Improving Education, Skills and Employment in Coventry: A Marmot City Approach
September 23, 2024
This spotlight feature seeks to distil the learning and approach adopted by Coventry as a Marmot City, in particular highlighting its approach to improving education, skills and employment.
Coventry: A Marmot City and its Job Shop
Coventry has been a Marmot city since 2013. Coventry City Council has been working to embed the Marmot principles in the way it operates to improve health equity for the city’s population. The Marmot review evidenced that health is closely linked to the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age. (the building blocks of health).
About Coventry
The latest Joint Strategic Needs Assessment for Coventry shows:
- A cohesive city with a young population, with an average age of 35 years compared to the UK average of 40 years
- In the 2021 Census, 45% of Coventry’s population identified as an ethnic minority, an increase from 33% in 2011. In England it was 26%, West Midlands region 28%.
- As of 2021, 65% of its residents are of working-age (18-64).
- 2020/21 data suggests that 23% of Coventry children aged 0-15 live in relative low-income families, compared to 19% nationally.
- Coventry has a long history of providing safety to those fleeing conflict and persecution and has been recognised as a City of Sanctuary and International City of Peace and Reconciliation for many years.
Coventry Health Inequalities
The Indices of Multiple Deprivation showed Coventry improved its ranking from 46th in 2015 to 64th in 2019 in its proportion of neighbourhoods amongst the 10% most deprived in England (at lower super output area). Overall health in Coventry is below national average with significant health inequalities that continue to impact the lives of those more deprived in the city. Life expectancy based on 2022 data, for both men (77.6 years) and women (81.8 years) is lower than the England average, with people living more of their later years in ill health and a significantly higher prevalence of preventable deaths.
The Marmot Principles
The Marmot principles are evidence-based policy objectives to reduce health inequalities, which were originally set out in ‘Fair Society Health Lives.’
- Give every child the best start in life.
- Enable all children, young people and adults to maximise their capabilities and have control over their lives.
- Create fair employment and good work for all.
- Ensure a healthy standard of living for all.
- Create and develop healthy and sustainable places and communities.
- Strengthen the role and impact of ill health prevention.
- Tackle racism and its outcomes.
- Tackle climate change and health equity in unison.
Coventry has adopted a model of ‘Proportionate Universalism’ as a way of addressing inequality and distributing resources; by having universal access for all but targeted proportionately across the social gradient to those in greater need.
In particular Coventry has focused on improving education. Coventry Skills Strategy (2022-2030) aspiration is to improve all educational levels closer to national averages by producing clear pathways to the jobs young people and adults strive towards, and to have the skills that meet the needs of local employers now and in the future; being fully inclusive and supporting those most in need.
There has also been a emphasis on supporting residents into good quality employment. Evidence suggests a higher healthy life expectancy in local authorities with higher employment, with a corelation between a local area’s employment rate and years people can expect to live in good health. According to the Health Foundation half of those who were in low-quality work in 2010/11 were still in low-quality work in 2016/17. Spending longer in low-quality work is associated with worse health outcomes; triggering stress and damaging the body over time.
The leader of the Council developed the idea of the ‘Job Shop’, as part of the Council’s Jobs Strategy to help local people find work. The Job Shop is a universal service, so open to everyone living in Coventry. Job Shop staff identify those who have low, moderate, or higher levels of need and vulnerability, and offer services according to that level of need. Those who are assessed as being furthest from the job market are then able to access a wide range of services suited to their needs, taking a proportionate universalism approach. It also uses the Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) to inform its outreach strategy, targeting interventions where they are needed most so vulnerable residents are not left behind.
The Job Shop: The Journey
The Job Shop’s first home was on Hertford Street where it opened in 2012. After just eight months it had to move to the Bull Yard, due to increasing demand.
The Job Shop operates a Hub and Spoke model, with services reaching into community locations such as family hubs, libraries, and medical centres to reach even the most deprived areas of Coventry, engaging residents where they live. This way employment support and services are easily accessible, reducing some of structural barriers that often prevent disadvantaged populations from accessing support.
The Job Shop: unique for several reasons
The Job Shop plays a crucial role in focusing on the intersection of employment, education, and community well-being, by helping individuals develop new skills, navigate digital job applications, or overcoming barriers like low confidence. The Job Shop delivers personalised support that goes beyond just finding jobs, equipping individuals with tools to sustain long-term employment and improve their quality of life through stable employment. The Job Shop has focused its efforts on those who face multiple barriers to employment, including migrants, older job seekers, and those with caring responsibilities. One example is the support provided to a recent migrant, a mother who had to balance childcare with the challenge of entering a new job market. Despite having significant experience in banking and human resources, her lack of UK-specific work experience and inability to travel far due to childcare responsibilities made job searching particularly difficult.
The Job Shop created a tailored support plan, which included attending CV and job application workshops and participating in volunteering sessions to build local experience. These sessions not only enhanced her skills but also helped her become more comfortable navigating the UK job market. After significant support, the Job Shop’s Employer Engagement Team was able to negotiate flexible working hours, including some homeworking, which met her childcare needs. Within a month, her attitude towards employment had completely shifted from anxiety to excitement as she secured a role in her desired sector.
The Job Shop is unique as there is:
- No mandating: Customers engage by choice and all actions are customer lead.
- Open door policy: All are welcome.
- A person centred and holistic approach: 1 to 1 support and range of group workshops.
- End to end support: Working with customers at all stages of their journey.
- Focus on ‘Right Job’: Supporting customers to find the right job for them not just ‘any’ job.
- Support for ‘in work’ customers: Including those signed off work due to ill health, struggling with stress of current role, looking for more rewarding role, needing more hours etc.
- Employer engagement with focus on quality: theEmployer Engagement Team focus on employers who can offer high quality opportunities only.
- Support for those who face the biggest barriers.
The Offer
The Job Shop’s bespoke offer supports inclusive economic growth by removing some of the difficulties in accessing work.
Take, for example, a case where a customer had completed English and Maths courses but struggled with IT skills. His lack of digital literacy made it difficult to job search or apply for jobs online. He accessed one-on-one coaching sessions, workshops on confidence and motivation, help rewriting his CV, and completed a digital skills course – resulting in him successfully securing part-time work.
This is more than just an employment success—it is a pathway out of socioeconomic disadvantage and reducing health inequities through better life opportunities.
The Job Shop do not put people forward who aren’t suitable or ready for employment; instead, they work with the person and support them with skills needed to be ‘job ready’. The Job Shop offer a whole range of training programmes and support, including:
- ‘50+’ workshops to providing support for older customers, including heath checks, digital awareness support.
- Gifting laptops and sim card /data dongles to support accessing employment through #covconnects
- Signposting to financial literacy support, providing key maths and numeracy skills to support with daily living.
- National Careers Services weekly drop in offering support with careers advice and guidance, tailoring CV’s, understanding new job markets etc.
- An Employment Engagement Team
- Screening prospective people and working with businesses to put the right people forward for the right role.
- Employment Coaches working on 1-1 support to those facing biggest barriers such as mental health, newly arrived, lone parents, social exclusion, mental health, difficulty sustaining employment, little or no work experience, at risk of homelessness and substance misuse.
- Specialist support for mental health – with Specialist Job Coaches working in close partnership with mental health support services to improve health and reduce barriers to employment.
- Bespoke work with people who may have or are diagnosed with a Special Educational Need (SEN).
- Working with a wide range of training provider partners; including the Council’s own Coventry Adult Education Service, Coventry College and the majority of Independent Training Providers employment.
- Delivering ‘Into Work’ (Sector Work Academy Programmes/Skills Bootcamps) programmes co designed with local employers
- Registering and signing into appointments available in 10 frequently used languages.
- The government Workwell programme
- Referrals to specialist partners for substance misuse support, mental health employment support.
A collaborative and community-focused model
In addition to supporting individual job seekers, the Job Shop actively engages with over 200 local businesses per year to ensure that the needs of employers are met. These partnerships have resulted in numerous recruitment events and employer-hosted workshops, including collaborations with large employers such as the NHS, Tesco, and Severn Trent. By fostering these connections, the Job Shop helps create a thriving local economy that benefits both job seekers and employers, contributing to inclusive economic growth.
Successes and Impact
The Job Shop to date have:
- Over 60,000 people registered
- Supported over 15,000 residents into local employment
- Had over 250,000 + visits
- Worked with over 200 businesses per year to support their recruitment
The Job Shop prioritises skill development to support improvements in health and well-being by offering the daily average of 170 job seekers who visit the opportunity to engage in training and education that strengthens their long term employment prospects. Coventry has higher resident average pay than both the West Midlands average and national average, and the lowest levels of youth unemployment in the West Midlands Combined Authority Area. There are a wide range of vacancies with strengths in the public sector and advanced manufacturing, and a growing ‘culture, tourism and leisure’ sector boosted by Coventry being a City of Culture in 2021.
Data tells us:
- Coventry has driven down the numbers of residents with no qualifications by 14,700, achieving a substantial increase in the numbers of residents qualified at NVQ2 with 43,700 more residents qualified to NVQ2 or above.
- Significant progress has been made in becoming a more highly skilled City with 37,000 more residents qualified to NVQ3 or above.
- It has also reduced the average number of visits required for a successful job outcome from 7 to 5.5.
Latest data shows Coventry has a better combined score of ‘not in employment, education or training’ (NEET) and ‘not known’ in 16–17-year-olds than regionally and nationally, and improving over time.
The new Job Shop opened March 2024
The Job Shop moved to its new home at West Orchards Shopping Centre in March 2024 in the city centre of Coventry, funded by the United Kingdom Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF) in agreement with the West Midlands Combined Authority. This new larger Job Shop can serve even more of its residents and continue to support over 200 local businesses.
Councillor George Duggins, Leader of Coventry City Council said: “I believe the success of the Job Shop is largely due to its dedicated staff. When we set out on the Jobs Strategy, the Job Shop became part of it and it’s the staff that have made it work. They are friendly, they are a team, and they regard themselves as a family which is clear to see. They have been amazing. The Job Shop has continued to serve the residents of Coventry enabling access to local employment whilst ensuring businesses are able to recruit and upskill their employees through key education and training partners”.
Councillor Dr Kindy Sandhu, Cabinet Member for Education and Skills at Coventry City Council said: “The Job Shop has had such a positive impact on Coventry residents over the years. The wide range of support available and the excellent standards of coaching and practical advice has significantly improved the lives of so many residents. Watching the Job Shop continue to grow and flourish in its central location is very exciting.”
Find out more about the Job Shop:
Facebook: @CoventryJobShop
Further reading: