What has been the impact of recruitment’s contribution to Kickstart on youth employment?

We've made it! The very last Kickstart recruits via REC’s Gateway finish their placements this month.

In total, the REC Gateway delivered:

• 210 Kickstart work placements requested and approved by DWP, across 52 REC members
• 80 young people were successfully recruited to fill these Kickstart vacancies
• And so far, 9 of these young people in 5 different agencies have taken up the offer of a permanent job with their Kickstart recruitment business.

In addition, many other REC members delivered their own Kickstart placements or acted as a Gateway for their clients. The recruitment industry has delivered hundreds, if not thousands, of Kickstart placements.

The eagle-eyed amongst you will have noted we delivered just over a third of our approved number of placements. It's certainly far fewer than we wanted to help initially – and in our experience, this is a common issue with Kickstart.

What we learnt

It doesn't take anything away from the recruiters, young people or DWP programme leads participating in Kickstart if we admit that it has been, at times, hard work. Jamie, Nat, Ellie (my REC colleagues who deserve a massive thanks for supporting Kickstart at one time or another) and I have all experienced the issues. These are things that any future government programme really needs to address. So, if there was a proposal to run something similar to Kickstart again, our advice would be:

Have your marketing plan in place before you start to recruit

Government did a great job of engaging business and getting us excited about Kickstart. I remember being in meetings in the early days of Covid and talking with DWP about how important such targeted support could be - to their credit, they listened. But there was no such marketing drive, comms and engagement from government with young people. In the early days, we found many young people were unaware of Kickstart and few knew or wanted to go to a job centre. To make matters worse, when it first started, recruiters were NOT ALLOWED to recruit for Kickstart directly. We had experts in the jobs market, who know how to deliver successful recruitment campaigns, with one hand tied behind their back.  

Accessing government funding needs a proper audit process - but it doesn't have to be impossible to navigate

The number of REC members who expressed a willingness to give a young person a Kickstart opportunity was amazing. Members saw it as a win-win-win: win for their business as they could benefit from a new worker joining them; win for the young person; win for our wider socio-economic outlook. But that enthusiasm went south when we and members were made to jump through hoops to get a company, then their placements, approved. "Spotlight" was not fit for purpose in the initial stages, nor were the processes and resources in place to deliver. No one minds a few squeaky wheels on new activity but any future campaign needs the administrative side worked out before applications are invited. We were ready and willing to offer support and resource to help with that, and we would be again.

Local is always best

The admin side of Kickstart could be hard but there were some superstars in DWP and among REC members who did a brilliant job. The introduction of Key District Account Managers by DWP was exactly what we needed at a critical time for Kickstart. From then on, we had a named, local point of contact ready to work with our member, both of whom were experts in their local jobs market. We helped this system flow by keeping data and audit trails centrally at the REC. But mapping out the network for sharing information and being open to fixing challenges together, helped everyone. Within an overarching framework, you have to let those local champions do what they do best.

So, has Kickstart been worth it? Watch the video above to Hear from Les, Sales Director at Sert Group, who shares exactly what Kickstart and its follow up has meant to their business.