Challenges

• The Leitch Report sets the context for skills development and a productivity challenge for the UK as a whole.  But it is not clear how this macro economic agenda works at the micro regional company level. For example, employers facing skills shortages from within a region will generally recruit from outside the region (or even import the necessary skills from abroad).

• This micro versus macro issue is compounded when we look at upskilling an existing workforce. At the company level, the workforce needs to be ‘fit for purpose’, and this might include a range of unaccredited training workshops to upskill people, rather than embarking on a formal qualification. This training activity goes largely unreported and unmeasured in local, regional and national government analyses because it doesn’t fit the narrower definition of skills development (leading to a formal qualification). Moreover any formal qualification based training undertaken, but not funded by government also goes unrecorded.

• Sector Skills Councils tend to focus on the 14 – 19 agenda yet the UK Commission for Employment & Skills (UKCES) suggests that 75% of our 2020 workforce is already in work. The majority of these people in work are over 19.

• Skills agencies and public sector organisations involved in collecting data on skills all focus on "funded learning". Short courses and unfunded courses all go unreported so it is difficult to build up a picture of industry skills activity by looking at government agency statistics.

Solutions

• AWI's "Skills Economy" offers a complete solution to the supply and demand conundrum in industry training. The supply and demand for training has long been a conundrum, especially for the further education sector. Colleges and universities have the infrastructure and expertise to provide a fantastic service for businesses but often find it difficult to get their message out to industry. Equally, companies across the country are keen to train staff if only they can find the right course, at the right price in the right location. Trawling through college websites takes time and its often difficult to find what you’re looking for.

• The AWI Skills Economy Service provides a strategic framework for understanding and delivering regional and sectoral workforce development.

It can be broken down into three distinct areas:

1. Industry skills mapping

2. Supply & Demand exchange

3. Employer engagement

Mapping

• Using our Seven Point Skills Framework, we build up a picture of industry characteristics and map training provision across the area.  This work embraces all aspects of industry training, not just funded training – so we are able to provide a complete picture of industry skills activity.

• Using our customised analytics tools clients can login any time they wish to see, at a glance our Industry Skills Dashboard:

  • which sectors are the most popular;

  • what training is offered in different geographical areas;

  • comparative analysis of sectors and regions in simple graphs;

  • analysis of training requests from employers in your area;

• Working closely with Business Link; LSC; RDA; local authorities and new funding agencies (e.g. SFA; BIS) we explore workforce skills baselines, and identify training gaps.

Exchange

• All information is secured in a database on a live ‘exchange’ website.

• This establishes a regional (or sub-regional) market place for industry skills.

• We identify all possible training delivery angles including higher, further & adult education and private training providers.

• And we continue to ‘keep it simple’ so that employees from all sectors find the site easy to navigate.

Employer Engagement

• Fostering sector based partnerships and trade association links to bring employers into the skills arena.

• Working through existing employer forums, or setting up new ones, we will encourage companies to make training "requests" – to test the system and achieve the workforce development needs for their business.

• Trainagain Requests results in greater employer control over training.

Key benefits for a Strategic Skills Partnership:

• Knowledge of baselines (gaps & shortages)

• Understanding of industry skills activity distinct from pre-work training activity

• Enhanced industry skills analysis (see below).

• All of this analysis will be current, available to you on line, and will be automatically renewed whenever you login – so the analysis is never out of date (no more expensive limited shelf life reports !)