The Secretary of State for Education, Bridget Phillipson MP, has written to the joint CEOs of Skills England to outline the priorities for this year. She has confirmed the body is now fully established. The below are the three overarching priorities:
Understanding the nation’s future skills needs and improving our skills offer
Data-driven – providing a single ‘authoritative’ voice on current and future skills needs.
Inform the development and maintenance of the right skills training – co-creating and refining occupational standards underpinning a set of qualifications and training products with employers and other partners to ensure that employers are driving the training requirements to meet labour market and economic needs.
Simplifying access to skills
Bring together the fragmented skills system – Improve employer engagement in technical education and understanding of the pathways, ensuring a high-quality employer experience.
Mobilise and co-create
Drive action across government and co-create solutions with partners – advising government to enable responses to skills gaps (link to developing the Growth and Skills Levy offer), drive progress in the Labour Market Evidence Group, collaborate with LSIP partners, mobilise local partners and employers to help share and deliver the local training offers, deeply engage with Strategic authorities, attract significant internationally mobile investors (developing a service to help investors navigate the UK skills offer)
Response from Cogent Skills’ Technical Education and Standards Strategic Lead, Rachel Roby:
It’s encouraging to see that employers are referenced (‘high-quality employer experience’) and co-creating products with employers – this sounds positive in respect of trailblazer groups. However, there are a number of questions which we would like to see answered. Firstly, the concept of being ‘data driven’ raises the question: what happens if the data goes against overarching DfE policy (considering, for example, Level 7 apprenticeship funding). It also remains unclear how the DfE will bring together a clear view of the pathway options, as this has been attempted many times before.
Looking ahead, there is a lot of mobilisation which needs to take place – including with the devolved nations and local authorities as part of devolution deals. The priorities for this need to be determined and local partners should be engaged to understand the conversations taking place.
Finally, following the publication of this letter Skills England has published their second report – Skills England: Sector Evidence on the Growth and Skills Offer – and published Sector Skills Needs Assessments for the priority areas. We are working our way through the reports and will provide further updates.
View the full letter here
