The Prime Minister and Education Secretary have announced the launch of Skills England to bring together the fractured skills landscape and create a shared national ambition to boost the nation’s skills.
The Education Secretary has also today appointed Richard Pennycook CBE, former chief executive of the Co-operative Group and lead non-executive director at the DfE, as the interim Chair.
Skills are crucial to economic growth, with a third of productivity improvement over the last two decades explained by improvements to skills levels.
But between 2017 and 2022 skills shortages in this country doubled to more than half a million, and now account for 36% of job vacancies.
Skills England will bring together central and local government, businesses, training providers and unions to meet the skills needs of the next decade across all regions, providing strategic oversight of the post-16 skills system aligned to the Government’s Industrial Strategy.
Supporting local areas to develop the skilled workforces they need – in particular across construction and healthcare – is fundamental to the Government’s mission to raise growth sustainably. By working with the Migration Advisory Committee, Skills England will also help reduce reliance on overseas workers.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer said:
“Our skills system is in a mess, which is why we are transforming our approach to meet skills needs over the coming decades.”
“They will help to deliver our number one mission as a government, to kickstart economic growth, by opening up new opportunities for young people and enabling British businesses to recruit more home-grown talent.”
Kate Nicholls, Chief Executive of UKHospitality, said:
“The establishment of Skills England is a positive step that brings skills and education together under a single organisation to help drive economic growth and upskill the current and future workforce. Given the right circumstances, the hospitality sector is capable of delivering growth of 6% per year, and a focus on skills is central to this ambition. The sector is already the third largest employer in the UK, providing 3.5 million people with jobs, so it’s vital that our voice is represented within the new body.”
“We are pleased to see the commitment of the new body to broaden the types of training that the Apprenticeship Levy can be spent, which will allow us to deliver a Hospitality Skills Passport, however we also need to see a focus on how apprenticeship delivery can be improved for the benefit of both workers and businesses and a focus on pre-apprenticeship training and we look forward to working closely together to achieve this.”
