Press release: PAG Launches Kickstart for Schools

Press release: PAG launches Kickstart for Schools

Premier Advisory Group has launched a school specific Kickstart programme. This allows schools of any type or size, from a 1FE maintained primary school to a 20+ school MAT to offer employment opportunities to young people which are fully funded by the government.

The scheme promises huge benefits to the sector as it continues to face up to the challenges of COVID-19. Feedback from PAG clients thus far has been overwhelmingly positive and it has been great to see the spirit of collaboration of all involved in making this work.

To be involved in the Kickstart Scheme, you will be able to hire for roles that:

Last for a six-month contract
Is the equivalent of a minimum wage paying job or, if not, which you would be willing to contribute the difference in salary towards
You have a good faith willingness to consider hiring for at the end of the contract
You can supplement with some careers relevant training or CPD.

In return, you will receive:

All salary, NIC and employer automatic enrolment costs funded
An additional £1,500 funding to cover training or additional costs.

With PAG as your Gateway, you will receive:

Bespoke job descriptions created by our team of education specialists
Complete security regarding administrative matters, until the point of interview and beyond
Access to PAG Partnerships for support delivering the careers relevant CPD and training.

Back in the summer, Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced the Kickstart scheme as part of the government strategy to keep people in work, boost skills and tackle youth unemployment.

Discussing the move, Tom Legge, Managing Director of Premier Advisory Group, said

We’ve been involved with Kickstart since it started as we saw it as great opportunity for us to benefit young people while helping our business – the classic win:win. Our experiences thus far have been positive and we assumed that our clients’ felt the same.

However, when we looked into things in more detail, it appears that the scheme does not have the level of visibility in the sector that it deserves. Not only that, but out of almost 160 Gateway Providers, only 1 in 10 are suggesting that they have specialism and none of these appear to focus exclusively on schools.

It only took a few phone calls to our clients to recognise that there is a significant gap that needs addressing and that’s what we intend to do on their behalf. As usual, the larger organisations with more resource are able to take advantage of opportunities such as these. Smaller trusts and schools, who could arguably benefit more from the scheme, often find it hard to spare the time to complete the work to access the help. We aim to fix that.

A note on the Kickstart Scheme

Please be aware that, after a very successful delivery of the Kickstart scheme, from 17/12/21 we are no longer taking new Kickstart applications. For information on our other services, and how we can support your organisation in other ways, please get in touch using the links below.