I guess implicit in that is and is able

to progress to level three.

I think the second point you make is a really interesting one as well, which is that, which

which is the importance of re -skilling and cross -skilling.

It's not necessarily, the skills that people need

to acquire in order to meet business needs

aren't always about progression.

Sometimes it's about something at the same,

adding on other skills at the same level.

Often, the best way to do that is not through

collecting qualifications, it's through employer -led

technical training, and so that is absolutely a lever

that we already have and will continue to have to

and we are committing to doing far more with industry

to develop the qualifications that people need

in order to meet business need.

Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee - 1:53:21

I think there's one final question from Athlete Maud.

Hi, thanks.

My issue sometimes with apprenticeships

Cllr Matthew Maude - 1:53:31

is I see more and more where there's jobs

that are requiring apprenticeships

to physically get someone into work,

but they don't actually need an apprenticeship,

as in like they don't need the physical qualification,

the course and everything to be able to physically do it.

But because people have to be in education at 16 to 18,

they're having to either,

they're basically having to make an apprenticeship up for it

and I found that employers can struggle to find the courses,

not just the availability,

but something actually relevant to their business,

especially in stuff like the building industry,

where it's changed, in my opinion,

a little bit from less skill based stuff to process stuff, so stuff like rendering, screening

flaws, a lot of it's like a machine based thing. And then you have the issues with the

qualifications with typically teenage boys that aren't academic, they might be really

good workers but they're never going to pass that maths and English barrier. They then

have to go to college, do a lot of exams that they don't want to do and aren't interested

with an employer who knows they're not interested in doing them and aren't interested in the apprentice doing them either

but they have to do them, to the point where even a college tutor knows it's kind of a waste of time to do it in the first place.

So is there a way round this where perhaps like a CSCS card scheme could be part of the education part of it

so that a 16 year old doesn't have to do directly an apprenticeship

but the CSAS card or some other form of kind of college course that isn't a college course

where you go to it once a week where it's not like a three -year scheme, could that be

class of the education part so that 16 -year -old can go to work and get on at life and get

good at a job and earn some money?

Thank you.

It's quite a detailed technical question which we probably need to take offline.

Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 1:55:30

There are just general sort of overarching points though.

One, in the work that we do with the FE colleges,

we're quite clear, we want to meet the needs of the employer

and balance that with what the young person or the learner

is able or willing to do.

We've pushed for modular based delivery

so that young people or learners are able to come in,

do exactly what they need to do, and then go back out

and to be as flexible as we possibly can.

We don't have direct leaders when it comes to apprenticeships

as a combined authority.

That remains a nationally led policy area.

We will see the extent to weather changes over time

as part of devolution.

But we are pushing to have a role in some of the brokerage

which will allow us to have an even deeper relationship with

some of the employees and some of the providers.

I acknowledge that there are some challenges in terms of the

apprenticeship qualifications that are out there,

the what do you call it?

The standards that are out there.

It's quite a process to set a standard up.

It's quite a detailed process.

is nationally led needs to be accredited in the right way.

There isn't a standard for everything that we might want.

And in some senses, there are many who also feel

there are probably too many standards in other places

that do not require an apprenticeship to take on that role.

So there's some rebalancing going on.

Final point is the apprenticeship levy itself

is undergoing or has undergone some change.

It's now a growth and skills levy.

We are waiting to find out a bit more detail about how that is going to apply.

We hope that it allows us to have some funding to be able to promote the non -apprenticeship

qualifications or accreditations that are skills acquisition that is required so that

we can direct apprenticeship funding and activity in the right way.

But there is more information to come out so we can't be definitive yet.

the state.

Cllr Matthew Maude - 1:57:43

Cllr James Lewis - 1:57:52

Just a very quick point on the last two questions, I will try to be quick looking at the clock.

I think some of the things, and going back to the slide we had several hours ago that

was presented to us about rewiring the state, there is a point in quite a bit here that

actually some of the standards and qualifications are always

going to be national standards and qualifications,

and I think that's what businesses would ask for as

well as everybody else.

It's how it works on the ground and how we can sit alongside

either individual employers or groups of employers.

We talked about construction.

We talked about motor mechanics as well,

and actually how we can make that work in West Yorkshire.

And I think that's the next step.

Anybody would say we're satisfied with the system as it

is at the moment, and that includes the national

government as well and a lot of the things we've talked about today should be fed into

that about how we can, like I say how we can have a more, like I say actually sit alongside

the Combined Authority Councils, the providers we fund, sit alongside employers to make this

work here for us and people in West Yorkshire rather than like I say administrating some

national schemes that are handed down to us.

Cllr Sarah Courtney - 1:59:03

Can I make a really quick point as well? I think it's really interesting. So I used to

work in education and I used to work as a learning mentor with a lot of children with

both neurodiversity and also other special needs. And there used to be a lot of vocational

qualifications that you could do, that we could work and they would be really meaningful,

for lots of functional skills, functional maths, functional English, writing books and

going and reading them to younger children, all sorts of amazing things. But then there

was a point in time when those qualifications stopped being counted to points, so in the

school league tables those qualifications were not included in the points tables and

Therefore, there was no, there was a real feeling from the

schools that they didn't want actually young people to do

those qualifications because they would then be discounted in

terms of their overall points system.

So I think this is a conversation and maybe,

you know, if we are, if we do have conversations with

national government, you know, that is one of the things that

we can lobby on is like saying if there are vocational or,

alternative courses, especially for young people who are just not ever going to reach

that academic achievement, that actually these should be counted in the league tables, if

we continue to have league tables, because actually these are still really meaningful

for the young people that take them.

Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee - 2:00:47

Any more questions? I could have thanked two officers Felix and Michelle for coming along

and also Councillor Lewis and Councillor Courtney who have obviously got busy days as well.

So thank you. One last thing for me to say to everybody. Next meeting, 23rd of October.

But same time, same place, same people, hopefully.

OK.

Thank you all.

Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)

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Cllr Steve Ashton

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Michelle Burton

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Cllr Colin Campbell

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Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee

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Cllr Suhail Choudhry

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Cllr Dan Cohen

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Cllr Sarah Courtney

Calderdale Council

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Cllr Cllr James Lewis Leeds City Council

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Interactive webcast player

Scrutiny CommitteeFriday, 18th September 2026 at 10:30am

Cllr Dan Cohen - 0:00:00

Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee - 0:00:46

Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:02:12

9 The Region of Learning & Creativity Programme

Michelle Burton - 0:03:52

Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee - 0:11:37

Cllr Matthew Maude - 0:12:10

Michelle Burton - 0:13:48

Cllr Matthew Maude - 0:15:35

Michelle Burton - 0:15:57

Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:17:13

Cllr Sarah Courtney - 0:17:21

Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee - 0:18:33

Cllr Dan Cohen - 0:18:35

Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee - 0:21:57

Cllr James Lewis - 0:22:38

Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee - 0:23:46

Cllr Dan Cohen - 0:23:53

Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee - 0:26:39

Cllr Suhail Choudhry - 0:26:47

Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee - 0:27:51

Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:27:54

Cllr Colin Campbell - 0:30:49

Cllr Sarah Courtney - 0:33:24

Cllr James Lewis - 0:35:12

Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:37:01

Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee - 0:37:08

Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:37:09

Cllr Penny Stables - 0:41:01

Cllr Colin Campbell - 0:41:04

Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee - 0:41:11

Cllr Colin Campbell - 0:41:12

Michelle Burton - 0:43:29

Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee - 0:44:50

Cllr Penny Stables - 0:44:52

Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:46:37

Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee - 0:50:50

Cllr Penny Stables - 0:50:52

Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:52:54

Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee - 0:55:34

Cllr Jason Townend - 0:55:56

Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee - 0:58:59

Cllr Jason Townend - 0:59:00

Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:59:09

Michelle Burton - 1:02:10

Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee - 1:03:09

Cllr Katie Kimber - 1:03:13

Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 1:04:16

Michelle Burton - 1:06:50

Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee - 1:08:19

Cllr Katie Kimber - 1:08:23

Cllr Abdul Hannan - 1:08:45

Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 1:09:27

Cllr Sarah Courtney - 1:12:13

Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee - 1:14:27

Cllr Abdul Hannan - 1:14:28

Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee - 1:15:30

Cllr Stephen Padgett - 1:16:00

Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 1:19:05

Cllr Stephen Padgett - 1:21:29

Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee - 1:21:41

Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee - 1:24:05

Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 1:25:17

Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee - 1:27:26

Cllr Brian Moughtin - 1:27:29

Cllr Steve Ashton - 1:27:34

Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 1:27:49

Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee - 1:29:39

Cllr Susan Lee-Richards - 1:29:44

Michelle Burton - 1:31:03

Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 1:32:53

Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee - 1:34:54

Cllr Susan Lee-Richards - 1:35:04

Michelle Burton - 1:35:42

Cllr Bob Felstead Chair - Scrutiny Committee - 1:37:56

Cllr James Lewis - 1:37:58

Cllr Penny Stables - 1:38:44

Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 1:39:41

Scrutiny Committee
Friday, 18th September 2026 at 10:30am