{"id":1985,"date":"2011-02-17T09:13:38","date_gmt":"2011-02-17T09:13:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/altlep.wordpress.com\/?p=43"},"modified":"2011-02-17T09:13:38","modified_gmt":"2011-02-17T09:13:38","slug":"employment-and-skills-in-the-alternative-lep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/realisedevelopment.net\/index.php\/2011\/02\/17\/employment-and-skills-in-the-alternative-lep\/","title":{"rendered":"Employment and Skills in the Alternative LEP"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>How do we develop a workforce that is Fit for the Future?<\/li>\n<li>How do we tackle the problems of &#8216;worklessness&#8217;?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Important\u00a0questions that we have sought solutions to for most of my working life.<\/p>\n<p>Broadly speaking we have two possible approaches. \u00a0We can \u00a0set up a committee of the great and the good, employers, politicians and civil\u00a0servants and we can task them with collating evidence on labour markets, forecasting the future and identifying practical and affordable opportunities to intervene in the systems\u00a0of\u00a0education and worklessness that will make sure we develop the workforce that we need, when we need it. \u00a0This centralised\u00a0approach\u00a0puts power and resources in the hands of an Employment and Skills Board and sets them an impossible task. \u00a0It is the Soviet approach to planning tractor production. \u00a0It didn&#8217;t work for them. \u00a0And it hasn&#8217;t worked for us.<\/p>\n<p>This\u00a0approach\u00a0results in a relatively small number of experiments (pilots) that are later rolled out. \u00a0It relies on\u00a0a committee to\u00a0accurately\u00a0&#8216;read&#8217; the future &#8211; to spot opportunities for job creation and then to exert an influence on the &#8216;production system&#8217; quickly enough to make a positive difference. \u00a0This is usually done by setting targets, shifting resources and waiting to see how things unfold. \u00a0Strategies are typically set for perhaps half a decade and &#8216;refreshed&#8217; annually &#8211; single-handedly tackling the worklessness agenda by employing a small army of civil servant and academics to collect data and produce reports.<\/p>\n<p>Such boards end up being an &#8216;interesting&#8217; balance between the voice of the private sector and democratic accountability. \u00a0In\u00a0fact\u00a0they usually become a stylized &#8216;war zones&#8217; from which the private\u00a0sector\u00a0often retreats beaten into submission by public\u00a0sector\u00a0working practices. \u00a0Certainly the voice of the small business sector is rarely\u00a0effectively\u00a0heard.<\/p>\n<p>Board strategies usually find a few &#8216;keys&#8217; (NVQs, Diplomas,\u00a0accredited\u00a0in-house training, apprenticeships) to a few kingdoms (construction,\u00a0health\u00a0and beauty, tourism, call centres, and anything prefixed with &#8216;creative&#8217;, &#8216;digital&#8217;, &#8216;bio&#8217;, &#8216;high tech&#8217; or &#8216;high growth&#8217;). \u00a0Aspirations and\u00a0strengths\u00a0of people are subordinated to the Board&#8217;s ideas about future skills needs and &#8216;opportunities&#8217;. \u00a0Conformity is valued over originality. \u00a0Learning &#8216;off piste&#8217; becomes tricky.<\/p>\n<p>Alternatively we could radically de-centralise and localise the process of thinking and planning about &#8216;fitness for the future&#8217;. \u00a0Instead of relying on an Employer Skills Boards to &#8216;make\u00a0things\u00a0right&#8217; we could lay down a challenge to people to develop the skills and passions that they need to secure an economically viable future for themselves, to find what, for them, is\u00a0&#8216;<a href=\"http:\/\/localenterprise.wordpress.com\/2010\/01\/05\/good-work\/\">good work<\/a>&#8216;. \u00a0To \u00a0find their own contribution. \u00a0 We could develop enterprising\u00a0people\u00a0supported in enterprising communities. \u00a0This would need schools and colleges to focus on the learner and their vision for their future rather than on the curriculum or qualification structures.<\/p>\n<p>Such a decentralised, enterprising approach might:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>enable many more informed brains to be brought to bear on the problem of fitness for the future &#8211; academics,\u00a0industrialists\u00a0and civil servants do not have a great track record in &#8216;workforce development&#8217;<\/li>\n<li>enable people to explore ways of doing what they can do best &#8211; and not sub-optimising to conform with the &#8216;few keys to the few kingdoms&#8217; identified by &#8216;The Board&#8217;<\/li>\n<li>encourage the local\u00a0community to support people in acquiring the skills, experience and work opportunities that they need to flourish economically and socially<\/li>\n<li>support people to find learning experiences that help them to become the person that they\u00a0want\u00a0to be &#8211; rather than to conform with the ideal established by a fallible and distant Board<\/li>\n<li>significantly increase the volume of learning\u00a0experiments\u00a0in the labour market and enable word of mouth to make sure that we develop a dynamic, flexible, responsive and self-reliant workforce<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Perhaps these are not alternatives. \u00a0Perhaps we need to develop both strategic and\u00a0responsive\u00a0approaches\u00a0to employment, skills and worklessness in the 21st century.<\/p>\n<p>One thing I am sure of&#8230;\u00a0establishing\u00a0yet another\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.leedscityregion.gov.uk\/areasofwork.aspx?fid=304\">Employment and \u00a0Skills Board<\/a> (this time for the Leeds City Region) is\u00a0unlikely\u00a0to give us a major step forward.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div class=\"SPOSTARBUST-Related-Posts\"><ul class=\"entry-meta\"><li class=\"SPOSTARBUST-Related-Post\"><a title=\"A Way Forward for Communities?\" href=\"http:\/\/realisedevelopment.net\/index.php\/2012\/02\/16\/a-way-forward-for-communities\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">A Way Forward for Communities?<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"SPOSTARBUST-Related-Post\"><a title=\"Recovering the Economy\" href=\"http:\/\/realisedevelopment.net\/index.php\/2011\/09\/27\/recovering-the-economy\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Recovering the Economy<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"SPOSTARBUST-Related-Post\"><a title=\"Governments don&#8217;t rule the world; Goldman Sachs do&#8230;\" href=\"http:\/\/realisedevelopment.net\/index.php\/2011\/09\/27\/governments-dont-rule-the-world-goldman-sachs-do\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Governments don&#8217;t rule the world; Goldman Sachs do&#8230;<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"SPOSTARBUST-Related-Post\"><a title=\"The Leeds LEP Summit&#8230;\" href=\"http:\/\/realisedevelopment.net\/index.php\/2011\/09\/12\/the-leeds-lep-summit\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">The Leeds LEP Summit&#8230;<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"SPOSTARBUST-Related-Post\"><a title=\"A Compass for LEPs&#8230;\" href=\"http:\/\/realisedevelopment.net\/index.php\/2011\/07\/21\/a-compass-for-leps\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">A Compass for LEPs&#8230;<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How do we develop a workforce that is Fit for the Future? How do we tackle the problems of &#8216;worklessness&#8217;? Important\u00a0questions that we have sought solutions to for most of my working life. Broadly speaking we have two possible approaches. \u00a0We can \u00a0set up a committee of the great and the good, employers, politicians and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[62,66,120,186],"class_list":["post-1985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-enterprise","tag-employment","tag-enterprise-2","tag-lep","tag-skills","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/realisedevelopment.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/realisedevelopment.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/realisedevelopment.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/realisedevelopment.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/realisedevelopment.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1985"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/realisedevelopment.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1985\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/realisedevelopment.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/realisedevelopment.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/realisedevelopment.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}