Agenda item

To consider the attached report.

The Executive Board:

(a)        APPROVED the principle of the Skills Service as the basis for the achievement of the City Deal objective on skills and REQUESTED a further report containing the detailed proposals for the Skills Service for submission to the June meetings of the Joint Assembly and Executive Board.

(b)        AGREED to establish an informal group of Joint Assembly Members together with representatives of the Local Enterprise Partnership, the Cambridge Area Partnership and the City Deal Executive Board, to meet and work with officers, key partners and stakeholders, that will feed into the report for submission to the June meetings of the Joint Assembly and the Executive Board.

(c)        ALLOCATED net budgetary provision of £125,000 per annum for delivery of the Skills Service, subject to satisfactory agreement of the model at the June cycle of meetings of the Joint Assembly and Executive Board.

NOTE – this item was considered prior to the item on the Greater Cambridge City Deal partnership budget.

The Executive Board considered a report which outlined the potential means by which the skills element of the City Deal could be achieved and how it could contribute towards the objective of creating an additional 420 apprenticeships over five years and increasing the skill levels of the local workforce.

Graham Hughes, Executive Director of Economy, Transport and Environment at Cambridgeshire County Council, presented the report which set out examples of existing training provision with regard to funding received through the Adult Learning and Skills Grant, training offered by further education institutions and private training providers, as well as the training opportunities provided by some of the county’s larger employers.  The report also included an overview of the role of the National Careers Service, the Skills Service provided by the Local Enterprise Partnership, the Cambridge Area Partnership and the Huntingdonshire ‘skills hub’.

Mr Hughes reported that the skills element of the City Deal had been agreed through negotiations with the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, which included a Skills Service model to bridge the gap between employer needs and aspirations of learners.  He indicated that young people in Cambridgeshire were making choices about their development, further education and future careers that could not necessarily be supported by the local economy in terms of potential employment opportunities. 

The report outlined a proposed way forward for delivering these requirements, mirroring what was currently being delivered by the Local Enterprise Partnership through its Skills Service model.  This would involve the formation of a team of people who would:

·         visit schools and colleges and work with their internal careers services and young people to explain what opportunities there were in the area in terms of training and employment;

·         work with businesses to understand their needs and relay this back to young people and training providers, both in terms of needs currently and needs in the future;

·         connect with training providers to assist in developing and providing appropriate courses to meet the needs of local businesses;

·         undertake research into current and future needs;

·         market the opportunities available in terms of apprenticeships.

Councillor Tim Bick, Chairman of the Joint Assembly, presented the outcomes of the Assembly’s consideration of the proposals set out in the report at its meeting held on 6 March 2015.  He reported that the Assembly noted the strengths of current provision but also recognised that there were systemic weaknesses.  Members acknowledged the positive contributions made to aspects of this work by a variety of bodies, although there was general concern that the scale of the proposals seemed quite modest.  The Assembly noted that this was a complex field with numerous active players, as well as more passive players, whose interests and perspectives all needed to be considered to achieve the right method of implementation and level of resourcing.  Councillor Bick also made the point that there needed to be much more alignment between what young people wanted to do, the provision in place by training institutions and the needs of the local economy.  The Joint Assembly therefore recommended that the Executive Board:

(a)        approved the principle of the Skills Service model as the basis for the achievement of the City Deal objective on skills and requested a further report containing the detailed proposals for the Skills Service for submission to the June meetings of the Joint Assembly and Executive Board;

(b)        established an informal group of Assembly Members to meet and work with officers, key partners and stakeholders, that would feed into the report for submission to the June meetings of the Joint Assembly and Executive Board;

(c)        allocated a minimum of £250,000 per annum, in principle, as the estimated gross cost of funding the model and the availability of contributions towards this from the County Council (£50,000) and the Local Enterprise Partnership (£75,000), therefore approving a minimum net budgetary provision of £125,000 per annum.

The Board supported the establishment of an informal group, as recommended, subject to the inclusion of representatives from the Local Enterprise Partnership, the Cambridge Area Partnership and this Executive Board.

Members of the Board also supported recommendation (a), subject to the deletion of the word ‘model’ in the first sentence to reflect the fact that it would be a Skills Service taking this work forward.

The Executive Board therefore:

(a)        APPROVED the principle of the Skills Service as the basis for the achievement of the City Deal objective on skills and REQUESTED a further report containing the detailed proposals for the Skills Service for submission to the June meetings of the Joint Assembly and Executive Board.

(b)        AGREED to establish an informal group of Joint Assembly Members together with representatives of the Local Enterprise Partnership, the Cambridge Area Partnership and the City Deal Executive Board, to meet and work with officers, key partners and stakeholders, that will feed into the report for submission to the June meetings of the Joint Assembly and the Executive Board.

(c)        ALLOCATED net budgetary provision of £125,000 per annum for delivery of the Skills Service, subject to satisfactory agreement of the model at the June cycle of meetings of the Joint Assembly and Executive Board.