London Mayor Sadiq Khan is seeking employers in key sectors to join boards to “ultimately lead commissioning” of skills, work and careers programmes in the capital.
The employers would have unprecedented levels of influence over the Greater London Authority’s (GLA) £334 million adult skills fund and £27 million skills bootcamps budgets.
This autumn, three boards will be set up to put employers in construction, life sciences and creative industries “in the driver’s seat” – followed by health, social care and hospitality early next year.
The initiative goes a step further than most other mayoral combined authorities which have launched single boards of business representatives from a mix of sectors to guide devolved adult skills powers.
According to a report before the adult skills fund mayoral board last week, the boards will shape a more “employer-responsive talent offer”, reduce skills gaps, and ensure more Londoners can access work in key growth sectors.
It said: “In addition, the sector employer boards will inform and co-design responsive curriculum, shape and ultimately lead commissioning of skills, employment and the careers offer.”
Each sector will have a business-facing “hub” to deliver training, and the capital’s four “subregions” will each have a “multi-sector hub” to coordinate local talent supply and support for small and medium-size businesses.
The GLA’s move to seek direct input from employers has been cited as a potential driver of growth – but was criticised as unnecessary by a Conservative London Assembly member.
Alessandro Georgiou, the Conservative group’s skills spokesperson, said the GLA should survey the capital’s industries on what training they need and “that’s where you leave it”.
He added: “It’s all well and good inviting the big boys around the table, but they need to look at industry as a whole.”
Essential skills offer
According to the mayor’s report, his new “systemwide approach” reflects “other examples of best practice in London and internationally”.
Alongside the boards and hubs, an “inclusive talent strategy” will focus on helping underrepresented people from racial minorities, who have lower earnings and employment rates, into industries with the biggest skills gaps.
The talent strategy could include an “essential skills offer” passport, improved ESOL training, embed problem-solving and communication skills into all GLA-funded essential skills programmes, and create “stronger pathways” to higher-level training.
Lizzie Crowley, senior skills adviser at the Chartered Institute of Professional Development, said putting employers “at the heart” of the skills system would “build social partnership, identify shared skills needs and set clear industry priorities”.
She added: “If they are to take on commissioning responsibilities, they will require representation across businesses of all sizes, and close alignment with existing structures such as LSIPs and the Skills for Londoners board to prevent duplication.”
Get Britain Working
It comes as England’s mayors and local authorities publish local growth and Get Britain Working plans, designed to boost employment rates through a focus on priority sectors in line with the government’s UK-wide industrial strategy covering the next 10 years, published this summer.
These plans are expected to align with government-funded local skills improvement plans (LSIPs), which have been coordinated by employer representative bodies since 2022.
London’s growth plan, published in February, promises a new “integrated workforce plan”, to “start to change” the way London commissions adult education, and launch a new fund to reduce key skills gaps.
Stephen Evans, chief executive of Learning and Work Institute, said he hoped “the new boards will look at increasing employer investment in training, which has fallen 36 per cent in the last 20 years, as well as how to make the most of public investment.”
Echoes of the past
Some other mayoral combined authorities have begun to take similar steps to the GLA.
In February last year, Liverpool City Region Combined Authority created three “cluster boards” for priority industries to help advise on policy, economic growth and productivity.
West Yorkshire Combined Authority published six “cluster action plans” for its priority sectors earlier this month in collaboration with employers.
A single ‘employer board’ was also set up by the Greater Manchester Combined Authority in 2023 to share “sector insight” on how the local skills system could be improved, with a particular focus on seeking placements for T Level students.
Setting up sector-specific boards to shape the capital’s skills, employment and careers offer echoes of the 23 levy-funded industrial training boards set up in the 1960s.
Of them, only the Construction Industry Training Board and Engineering Construction Industry Training Board survived cuts by Margaret Thatcher’s government in the early 1980s.
More recently, New Labour set up more than 20 sector skills councils in 2002, but many shrank in size or became dormant after funding was fully withdrawn in 2016.
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