ELEBCIS Project Recommendations
In order to augment and ‘join up’ existing initiatives, programmes and activities in the city to:
1. For the definition of a Community-Media Sector Connector organisation which has been developed through the ELEBCIS project, see here
- benefit both employers and job seekers in Bristol
- support the city to sustainably develop it’s own workforce – to fulfil predicted demand for skilled workers in the Creative and Digital sectors in the city over the next 25 years and
- to maximise opportunities for young people – and other entry level employees – who face particular barriers to accessing employment in the BTQZ (and related opportunities),
- Recognise and enhance the role being played by existing ‘Community-Media Sector- Connector’1 organisations in ensuring that the ‘skills and talent development pipelines’ for the Creative and Digital sector industries in Bristol meaningfully reach into communities across the city including those within which youth unemployment is a particular challenge; explore how the capacity, skills training role and engagement activities (and associated networks) of these organisations can be recognised and further supported.
- Work with Arts and Cultural Sector Organisations in Bristol - whose work is highly respected by industry partners in the Creative and Digital sectors - to support access to sustainable core funding streams which will enable the ongoing provision of innovative and responsive training and skills-development activities for young people in the city.
- Ensure that structural barriers (including financial barriers) for disadvantaged groups are acknowledged and proactively addressed to ensure that all young people in the city are able to access training opportunities, if the stated ambitions of the LEP - for Bristol to grow its own workforce and to ensure that no young person in the city is ‘left behind’ – are to be achieved in practice. Acknowledge the need to revisit the provision of formal education in the city for progression in to employment in these sectors.
- Recognise that for young people in the city who are currently furthest away from the labour market, vocational education and training must function to enable the development of social capital, as well as increasing skills levels if it is going to enable access to future employment in these sectors.
- Explore how the gap identified in the provision of relevant training and support for forms of self-employment in these sectors (including self-employment, freelancing and the development of creative/social enterprises) can be most effectively addressed.
- Recognise the poverty and inadequacy of existing careers and information, advice and guidance resources relevant to these employment sectors (both in the city and nationally). Explore how this can most effectively be addressed for the benefit of young (and older) people across the city.
- Explore how the future employment opportunities that will become available in these sectors in Bristol and the wider region can be most effectively communicated , and made visible to young – and older people (and the professionals advising them) in areas of the city where unemployment is a particular challenge.
- Explore whether existing opportunities for work experience (including appropriate volunteering opportunities) across the city can be made more visible and be ‘joined-up’ coherently.
- Define and facilitate access to differentiated progression pathways into the labour market for young people ensuring that opportunities for skills development can support the achievement or creation of sustainable employment in these sectors, not just access to further training.
- Facilitate the sharing of best-practice in provision of support to jobseekers in these sectors who are volunteering and/or undertaking unpaid work-experience placements in the city; support access to relevant information, and sources of advice and guidance which can enable meaningful progression into paid employment and/or self-employment.
1. For the definition of a Community-Media Sector Connector organisation which has been developed through the ELEBCIS project, see here