Boost your TIP: Education & Skills
The Towns Fund Delivery Partner is sharing blog posts this week and next, covering topics that we believe can enhance your Town Investment Plans. This blog post focuses on Education & Skills.
In June, we shared an ‘Introduction to education, skills and enterprise’ for Towns Fund towns. It outlines the drivers and factors relevant to towns and a model to help you shape education & skills related project ideas.
We want to now share key policy and economic updates and how Cohort 1 and 2 towns are using education & skills as a critical element of their TIP submissions. We hope this sparks ideas and conversations within towns teams and in your collaboration with us.
Finance and Policy Changes Affecting Towns
Spending Review November 2020
The latest Spending Review focuses on levelling up education standards and qualifications, supporting the most disadvantaged places with ‘high quality local services’, improving the skills pipeline, levelling up productivity and supporting people to work. Some specifics include:
Recap of Spending Review implications for education & skills
Skills priorities
In many ways, the Post-16 education & skills strategy remains the same as published in 2018 and as we await the Further Education White paper. Meanwhile, the Independent Commission on the College of the Future presented a recent report with various recommendations citing central government reform as well as local changes. These include a greater emphasis on local college networks focused on growth and declining sectors. The report also suggests a greater focus upon the civic duty of colleges. Such changes only enhance the need for towns to involve colleges in discussing how they can help towns achieve their TIP ambitions – whether specifically for education & skills projects or in support of the overall TIP strategy.
It is clear that education and skills are critical to Covid-19 recovery in the short term as well as long term growth.
Making your Project a Powerful Hook
We have reviewed many town education & skills projects and have noticed the ‘golden thread’ that links future skills pipelines with growth sectors.
Towns are being creative with their proposed education, skills and enterprise projects. The list below provides a flavour of the kinds of projects we have seen across Cohorts 1 and 2. They often merge skills and enterprise in a single project and almost always rely upon successful partnering with colleges and/or universities as well as local employers.
Ambitious learning hubs, learning quarters or college campus extensions designed to bring exciting learning opportunities to local learners – projects often focus upon specific local industries or future growth sectors and tie in workspace for local businesses.
Sector-based hubs and advanced hubs – hubs cater for many locally-relevant sectors including, for example, health science and health and social care hubs. We have particularly noted the importance of university partnering with advanced hub concepts such as for manufacturing, logistics, construction, air and space, engineering, clean growth and maritime.
A number of digital, technology and enterprise hubs/parks and Institutes of Technology projects illustrate the emphasis many towns place on the digital opportunity
Business and career guidance hubs – both generic and also targeted at specific sectors—often including incubator/start-up support and office space
The variety of approaches cite social mobility, employer engagement, education, aspiration, retention, increased qualification levels (particularly at level 3 and 4) and productivity benefits.
Conclusion
Education, skills and enterprise-orientated projects strongly align with ‘levelling up’ town opportunities and with fueling local economic productivity and growth. It has never been more important to consider the role of education and skills within your TIP and for your town.
What next?
Contact Richard Hadfield (via your Town Coordinator) if you would like to discuss specific education and skills ideas or projects or how education & skills can help the delivery of any of your TIP projects. We are also happy to engage with forthcoming working groups where education, skills and enterprise needs might be similar across groups of towns.
If you would like to talk through an idea or challenge in a less formal setting, you can also schedule an Expert Drop-in Hour with Richard.
Richard Hadfield