Chapter 8: Looking forward
The West Midlands has enormous economic potential, and the success of the region is critical to the success of the UK more widely. Prior to the pandemic, the region’s economy was experiencing unprecedented growth exceeding the rest of the UK, with rising productivity, jobs and employment. Large infrastructure projects such as HS2 and extension of our tram lines were poised to support that growth, however the pandemic stalled our progress.
As our economy re-opens and recovers, we are now working to ensure a return to growth is one that is truly inclusive and is shaped by
our aspirations to deliver on the Government’s levelling up vision across the region. We are confident that we have the people, infrastructure and businesses needed for recovery, and our focus is now on ensuring that we optimise them to make our region a better and more prosperous place to live.
Devolution is key to achieving this – and has already begun to deliver for our residents. To date, we have secured nearly £0.5bn worth of adult skills investment for the West Midlands, using this to better shape employment and skills programmes that meet the specific and unique challenges of the region.
Hundreds of colleges and providers delivering £126m of adult education budget to West Midlands residents.
15% of delivery from out of area providers sub contracting in region.
Limited collaboration between colleges an d providers. patchy links between JCP, employers and colleges/providers.
- Providers base predominantly local specialist providers, adding value in key areas
- Strong regional collaboration linked to needs of local areas and sectors, including through shared curriculum offer
- Co-location of support and services to unemployed dung people
Superficial links between economic and provision.
Provision determined by national regulation with a focus on spending the annual allocation:
two thirds of provision low level and generic with little success of getting people into jobs
General ESOL provision
Limited offer to low skilled, low paid adults with little progression from level 2
Less than 1% of provision focused on level 3, despite regional skills needs
Limited provision of digital skills to meet labour market needs
- Regional system leadership , with skills and training strategically aligned to regional economic needs - focus on more people into jobs, more high level skills, more responsive to employer needs
- 20% increase in provision supporting residents into jobs through training
- Increased vocational ESOL provision
- Level 2 provision maintained , with greater sectors mixed and direct route into jobs
- Seven fold increase in Level 3 provision
- 33% increase in provision aligned to regional priority sectors construction, manufacturing, digital and business and professional services.
- New providers brought in to deliver economically critical digital skills
- Strong job and progression in work outcomes form bootcamp provision
Lack of innovation across regional FE system resulting in limited new provision to meet local sectoral needs.
- New eligibility criteria with more support for people in low-paid , low skilled work
- New approach to funding rates
- New provision linked to current and emerging labour market demand
- Responsive provision to labour market needs
- Dedicated provision to engage under represented groups
- Cross college provision targeted training for unemployed links to roles in SMEs
Skills devolution has already strengthened partnership working in the region, opened up new opportunities and enabled us to test innovative solutions to long-standing problems. Now, more than ever, we need an agile and responsive skills system that equips residents with the skills to find, and progress at, work, and supports employers to secure long-term economic success.
We believe that further skills devolution will enable us to deliver even better outcomes for West Midlands residents, and have proposed that this should involve:
- the creation of a Single Skills Funding Pot to enable a joined-up skills training offer. that can boost productivity, underpin economic growth and support Levelling Up.
- greater responsibility for technical and vocational training in the region, to create a clear and integrated offer for employers and learners that will drive up higher-level skills.
- devolution of careers to ensure we target and support those young people and adults who are most vulnerable to labour market change.
We recognise greater devolution should come with greater accountability – with the agreement of clear and transparent deliverables that the West Midlands Mayor and Mayoral Combined Authority would be held publicly and politically to account for. These would reflect a shared ambition for both government and the West Midlands, an approach aligned around people and place; and clear accountability coupled with broad autonomy in delivery.
Partnership and collaboration
A successful skills system for the West Midlands also requires collaboration between a wide range of partners within the region – to understand the current and future skills needs of employers, to shape provision to meet these needs, and to support all residents to access and make the most of new opportunities.
How we work together will have direct impact on our success. To this end, we are keen that Advisory Board activities continue to be delivered across four areas of insight, development, recovery and delivery. For providers, employers and prospective employers this will mean finding ways to ensure that service and organisation level intelligence is continuously shaping our thinking and this in turn is relayed to Government to shape national priorities.
We will also ensure policy and programme development is responsive and inclusive to the needs of partners in the region. Our Skills Advisory Board meetings provide the space for this to happen at strategic level and we recently contributed to a governance review of West Midlands structures to ensure other structures allows this to happen.
Our recovery work will continue to be shaped by the Board, partners and the robust intelligence that we commission from our research institutions. And for delivery, our focus will be to continue to flex our provision to meet the needs of employers, for example through our investment in leadership and management provision. We will also work with FE, HE and training providers to ensure delivery is cohesive and meets current and future skills needs.