The LGA has published a new report setting out its practical vision for an integrated and devolved employment and skills service.
The Government is right to put skills, retraining and job creation front and centre of its levelling up agenda, recognising that talent is everywhere, but opportunity is not.
Investment and interventions to achieve this must connect up at a local level, and for all places, if they are to support people of all ages – learners, unemployed people, career changers, as well as businesses and other employers of all sizes – to progress.
A joined-up and locally responsive employment and skills offer is critical to this.
This is not happening for all areas; we believe it should. That’s why the LGA is delighted to present ‘Work Local: unlocking talent to level up’, which builds on the Government’s levelling up White Paper.
In it, we make clear recommendations to Whitehall on ways it can improve its approach to employment and skills for all places right now, and what is needed for a coherent framework for employment and skills devolution.
We set out new research that, beneath headline national figures, every area has a unique labour market – based on employment growth, qualification levels, unemployment, inactivity, vacancy rates. So, despite best intentions, a one-size or even a five-sizes fits all national approach to employment and skills provision will fall short of our shared aims to ensure greater equality of opportunity.
We discuss the complicated system by which government invests around £20 billion on 49 national employment and skills-related schemes or services across England, managed by multiple Whitehall departments and agencies, and delivered over different boundaries by various providers.
While well-intended, they are disconnected from one another and too short-term. No single organisation coordinates the system nationally or locally, making it hard to join up and target provision. Local government can help make this investment greater than the sum of its parts.
We provide evidence of local government’s leadership, knowledge and innovation in bringing together partners and national schemes to improve outcomes for residents, businesses and other employers.
This was vital through the pandemic, but equally important now as we move to recovery and beyond. With the right powers and resources, we can do more.
Our analysis shows that a Work Local approach, enabling local government to coordinate partners and bring together employment and skills provision across a place, could each year result in a 15 per cent increase in the number of people improving their skills or finding work. This would deliver benefits to residents, businesses, and the health and wellbeing of local communities, while reducing costs to the public purse.
We also set out what areas interested in a devolution deal could be asking from government on employment and skills, and how to deepen government’s devolution framework.
To make all this happen, we urge the Government to work in partnership with us to:
- get the basics right everywhere, so all places can join up the offer more effectively
- empower local leaders and agree a framework for employment and skills devolution
- implement Work Local and roll out more place partnerships sooner than 2030.
Our prospectus for change sets out how this can be done. We have a huge opportunity to get this right in the coming months and look forward to working with government and stakeholders to make it happen.