Memorandum 54
Submission from Yorkshire Forward
The core strategy and policy for Yorkshire and
Humber is set out by the Regional Skills Partnership (RSP) in
its planning document—Delivering a Skilled and Employed
Region. This plan aims to create a demand led approach to
skills and employment in the region, in line with the Regional
Economic Strategy (RES) and the Government's response to the Leitch
Review. Yorkshire Forward is a key partner in delivery against
each of the plan's priorities but also supports the Partnership
with high quality economic and labour market intelligence and
strategy development support.
Delivering a Skilled and Employed Region sets
out the roles and responsibilities of the RSP as a whole and its
partner organisations. These include:
— Leading on the development of quality
and meaningful labour market intelligence for the region based
on sectors and geographies, and making this information available
to those that require it;
— Sharing excellence and assisting
the region to implement innovative approaches to improving skills;
— Influencing the use of resources
and lobbying for additional resources where this may be required;
— Making Government aware of any barriers
that prevent improvement of the region's performance with regard
to skills and qualifications; and
— Supporting and encouraging sub regional
and local employment and skills bodies to work to deliver the
regional infrastructure.
The RSP, strongly supported by Yorkshire Forward,
sees a clear role in delivering the Leitch ambitions and targets
in the Yorkshire and Humber region. However, the scale of the
challenge is significant, and on many measures, exceeds many of
our RES targets. Our challenge in terms of achieving Leitch targets
is significant, this includes a need to:
— Secure literacy and numeracy qualifications
for some 750,000 additional people;
— Get an additional 986,000 individuals
qualified to level 2 or higher of which there will need to be
an additional 583,000 qualified to level 4. This rises even higher
as people retire from the labour market; and
— At level 3, we are likely to need
an additional 190,000 people qualified to this level to meet Leitch
and we need to find some additional 50,000 apprenticeships.
To achieve these targets the policy and plan
for the RSP is to move towards a demand led system for skills
and employment. The RSP has identified the following steps,crucial
to achieving this:
— Creation of an environment in which
a demand led model can flourish;
— Demand for skills from the current
employer base, ensuring suppliers can respond to this demand;
— Consideration of the future demand
for skills and ensure partners work together to develop strategies
to meet their demand; and
— Ensuring the region has the infrastructure
to develop high quality opportunities that will meet the demand
for skills in the regional economy.
The sectoral priorities for the RSP mirror those
that are detailed in the current Yorkshire and Humber RES[138]
and include those sectors where we expect to see highest economic
return and highest levels of productivity improvement. However,
in terms of employment, the RSP has identified further sectoral
groupings which we know will generate and absorb additional labour
in high volumes over the next 10 years, these include: Health,
ICT and telecommunications, retail, construction and the built
environment, public services and leisure and hospitality.
To deliver the challenging Leitch agenda, three
priorities have been identified which form the heart of regional
skills and employment policies and the shared priorities of the
RSP partners: These are:
— Employability—to enhance the
employability of individuals by giving them the skills to take
up employment opportunities including improving skills for life
and job readiness.
— Deliver RES and PSA target associated
with employability
— Work with sector based labour market
information and prioritise support for identified sectoral areas.
— Developing enterprising people
— Develop an integrated approach to
employment and skills
— Higher level skills—to promote,
develop and deliver the up-skilling of those in employment through
higher level skills training and development in line with labour
market needs and future economic opportunities.
— Work with Work and Skills boards
locally to stimulate the demand for skills
— Engage with the supply side to deliver
high quality provision in response to demand
— Utilise the national skills campaign
to improve the marketing of skills in the region.
— Business support—to refine
and develop the offer to employers, providing integrated business
support in response to customer needs designed to deliver the
skills which will enhance productivity and growth.
— Scope and articulate the regional
workforce and skills offer to business, enhancing this to reflect
business demand more fully.
— Lead the development of a single
regional gateway for business support by bringing together information,
diagnosis and brokerage services delivered through Business Link
with the Train Brokerage service.
CASE STUDIES:
YORKSHIRE FORWARD
EXAMPLES OF
IMPLEMENTING THE
PLAN
Promoting the Skills Pledge in Leeds
As an example of implementing the RSP plan and
stimulating the demand from employers for skills, Yorkshire Forward
has support Leeds Chamber of Commerce and the Leeds Skills Board
to promote to employers the benefits of signing the skills pledge.
A marketing campaign has been commenced, which is starting to
promote not only the pledge, but also apprenticeships and engagement
of employers in new diplomas.
Learning at Work Days
Yorkshire Forward has supported the TUC and
the Campaign for Learning in Yorkshire through funding trade unions
and their learning representatives to put on "learning at
work" days. In May 2007, for no more than £300 per workplace,
75 workplaces across the region put on events. These attracted
7068 people to participate in learning with 1,185 going on to
enrole on courses. In 2008-09 just under over 150 workplaces will
stage similar learning events.
April 2008
138 Advanced manufacturing and metals, food and drink,
digital and new media, healthcare technologies, financial and
business services and environmental technologies. Back
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