Introducing the Sectors and Provider Responsiveness Team

Lee Thomas

Skills Development Manager

20th September 2007

Sector Skills Team

Jill Farrell – Director

Julie Nicholas – Built Environment, Retail, Transport & Logistics

Jeff Pullen – Engineering, Manufacturing

Alison Budgen – Young People’s Care, Hospitality Leisure & Tourism

Mary Kibble – CoVE/New Standard, E-skills, Financial Services

James Emmett – (Skillsactive/LSC) Sport and Leisure

Lee Thomas – Adult Care, Public Services

Linda Bound – Team Administrator

Drivers and Outcomes

Skills White Papers & Leitch – ‘demand-led’

Sector Skills Agreements (SSA’s) & Sector Qualification Strategies -

“We will only commission qualifications that Employers want as set out in Sector Skills

Agreements” Raising our Game.

Reduce skills gaps and shortages in priority sectors

Improve workforce productivity and local economic prosperity

Increase employer investment in skills development

LSC Priorities

•Young People – participation and achievement

•Adults – raising the level of skills

•Improving the quality and responsiveness of provision

•Contribute to economic development

(Sector work tends to cut across all of these not just adult skills)

Regional Priority Sectors

•Health and Social Care

•Engineering and Manufacturing

•Construction and the Built Environment

•Retail

•Business Services – IT

•Local area priorities, which include:

media, creative and cultural, transport & logistics, and travel, tourism & hospitality

Sectors Team – our role

• Develop relationships with Sector Skills Councils/other sector bodies and employer groups to identify the demand from employers/employees for skills development

• Drive up employer demand for workforce skills development in partnership with external stakeholders like SEEDA, JC+, Business Link, Local Authorities etc

• Work with internal colleagues to improve the quality and responsiveness of supply solutions

• Promote the dissemination of good practice

• Improve the effectiveness of the Adult Skills budget in delivering economically valuable skills

Sectors Team – our early progress

• Input sector priorities to regional commissioning plan

• National Skills Academies rollout

• A4B/CoVE transition to New Standard

• Train to Gain / additional Level 2 tendering

• Qualifications Credit Framework test and trials

• Public Sector – Joint Investment Framework

National Skills Academies

•Employer led world class centres of excellence delivering the skills required by a particular sector

•3 tendering rounds launched to date with a target of 12 academies to be approved by 2008

•4 approved are Fashion Retail, Construction,* Manufacturing and* Financial Services*

•5 Academies in development are Process Industries, Creative & Cultural,* Hospitality, Nuclear* and Food & Drink Manufacturing

•NO can provide business development funding for first 3 years, but learner volumes have to come from existing funding streams via provider allocations, so we need to be aware of targets set

(*academies being rolled out in the South East)

New Standard: Policy Linkages

•Sets a criterion for QIA provider development

•Links to National Skills Academies

•Anticipates new funding climate

•Improve capacity for Train to Gain delivery

•Match Employer Pledge with better provision

•A task and finish group has been set up in the SE to support the rollout 2007/8

Sector Skills Agreements

• SSA’s are meant to alter the way skills are developed & delivered

•Support sector priorities through aligning public funding with priority qualifications identified by SSCs within the SSA and the resulting Sector Qualification Strategies (SQS). The LSC has committed within its Annual Statement pf Priorities “Raising our Game” to only commission qualifications that employers want as set out in the SSAs.

•This will enable the LSC to better model the impact of demand on provision and balance priorities to inform regional commissioning.

•The LSC will influence and incentivise the supplier base particularly in areas of market failure and skills shortage

Typical Sector Issues

•Ageing workforce / difficulty in recruiting young people

•Employer perception of the relevance and flexibility of publicly funded provision

•Complexity of sub-sectoral industry requirements eg. 17 industries within land-based sector with different skill needs

•Lack of employer engagement in addressing skills shortages

Specialist Networks

• LSC Commissioned research – review current picture and identify how these might be strengthened and developed.

• Vehicle for increasing and improving providers’ knowledge and ability to engage with employers in order to meet regional targets and increase employer penetration

• Mechanisms to link networks and individual providers together to improve the attractiveness of specialist skills provision to employers

•Key output – blueprint for local and regional provider networks

Developing Sector Specific Plans

• Develop data reports which show by sector where there is over/under supply for use by partnership teams to commission relevant provision – WBL, FE and Train to Gain

• With SSC/colleagues identify location of key employers and volumes of new learner demand

• Provide recommendations on commissioning through National Skills Academies

• Link with emerging new policies and programmes e.g. Skills for Jobs , Adult Apprenticeships, New Standard

Questions?