Skills Strategy: Three Crucial Balances Need to Be Struck

The panel discussion I chaired on Growth, Skills and Place at the Lifelong Education Institute’s Annual Conference in April brought together a prominent Labour politician and two sector experts for a wide-ranging discussion of the government’s skills agenda. With so many policy initiatives in their early stages, this was a good moment to respond to the call made by Skills Minster Jacqui Smith in her Conference speech for practitioners to help refine and shape their implementation. This message was echoed by Lauren Edwards, MP for Rochester and Stroud and Co-Chair of the Skills, Careers & Employment APPG:

“building a system that is both nimble and robust requires continuous dialogue between policymakers, education providers, and businesses.”

Stephen Evans, Director of the Learning and Work Institute, struck a salutary tone in his reflections on the history of skills policies stretching all the way back to the 1882 Samuelson Royal Commission and the Manpower Services Commission in the 1970s, with a revolving door of initiatives and quangos over the decades trying but too often  failing to solve key challenges. New policies need to learn from past failures and successes, recognise the complexity of the task, and in particular achieve a number of balancing acts between competing needs and priorities. The need to strike three crucial balances emerged from the discussion.

Flexibility versus Consistency

One of the key objectives of the new Growth and Skills Levy is to inject much more flexibility into Levy-funded training by enabling employers to use the levy to fund a variety of non-apprenticeship options. This increased flexibility – involving modular courses, the use of microcredentials, and a much quicker process for approving innovative qualifications to meet new needs –  is urgently needed if we are to reverse the 26% decline in the level of employer investment in workplace training we’ve seen over the past twenty years. But flexibility should not mean inconsistency; the fragmented nature of our current system often means that successful innovations are either abandoned prematurely or inconsistently applied across regions, so we also need much stronger mechanisms to ensure that once an initiative proves successful locally, it can be rolled out nationally. The panellists all agreed that we need a more systematic “test and learn” approach to innovation.

Local versus National

The accelerating move towards devolution of adult skills budgets to strategic local authorities is a welcome development, because devolved authorities are best placed to coordinate training closely tailored to their local labour markets and economic development priorities. Place-based approaches can act as testing grounds for innovative policies. In response to a question from former Shadow Skills Minister Gordon Marsden, Lauren Edwards added that we mustn’t forget the unique challenges faced by coastal and rural communities, and regions not prioritised for devolution should have fair access to funding and be supported to develop specific initiatives in sectors such as tourism.

While Skills England should play an important role in setting national standards, Dr Fiona Aldridge, CEO of the Skills Federation, stressed that “coordination between national and regional strategies is essential to avoid fragmentation.” She highlighted her previous experience in the  West Midlands, which demonstrated how aligning skills investment with other areas, like transport, housing and research, had a significant impact on local outcomes. The panel also emphasised the need for more collaboration between the public and private sectors, and the need to incentivise employer investment in training through, for example, targeted wage subsidies for apprenticeships in priority areas, something which the Skills, Careers and Employment Skills APPG would be exploring in depth. All agreed with Lauren Edwards: “Consistency across regions is essential, but it shouldn’t come at the expense of local innovation.”

Youth versus Age

The panel were unanimous in heralding the Lifelong Learning Entitlement as having enormous potential, particularly against the background of the steep decline in public funding for adult education since 2010. While we need to tackle the significant problem of youth unemployment and the rise in NEETs, we also need to address in-work training for adults to raise productivity and enable career progression.  Devolved authorities could use the LLE in conjunction with the Growth & Skills Levy to fund much needed short course provision in areas like Green Energy and sustainable Construction. However, the success of the LLE depends on tackling cultural and financial barriers that may limit its uptake, particularly the well-known fact that those on low incomes are highly loan-averse. We need to build up advice, guidance and support systems for adults at local level, using outreach initiatives.

The Fourth Dimension

In addition to the three balances needed, the discussion identified many other issues to be solved, for example the importance of making policies work far better for the thousands of SMEs that make up the great majority of employers, and the interrelationship of skills policy with immigration policy and the emerging Industrial Strategy. “What works?” will be the key question to answer. And in that respect, learning from the past is undoubtedly key. However, as the panel noted, taking the time to do this will have to be weighed against the risk of being overly cautious and incremental, and failing to embrace a truly expansive and strategic vision. This, perhaps, is a fourth critical balancing act, one which the LEI, with its blend of local connectivity and national perspective, is well placed to assist with.

By Dame Ann Limb, CBE DL, Chair of the Lifelong Education Institute