West Midlands mayor Andy Street has said he doesn’t want to lead on the local skills improvement plans, despite calls from the sector for mayoral authorities to play a key role.
Speaking exclusively to Tes, Mr Street said the local skills improvement plans were a way of government encouraging businesses and colleges to work together more closely. “I actually think that is happening much more than colleges get credit for - and certainly in the West Midlands, we are doing work with lots of employers and colleges - from construction, through to digital, retrofit, and support for our health sector,” he said.
“So actually, I have no difficulty with the suggestion that businesses should lead the LSIPs, I’m not sitting here thinking I want to run the LSIPs. No, I’m quite happy for businesses to do that.
“However, we need to be careful that we respond to the needs of businesses and communities. Mayoral combined authorities have been able to bring all parties around the table - employers, unions, job centres, local authorities, colleges, providers and, of course, our communities. We have been doing that for the last three years here.”
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The skills plans are a key part of the government’s new Skills and Post-16 Education Bill, and give employers a central role working with further education colleges, other providers and local stakeholders to develop the new plans, which, in turn, will shape technical skills provision so that it meets local labour market skills needs.
Making a success of local skills improvement plans
However, the metro mayors, despite having responsibility for adult education funding in their areas, have been left out of the plans. In the House of Lords, during the committee stages of the bill, peers raised concerns over this.
Former education minister Lord Adonis said: “The one body specifically banned from producing these local skills improvement plans are the mayors. And the reason, it turns out, is because they’re not employers. Well, I mean, as a definitional thing, they’re obviously not employers, but they are the people who have the capacity to generate real activity and engagement by the employers and colleges in a really serious way.
“They should be tasked with this mission, but instead, they are totally isolated from the process on the grounds they’re not employers.”
Recognition of regional delivery
Mr Street said the combined authorities should be the “agents through which the government delivers its strategy”.
He said: “The general point that the combined authorities and the mayors have demonstrated through the adult education budget, through the work with colleges, through other budgets that we’ve had devolved, through the National Retraining Budget, for example, is that we can deliver on the ground and should be the agents through which the government delivers its strategy, I believe that passionately from here. I would have liked to see more of a recognition of that in the bill.
“I hope that the forthcoming White Paper on levelling up also recognises this. I think there is a real opportunity for mayoral combined authorities to oversee the deployment of the UK Shared Prosperity Fund, where we can make sure that this funding adds real value to other programmes and delivers the local priorities that will transform places.”
Mr Street said he believed in the “principle” of getting FE to the same status as higher education and academic education in the bill, but said that there should have been recognition of regional delivery.
“I am absolutely a believer that FE is at the heart of the economic recovery. That’s why we work so closely with Colleges West Midlands, which we think is still a unique collaboration among 20 colleges, to make sure that there are different specialties in different areas, but between them, they are addressing the opportunities that are for technical education,” he said.
“But where’s the recognition that this can be delivered regionally? I think we’ve proved it, so I wanted recognition of that.”
