Kickstarting the Government’s Kickstart Scheme in the debt collection and wider sectors

We couldn’t let our upcoming CSA Learning & Development Conference go by without running a session on the Government’s new Kickstart Scheme, which provides funding to employers to create job placements for 16-24 year olds on Universal Credit who are at risk of long term unemployment. It is something that we believe will be of great benefit to our members in the collections and debt purchase sector and the organisations in wider sectors that we also serve as an Approved Apprenticeships Training Provider.

The Kickstart Scheme was launched back in September 2020 and, as a ‘gateway organisation’ for employers to submit applications via so that they can share the minimum 30 job placements across a cohort of businesses, the Credit Services Association (CSA) has had a raft of interest from our members and others. However, the Scheme is yet to fully get off the ground so we are hoping to use the session at the conference, for which we will be joined by Ian Higginbottom of the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) and one of his colleagues from the Department of Work & Pensions (DWP), to understand more about how we can ‘kickstart’ Kickstart in 2021.

Kickstart is not a replacement for Apprenticeships or Traineeships

The first thing to note about Kickstart is that it is not a replacement for Apprenticeships, rather it should be seen as a stepping stone on to further vocational Traineeships and Apprenticeships (which can go up to degree-level), as the beginning of a long term learning and career pathway. Kickstart should ‘kickstart’ (pardon the pun again!) a culture of lifelong learning & development.

One of the most appealing things about our entry-level Apprenticeships in Credit Control and Compliance Risk is that they open up a successful career in financial services to those that were previously unable to access the sector. Kickstart will do even more to create social mobility, accessibility, inclusivity, and diversity that we so desperately need in sectors like debt collection to build a workforce that understands and can empathise with customers.

Kickstart is for the long term

Kickstart job placements must start before the end of December 2021 so we are naturally keen to get things moving as quickly as possible and hope to have more information from the DWP as soon as possible on what the next steps are. However, it doesn’t end there. The funding may only cover 25 hours per week of a trainee’s pay for six months plus associated National Insurance contributions, but it is designed to create long-term employment beyond the fall-out of the pandemic. The Government has said that further funding is available for training and support so that young people on the scheme can get a job in the future but even without this, it would be foolish of employers to let go of fresh talent that has received nationally-recognised training which lays the foundations of filling the skills gaps currently faced by many industries. That’s why ensuring that Traineeships and Apprenticeships are integrated as next steps is so important for the longer term success of the Scheme, the trainees, and employers.

With mass unemployment and predicted long term turbulence in sectors like hospitality, we must harness the transferable skills of those left jobless in others areas where skills gaps remain and future talent must be nurtured, especially in a post-Brexit era.

Financial education should be a key part of Kickstart

A key opportunity to come out of the new Scheme that we quickly identified as a training provider and trade association in the debt collection sector which works with those in financial difficulty day-in-day-out and employs those in financial services roles, is that Kickstart provides an opportunity to fill the financial capability gulf we currently have in the UK. If we can build financial education, from basic money management to a more complex understand of credit, into the life skills element of the training, it will be of huge benefit not just to learners but to employers and wider society.

I look forward to gaining more clarity on how we can move Kickstart forward and providing employers that have submitted applications via us with more detail on what happens next at the conference.

L&D Conference 2021

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