As you may be aware, the Government’s Skills for Jobs White Paper set out an ambitious employer-led approach aimed at making Further Education (FE) provision more responsive to local skills needs and ultimately local economic needs.
As part of this approach, Local Skills Improvement Plans (LSIPs) were introduced as a key part of the Government’s vision of an adult skills system where businesses are given a much stronger voice in local skills planning by working closely with FE providers, engaging effectively with local leaders and other stakeholders and forging a stronger and more dynamic partnership that will enable provision to be more responsive to the skills needs of employers in local labour markets.
The LSIP is looking to have significant engagement from the business community in order to ascertain skills requirements and the Skills and Post-16 Education Bill provides a statutory underpinning for local skills improvement plans. It introduces duties on providers to co-operate in the development of and then have regard to the plans.
Northamptonshire Chamber of Commerce in conjunction with Milton Keynes Chamber of Commerce and Bedfordshire Chamber of Commerce are the Designated Lead for the development of the LSIP for our region and we are pleased to state that our LSIP has recently been approved by the Secretary of State.
