Let’s Build Your Workforce Skills

Levelling-up, Net Zero and Upskilling

The UK Government levelling-up agenda is an opportunity to transform the jobs and skills system by considering social inclusion for diverse communities. The levelling up white paper has set out 12 high level “missions”, one of which is the commitment to increase the number of adults engaged in high-quality skill training.  At the same time, the government has a emphasis on reducing economic and social inequalities across the different regions of the country through its levelling up agenda.

The question is can net zero emissions and the levelling-up agenda for communities achieved at the same time?  To benefit from economic growth and access to job opportunities it creates, people need to have the right skills which employers seek for their businesses. In this respect, levelling up is faced differently by every place in different regions of the country. Identifying the right skills to invest in is more complex for areas in need of levelling up. This is because delivering sustainable and socially inclusive economic growth in these areas will require investments, interventions and right skills according to area and its employers need.

To achieve net zero target, decarbonisation must happen in every place across the country. This will require local leadership to deliver interventions which encourage socially inclusive economic growth, increase mode shift, reduce carbon footprints and add social value. But with the impacts of moves to net zero and digitalisation require significant updating of the skills of the workforce to deliver these interventions. It is also essential that the UK workforce has the correct skills for net zero to take advantage of the jobs which will be created by new projects and initiatives.

The levelling up white paper in its sections on education and skills makes a number of statements and promises about the role of employers. The white paper asserts that via ‘employer-led’ (LSIPs), which will be put on a statutory footing, the ‘reforms will embed local employers at the heart of an increasingly devolved, outcomes-oriented system way in which skills policy is formulated and delivered’. The white paper also establishes some relatively modest targets for increases in state-funded training activity, perhaps most notably 200,000 extra adults receiving or c per annum, of which 80,000 are to live in deprived areas. 

In brief, skilled workforce and training provision to build skills are vital and can deliver the game changer projects on achieving national vision on net zero and levelling up agenda. Organisations (along with state-funded training investment) both in public and private sectors should invest in their workforce on delivering projects timely by using the right tools and value of money.

 Zeenara Najam

i-Select Consultancy

Levelling Up - Jobs and Skills

The Levelling Up White Paper presents an opportunity to reset the relationship between central and local government and put councils at the heart of delivering the Government’s ambitious programme to improve opportunities in all parts of the country.

The Government launched the prospectus for the £4.8 billion Levelling Up Fund alongside the Budget 2021. The Levelling Up Fund will invest in infrastructure that improves everyday life across the UK, including town centre and high street regeneration, local transport projects, and cultural and heritage assets. The Government has identified priority places based on an index of local need to receive capacity funding to help them co-ordinate their applications.

How levelling up agenda can be achieved for North?

The Northern Powerhouse aimed to promote economic growth in core cities through improvements to infrastructure, education, science, and innovation.

The UK2070 Commission – an independent inquiry into the UK’s city and regional inequalities – produced a report highlighting the extent of UK’s North South divide. The report found that a child qualifying for free school meals in Hackney, London, is three times more likely to attend university than a child growing up in Hartlepool under similar economic circumstances.

It is likewise predicted that pupils in the South of England are 40% more likely to achieve top GCSE grades than those in the North of England, who at the same time, are vastly underrepresented at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge.

The government’s levelling up agenda been criticised for adopting a largely ‘place-oriented’ approach which neglects the people there within. The consultancy company Frontier Economics stresses that effective regional policy is ‘people-orientated’, and aims to enhance the employment and salary prospects of those living in particular areas.

In a document published today by the Convention of the North and the NP11 group of northern local enterprise partnerships (LEPs), northern leaders set out the five “gamechangers” which, through collaboration across the North and with Government, will grow an inclusive economy that delivers for the North and the country, while also tackling the health inequalities that have been laid bare by COVID-19. Those game changers are:

• Leading the Green Industrial Revolution

• Closing the healthy life expectancy gap between the North and South through innovation

• Closing the education and skills gap

• Improving connectivity in towns and cities in the North

• Increasing private and public investment in R&D spending in the North

Skills and trainings are vital to levelling up. We believe trainings provide a huge opportunity to level up skills. A skilled workforce can deliver the gamechanger projects to achieve levelling up agenda. Look at our trainings list and contact us today to arrange in-house trainings for your workforce.

Zeenara Najam

i-Select Consultancy