Skills refresh could provide answer to labour shortage

I recently attended the Graduate Re-Tune Project 's celebration event, writes Deb Leary.

Never heard of Graduate Re-Tune? It 's a unique employment and skills initiative, led by Birmingham City University (BCU) and delivered in partnership with Aston University and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), which boosts the job prospects of local, unemployed graduates.

Unless you work in a local university or Jobcentre, or you are an unemployed graduate, your first reaction might be: “There can 't be that many unemployed graduates out there! ”

Sadly, this isn 't the case. Graduate Re-Tune identified in 2019 that - in Birmingham and Solihull alone - there were over 1,000 graduates claiming welfare benefits.

At a time when the region needs more people qualified to NVQ Level 4+, 1,000 unemployed graduates is evidence of a serious waste of human capital. However, Graduate Re-Tune may have the solution to this labour market problem, as it bridges the gap between the employability support offered by universities to students and “mainstream ” employment programmes offered by the DWP.

To date, Graduate Re-Tune has helped nearly 600 graduates to refresh their skills, rebuild their confidence, find suitable work placements and secure permanent, graduate level jobs with local SMEs, as well as major companies such as Balfour Beatty Vinci, Sunset and Vine and West Midlands Police.

The partnership delivers on several levels. As project manager, Sandeep Solanki, explained to me: “In addition to securing jobs for local graduates, the Project has provided a platform for developing other initiatives that meet the business goals of universities and the government 's “Plan for Jobs ”.

He said: “For example, we have designed and delivered the only Kickstart Scheme Graduate Opportunities Gateway in the country. This has resulted in 34 unemployed graduates starting job placements with West Midlands Police, with many of them taken on permanently. ”

I met so many people on the night who are genuinely passionate about Graduate Re-Tune 's achievements - university directors, DWP service leaders, project team members, and local employers delighted with the graduates they had hired.

But what made the greatest impression on me were the graduates I spoke with. Each of them valued the support they had received from their Graduate Re-Tune Consultant and DWP work coach. With that support they had re-tuned their skills, re-engaged with the graduate jobs market and taken their first major step towards achieving their career aspirations.

With pilot funding from the Office for Students now exhausted, partners have committed to fund Graduate Re-Tune for the remainder of 2022. But this means that project support will remain confined to graduates registered with Jobcentres in Birmingham and Solihull, when much more could be done across the West Midlands, and beyond, to ensure unemployed graduates can benefit from, and contribute to, local economic growth.

Business demand for higher level skills continues to grow. We need to harness the talent of all who can meet that demand, whether via apprenticeships, workforce development programmes, higher technical qualifications, and by refreshing the skills of unemployed graduates.

Hopefully, a Graduate Re-Tune bid to the UK Shared Prosperity Fund this summer might secure the funding that would make this a reality, but there is also a case to be made that the DWP and DfE should take a closer look at what is being achieved in Birmingham.

As Andrew Mitchell MP, a consistent champion of Graduate Re-Tune, said: “The project demonstrates how a high-performing partnership, nurtured over several years, between a central government department and two of our local universities, can secure real benefits for local people, local employers, and the regional economy. Perhaps here in Birmingham we have the recipe for establishing a UK-wide, universal-access, Graduate Re-Tune service? ”

Contact retune@bcu.ac.uk for more information.

Deb Leary is president of Greater Birmingham Chambers of Commerce and chief executive of Forensic Pathways

This column first appeared in the Birmingham Post