Minutes:
Ms Dianna Neal, Head of Economy and Culture (London Councils) gave a presentation on the work of the London Councils and the adult skills agenda for London.
London Councils represented London’s 32 borough councils and the City of London, and worked on behalf of its member authorities to develop policies and lobby Government. A current focus was the adult skills agenda which provided a number of challenges and opportunities. There were around 240,000 ‘skills gaps’ and 30,000 skills-shortage vacancies in London which had grown over the previous few years. The Brexit Referendum had highlighted a higher reliance on EU migrant labour, particularly in the construction, hospitality, tourism and retail industries. Further challenges included decreasing employer investment in training, a large number of Londoners with no or low level skills and increasing in-work poverty which had reached just under 700,000.
Opportunities to address the adult skills agenda included the commitment from Government to devolve the Adult Education Budget (AEB) to London from 2019-20. This was worth around £400m per annum, and would allow the Mayor of London to develop the first London Skills Strategy. Despite its challenges, the Brexit Referendum was also seen as an incentive for businesses to invest in home-grown talent as it would not be as easy to use migrant workers. There would also be investment in technical education, with the new T-levels being introduced, and the progression pathways would be reconsidered.
London Councils felt that the current skills system could work better, as there was a lack of information on outcomes available to learners and commissioners, and patchy and inconsistent careers information, advice and guidance provided to young people. The vision for the future skills system would focus on outcomes beyond qualifications, such as jobs and career progression. More robust information would be provided to support commissioning and provider responsiveness, learner choice and employer engagement. There would be a more coherent and co-ordinated offer that was responsive to employer and leaner needs, and an accessible all-age careers offer across London.
Current and future work of London Councils would see them develop sub-regional skills priorities and have an early input into the London Skills Strategy. The skills strategy formal consultation would take place between 24th November and 22nd December 2017, to which members were encouraged to also respond. London Councils also planned to develop an agreed set of principles with the Mayor of London for working together on the skills system, including joint governance. They would also be lobbying for replacement EU funding and further devolution, and supporting boroughs, as employers, to spend their apprenticeship levy. It was noted that the apprenticeship levy had its benefits, but could be inflexible, and it was hoped good practice could be shared between boroughs.
The long term aims of London Councils were for an integrated and whole skills system, and adult education offer for London. This would comprise of devolved AEB and 16-18 technical and vocational funding; a devolved careers offer which would be spent better; all post 16 vocational capital funding and more control over the apprenticeship levy.
The Chairman enquired if London Councils went into schools to highlight where the current ‘skills gaps’ and skills-shortages were. Ms Neal responded that was not something that London Councils did, and would expect Local Authorities to visit the schools within their boroughs. ‘London Ambitions’ had been developed to provide good careers advice and get schools to value the vocational route. They would be clear on the skills shortages across London and would provide one source to look to for the predicted sectors. Mr Warnes said that a change to the mind-set of schools was needed. If the College visited schools they would only meet with a selected group of students, so impartiality was needed.
Members noted that a focus of London Councils was to up-skill adults, who were most likely to attend evening classes, but the offer of these seemed to be greatly reduced. Mr Warnes responded that the College did offer evening classes, mainly professional development courses at the Bromley Campus, but as part of delivering the Adult and Community Learning contract for the Royal Borough of Greenwich, they provided classes on employability skills to get people back in to work.