Dear readers — it’s a new day, a new week, and we have a(nother) new Prime Minister. In his first address to the country today, a lectern-less Burnham said the government had “not been good enough” and talked a big game on devolution, promising more power for “every postcode in the land, so they can do more”.
One big thing that hasn’t been good enough: employment for young people. In today’s briefing we’ll be digging into the issue in Sheffield, specifically the lack of apprenticeship vacancies. What does this mean for the thousands of young people out of employment and training?
Making good on our promises
It’s been about a month since we smashed our target of adding 1,000 new subscribers, so we thought we’d give you an update on the work we’ve been doing to fulfil our five pledges to Sheffield.
We got off to a flying start when it came to our third pledge — publishing a monthly edition full of only good news — and you absolutely loved the first one last month. “It is refreshing, in today's 24 hour media frenzy, to hear some interesting and moving articles about positive stories in our area,” wrote subscriber David Thomas. “Well done, The Tribune!” Good news fans will be pleased to hear that our second good news edition is landing in your inboxes this week.
Our call for pitches from new writers — part of our second pledge to nurture local talent — received a phenomenal response, with 32 ideas submitted. We’ve now selected the winning idea and will be reaching out to them this week, also offering everyone who was unsuccessful some (hopefully) useful feedback for their next Tribune pitch..
When it comes to pledge four, exploring Sheffield’s inequalities, we’ve chosen our first topic and Dan is already working with researchers to bring that to fruition. Watch this space!
For our fifth pledge to engage citizens with local democracy, we’ll be publishing our inaugural round-up of key political decisions later this month. This edition is a bit different from what we usually publish, so we’d love to hear your feedback on how we can tweak the format in future.
And for our first and most popular pledge, tackling disinformation among young people, Mollie has received a wealth of interest from local schools, who are eager for us to come in and give talks on how to spot misleading content online. We’ll get started on that as soon as the next academic year begins in September.
In case you missed it
On Saturday, Mollie reported on the city’s influencer scene, a cohort we’re told is growing at an astonishing clip lately (Opinions will differ on whether that’s a good thing.). Compared to the aspirational ‘clean girls’ Mollie is used to from her stint in Manchester, Sheffield’s influencers are approaching the work in a uniquely South Yorkshire way. Have a read here.
On Tuesday, Dan looked into the closure of King Edward’s Swimming Pool. The pool had been run by a charitable trust for 33 years, but shut last month, citing “technical difficulties”. However, our investigation found that wasn’t true and staff had in fact walked out en masse after a chlorine alarm went off and the pool was evacuated.
And on Thursday, Victoria sat down with Jon McClure from Reverend and the Makers, to talk about life, music, and why he's ready to take more of a role in Sheffield's civic life after 10 years out of the spotlight.
To read those pieces, and get access to the vast cache of quality journalism we have built up over the past five years, hit the button below. We’re only 20 members away from 3,850, when at the start of this year we'd only just surpassed 3,000. We’re making incredible progress — be a part of it!
The big picture: Van life 🚐
Anyone who visited Leah’s Yard on Saturday will have seen the gorgeous orange VW camper van in the courtyard. The van, along with a stunning white Ford Capri parked outside (complete with furry dice hanging from the rear view mirror), were part of a new exhibition of summer holiday themed prints and other merchandise by Sheffield artist Pete McKee, who has a gallery at the former little mesters’ workshop on Cambridge Street.
The big story: Why are there so few apprentices in Sheffield?
Top line: More than 50% of people would prefer to train via an apprenticeship than go to university, according to YouGov. So why are they so hard to come by, even in a former industrial city like Sheffield?
Why apprenticeships? Going to university is no longer the solid investment it once was. “In today’s uncertain economy, degrees are losing their glitter,” reports the Financial Times, in a long-read examining why Britain can’t create more apprenticeships. High interest rates and frozen repayment thresholds on student loans mean borrowers can end up repaying far more than they originally borrowed, while the average “graduate premium” — the amount a degree adds to your earnings — is falling.
But good luck finding one… A recent study by King’s College London found that for every 17- or 18-year-old who landed an apprenticeship, three had tried and failed. Mike Jones, who runs the free apprenticeship search service sheffieldapprenticeships.com, left a comment under the FT article saying that on a local scale, the number of apprenticeship vacancies “has fallen steadily from around 250 a day just before the pandemic”.
The numbers: According to Mike’s search service – which he set up after his son expressed an interest in an apprenticeship, but found there was no one at school to tell him about where to find one – as of today, there are just 66 apprenticeship vacancies in Sheffield. However, Mike concedes that his search service’s algorithm doesn’t pick up every vacant apprenticeship in the city – only those advertised via the government’s online portal – saying he suspects larger employers have their own means of getting word out about hiring apprentices.
What’s gone wrong? The FT long-read blames the government for “too much regulation and too much penny-pinching” but also highlights how many employers, particularly small businesses, find delivering apprenticeships unaffordable.
What’s happening in Sheffield? The pandemic has had a devastating effect on employers and Mike says he’s talked to local businesses who feel they simply don’t have the spare cash to deliver them. He’s also observed a lack of awareness among our young people about exactly how to enter vocational education:
“There’s been a big push over the last 20 years to raise academic standards and arguably that’s worked, more kids get GCSEs in Maths and English now, that’s definitely true. But there’s a group of kids that struggle with those subjects or perhaps want a more vocational education, and I don’t think that’s been given enough emphasis.”
Burnham boost? In a speech delivered on 26 June, Andy Burnham promised to support British-based companies via “a much greater supply of 45-day work placements and apprenticeships for young people”. He added it was time for a “complete rethink” of how young people are supported into work. “The days of a school system configured entirely around the university route will be brought to an end,” he said.
What’s his track record? In this speech, Burnham claimed that over the past year, the Greater Manchester Combined Authority called round local businesses and secured “1,000 extra work placements”. However, analysis by FE Week suggests it’s more accurate to say that businesses in Greater Manchester have “pledged” 1,000 work placements – it’s unclear how many have been delivered as a result of the GMCA’s efforts.
Bottom line: In the UK, an estimated 3.1% to 4.9% of young people aged 16 and 17 are what’s known as Neets: not in education, employment, or training. In Sheffield, that percentage is 7.7%. Over 5% of people in Rotherham, Barnsley and Doncaster are classed as Neets. If we want to get serious about tackling our youth unemployment issue, apprenticeships would be a good place to start.
Your Tribune briefing 🗞️
⚖️ A Sheffield journalist has been given a suspended prison sentence after pleading guilty to child sex offences. On Friday, the Star reported that the paper’s former food critic, Martin Dawes, 80, of Kenbourne Road, Nether Edge, was sentenced to six months in prison — suspended for 18 months — after pleading guilty to attempting to engage in sexual communication with a child and four counts of making indecent images of children. Dawes was first arrested in 2022 after indecent images were found on his electronic devices, and then again in 2024 after he engaged online in sexual communications with someone he believed to be a 13-year-old girl, who was in fact an undercover police officer. Judge Jeremy Richardson said he had brought “immense shame” upon himself, his wife and his wider family.
Editor’s note: Martin Dawes has appeared as an interviewee and an on-record source in The Tribune; the team has been horrified to learn of his crimes and our thoughts are with his victims. We were unaware of his offending at the time. When we received news of Dawes’ conviction on Friday, we considered adding a statement to these older pieces and, while reviewing them, accidentally resent one to readers. Apologies to those confused by receiving an old piece in their inbox.
🚅 South Yorkshire Mayor Oliver Coppard has demanded a meeting with the managing director of East Midlands Trains after the firm announced the frequency of services between Sheffield and London would be halved over the summer. The firm described the move as a “temporary measure” due to a recent fatal crash that took place in Bedford, but Coppard says they believe it is also a result of the rollout of new Aurora trains, which themselves were three years late. He added the decision is likely to cause a “summer of chaos on the railways” (ed note: what’s new?), and also slammed the firm for making the announcement just days before the reduced timetable was due to come in. “No matter the cause, there is never a good reason to treat passengers with so much contempt as to communicate that information so late and so poorly,” the mayor blasted. “To say this isn’t acceptable couldn’t be more of an understatement.” Big talk, but will any action follow?
🏭 We’ve heard a lot in recent weeks about Manchesterism, but what about Rotherhamism? Our incoming Prime Minister has made much of his desire to reindustrialise Britain. A piece in the FT (a double mention today!) suggests there’s a model for what this could look like in our neck of the woods, at the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) on the Sheffield- Rotherham border. For those who don’t know, the AMRC is a research and development facility set up by the University of Sheffield 25 years ago which has since gone on to partner with a series of major manufacturers including Boeing, BAE and McLaren. A helpful graph included in the FT piece shows the startling impact of the centre: after it opens, economic productivity in the area around it shoots up, whereas the rest of Rotherham remains static. While we’re not going to see a return to mass employment — these sorts of factories need far fewer staff than steel and coal — the benefits are clear.
🏡 The parliamentary housing select committee has written to the housing minister about what they say could be an “emerging national pattern” of homeowners facing unreasonable financial demands for retrospective consent for works and demands for large sums of money. Referring to cases including the Sheffield homeowners who were contacted by London solicitor Andrew Milne, who used restrictive covenants to demand tens of thousands of pounds, the committee have asked the government to respond to a series of questions about action to strengthen homeowner protections.
The weekly Whitworth ✍️
James Whitworth with his take on the 35th anniversary of the World Student Games. To some the games were a colossal failure that continued to hoover up millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money for decades afterwards. Others, however, believe they were “the beginning of Sheffield turning a corner and reinventing itself”. Dan’s piece about the games from 2023 is below.
Dan Hayes
Home of the week 🏡
This stunning three bedroom Victorian semi in Nether Edge is full of period features and has a fully enclosed, country-style cottage garden to the rear. It is on the market for £495,000.
Things to do 📅
Gaming 🎮 On now at the National Videogames Museum is Together We Play!, a new exhibition celebrating the fans videogames create. Discover the stories behind the games, celebrate videogame communities, and explore extraordinary personal collections, newly commissioned artwork inspired by real gaming memories, and interactive experiences that transport you to the 80s and 90s. Tickets are £11-£14 and the show runs until 1 September.
Sport 🚴 Grand Prix Cycling returns for the 12th year in a row to Sheffield city centre on Wednesday, bringing UK’s top teams and riders to race around a reworked 1.4km circuit. As well as seeing the competitors race, the circuit will also open to the public before racing starts to give everyone the chance to cycle round, traffic free. To ride, participants should register their details at the British Cycling gazebo, outside the Town Hall, on race day from 4pm.
Art 🖼️ Starting on Thursday at Hop Hideout is Joy, a new exhibition by Sheffield-based artist Emma Redfearn. Showcasing past pieces and new unseen works, this exhibition celebrates Redfearn’s colourful joyful character-driven work ranging across prints, posters, physical pieces and animation. The exhibition is completely free to view and — best of all — you can also enjoy one of Hop Hideout’s lovely drinks as you enjoy the art. The show runs until 30 September.
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