In the autumn, Collab Group held a roundtable discussion with our partners, the Global Community College Leadership Network. Nearly 20 colleges from the United States, Canada and the UK were represented. The topic was skilling the workforce, and our intention was to facilitate an open exchange of views and experiences. What was striking was how consistent some of the themes were across different contexts.

Responding to labour markets

All participants pointed out the tight nature of labour markets in their respective jurisdictions and the impact this had on their provision.

In Canada there are more than 1 million vacancies, with a population of 38 million. By comparison, the UK also has more than  1 million vacancies, but with a much larger population of 67 million. Similarly in New Mexico, there is a low participation rate as well as low unemployment. The result is that employers are struggling to recruit and end up poaching staff from each other.

But this is also where colleges can provide a solution with work-based learning, through apprenticeships. Not only can learners continue (or return to) education, but they can also continue being a part of the labour force and meeting skills needs. Indeed, engaging in education at the same time means their potential earnings are likely to rise over the long term too. This is a win-win-win situation as there are benefits for employers, employees/students as well as the wider economy through improvements in skills and therefore productivity.

And this is exactly what our participants said they were doing, with our Canadian and American attendees targeting a 100 per cent participation rate in such programmes for their students.

Engaging with employers

Second, our participants shared the myriad ways in which they engaged with their employers.

South Yorkshire, where The Sheffield College operates, has a large SME population, which are a tougher nut to crack for apprenticeships. The college has taken what it calls a “sectoral approach”, whereby businesses from the same sector will come into the college to speak about their skills needs, and the college may be able to offer more bespoke provision.

New Mexico provides an interesting contrast, as the employer landscape there is predominantly public sector – schools, hospitals, national research laboratories and government agencies. This means Central New Mexico Community College’s attention is more attuned to government-funded schemes, such as a federal government initiative to subsidise the wages of students who undertake internships in certain sectors.

This comes with its own challenges, as government funding streams are rarely permanent. But the common thread is the importance of sustaining links with employers who become advocates for effective educational schemes.

Innovative provision

Third, participants spoke about the more innovative aspects of their activities. Innovation could involve tweaking existing provision to better fit employer needs or engaging in new kinds of activity altogether.

In Southern Alberta, for instance, a recent review of apprenticeships concluded with recommendations for the formal recognition of apprenticeships, updating standards and laws to keep pace with economic change, and achieving parity of esteem with academic routes. These will no doubt sound familiar on this side of the pond.

Derby College is currently developing a programme with a locally-based global engineering company in which the college teaches students on the business’s own premises – an excellent opportunity for staff as well as students. Teachers will be immersed in cutting-edge facilities and equipment and students will become high-skilled, job-ready candidates upon graduation. The company benefits too, thereby potentially driving broader employer engagement with the college.

Some pertinent questions were left open at the end of our discussion, which all colleges were interested in finding answers to. Among these, how do we navigate a situation whereby employers ask colleges for help but are unable to articulate their own skills needs? And how do we help employers engage with and attract our students, especially in sectors not traditionally seen as appealing?

Thankfully, this roundtable was the first in a series. We are sure to return to these issues and more, and look forward to sharing the insights gained.

Last summer, I wrote for FE Week about factors that bodies developing local skills improvement plans (LSIPs) should consider if they want to make them a success. In the months since, the government has published its statutory guidance for the development of LSIPs. Stakeholders that include mayoral combined authorities, local enterprise partnerships and local authorities will come together to set out the key priorities and changes needed to make post-16 technical education or training more responsive and closely aligned to local labour market needs. 

Given that the number of unfilled jobs rose to 1.3 million in March last year (the highest ever recorded), LSIPs evidently couldn’t come soon enough. However, the solution is not as simple as a lack of responsiveness in our education system. 

Although vacancies are high, there are also an estimated 6.2 million workers (19.8 per cent of the UK labour market) experiencing severely insecure work (defined as involuntarily part-time and/or temporary employment). 

One possible explanation for this mismatch between supply and demand is that an estimated 9 million adults in England (of whom 5 million are in work) have low basic skills. 

Basic skills are generally defined as a proficient level of literacy to comprehend, interpret and evaluate complex texts and a proficient level of numeracy to solve mathematical problems in a real context. In qualification terms, they are the equivalent to a level 2 (eg GCSE). Digital skills are also increasingly included within definitions. 

While some of the 1.3 million vacancies are in technical professions such as nursing and software development, many others are in lower and intermediately skilled jobs such as care workers, sales and retail assistants, cleaning and domestic staff, and trades such as metal working, carpentry and joinery. 

Instead of amending post-16 provision – much of which is directly aligned to employer standards (such as T Levels, HTQs and apprenticeships) or informed by employer panels (such as many BTECs and City and Guilds qualifications) – supporting the 9 million individuals who currently lack basic skills would arguably be a more effective way of tackling labour market shortages. Level 2 English and maths qualifications would enable these individuals to fill many of England’s vacancies directly or to continue in education to fill higher-skill roles. 

At London South Bank University, for example, the NHS trusts we work with will sometimes propose health care support workers for our apprenticeship programmes, but they often lack the required level 2 English and maths qualifications for entry. The LSBU Group structure, which includes Lambeth College, enables us to run pre-enrolment programmes to help candidates overcome this. Over the next few years, the college will develop a “hub and spoke” model to increase the accessibility of its adult education programmes by delivering it in community buildings in the evenings. 

Unfortunately, the government does not appear to have made this connection. A month before publishing the LSIP guidance, the Department for Education concluded its consultation on Implementing a new FE funding and accountability system, which proposed removing the ringfence for community learning within the adult education budget. This will hugely undermine the ability of colleges and local authorities to help adults (particularly those who are most disadvantaged) to make the first step back into education. 

In the autumn statement, the chancellor committed another £2.3 billion to the core schools’ budget while providing no extra funding for colleges or adult education; and just this week the prime minister announced an ambition for all young people to study maths up to age 18. Neither will help to upskill the 5 million adults already in the workforce, but insufficiently skilled to meet the demand for staff. 

Sadly, this is setting up yet another well-intentioned policy initiative for failure. If the government truly wants LSIPs to support skills provision and local economic growth, it needs to invest in adult education. 

Rarely does a week go by without a headline about the NHS being in crisis. This points to some fundamental, systemic issues – not least chronic staffing shortages across the healthcare sector as a whole.

We need to rethink the way we’re recruiting and training the future NHS workforce. We must take stock of how effectively local government and health and education providers are working together to ensure regional skills provision aligns with the changing needs of regional health and social care landscapes.

This means giving both FE and HE much greater involvement in developing workforce strategy. Currently, there is no formal role carved out for education providers within the Integrated Care System (ICS) – the framework established in 2022 that sees local organisations come together in each of England’s 42 regions, to deliver ‘joined-up’ health and care services. This is a missed opportunity that should urgently be reviewed.

In Bolton, we recognised that a closer partnership between the NHS, the university and the college could significantly improve strategic workforce planning.

Bolton NHS Foundation Trust identified the need to improve on-site technical training to meet the needs of future care delivery. And so, for the past four years, the trust, college, University of Bolton, and Bolton council have been working together on developing a new technical skills-training facility located at the hospital.

Bolton College of Medical Sciences (BCMS), a £40 million project funded by the university and the levelling up fund, is currently being built and will open in 2024, training approximately 3,000 learners annually.

The trust has granted us the space, and together with the university, Bolton College has been entrusted to lead on curriculum development and delivery. This has seen us take a new approach in mapping the strategic and operational workforce development requirements with the trust, and in creating a bespoke curriculum response.

We are working across all of the trust’s operational functions, identifying new training and apprenticeship opportunities in everything from nursing and midwifery to leadership and management, digital and IT provision.

This has enabled us to design new pathways that create greater opportunities in healthcare. The Bolton College and university partnership will offer introductions to FE and HE courses, as well as T levels in health, apprenticeships and traditional provision at levels 3 through 7, new HTQs and other commercial CPD provision.

Crucially, it will optimise access and progression in an attempt to increase the ‘grow-your-own’ culture for the Greater Manchester Integrated Care Partnership (ICP).I In turn, this will optimise local employment and career opportunities and improve standards in local healthcare provision.

BCMS is part of the University of Bolton Group’s vertically integrated model, which includes a STEM Academy, Bolton College, Alliance Learning (a private training provider) and the university itself.

This means that, in essence, a local learner could start with a STEM-focused curriculum at age 11 and progress through a technical route into an apprenticeship or traditional degree, with work placements or employment at the hospital or elsewhere within the ICP.

By being located on site, the learning provision at BCMS will be part of the trust’s operational environment, and college and university teaching staff will be augmented by clinical professionals both for delivery and for end-point assessment. This will mean a fully-integrated FE/HE/employer-delivered and -assessed curriculum – a first in Greater Manchester and across the UK clinical and medical sector.

The message is this: there is clear benefit to closer collaboration between local healthcare providers and their FE/HE partners. However, we need a proactive approach in identifying the skills required to deliver future operational strategy and designing and delivering an appropriate curriculum response.

Our progress will be followed closely in Greater Manchester. Indeed, BCMS is expected to be seen as a blueprint to create similar facilities across the region. But this is a national problem, requiring solutions that reach beyond regional boundaries. In the meantime,  we’re happy to talk to other FE colleges about what they can do to work more closely with their local NHS partners.