LSEB Review of 2009/10: Preparing for Recovery

LSEB Review

The past year saw London battling against the widespread impact of recession and a fragile world economy. Such circumstances increased the need for us to make headway in creating easier paths for people and businesses to access and benefit from publicly funded employment and skills support services.

We also made it a priority to suggest adapting or extending programmes to mitigate the worst effects of the downturn. Our aim was to help place employers and people in a position from which they could recover more quickly once the economy picked up.

Gaining an extra £14 million of funding in 2010/11 for 4,000 more Apprenticeship places, a programme with growing take-up in London, was very important. In doing so we corrected a shortfall in the Capital’s adult skills budget and negotiated additional funds for one of the Board’s priorities. This demonstrated that our statutory powers can and do make a real difference for London.

Working for a better future

We describe this and our other successes in more detail in this review of 2009/10. While our principal duty is to keep London’s employment and skills strategy up to date and relevant to the needs of business, we are also the catalyst for ensuring its implementation. To do this we work closely with Jobcentre Plus (JCP), the London Development Agency (LDA) and the Skills Funding Agency (SFA).

We encourage pilots of new ideas or ways of aligning services that promise to improve workplace skills and productivity. We commission studies to advance our understanding of skills and employment issues that can contribute to increased prosperity for London and Londoners.

Our Board members, with their backgrounds as senior private and public sector employers, represent our position on various advisory panels and task forces. This helps ensure our influence goes beyond our own Board and its work, and that we communicate more widely.

While continuing to simplify the skills and employment services, we must respond to meet the demands of a new political agenda and the collective action needed in public services to tackle the national debt. These are our new challenges for 2010/11.

Keeping the strategic vision on target

In December 2009 we completed an update to our five-year strategy for skills and employment in London. We consulted with all the main stakeholders and organisations with which we work, and they signalled strong support for our Board’s objectives, direction and goals.

Called From Recession to Recovery, with its stress on integrating services, the strategy addresses the need for employment and skills bodies to respond to the global downturn. It recognises the resulting pressures on London’s workplaces and the need to get the Capital into a position from which it can respond quickly and positively when markets pick up.

At the same time we also published our updated base research document, The London Story. This provides an assessment of the state of employment and skills in the Capital.

Throughout the year the three main agencies that helped drive our Board recommendations - the Learning and Skills Council (LSC), the LDA, and Jobcentre Plus - worked closely together. We thank them all for their continuing support and co-operation.

Notably, while our Board worked to agree the best means of adapting services to help London combat the worst effects of the recession, it was these three agencies, working together, that put the measures into action.

The Board levers results

Using our statutory role to review the new Skills Funding Agency’s £653m budget and plans for London, we successfully negotiated an extra 4,000 Apprenticeship places in the Capital for 2010/11 a 20 per cent increase on the opportunities available. Our chair, London Mayor Boris Johnson, and the GLA fully support this win for London.

To gear up employers to benefit from this extra £14m funding share, the LDA, in partnership with the National Apprenticeship Service (NAS), will explore jointly how best to stimulate awareness among businesses during 2010/11 to maximise this opportunity.

The Board also secured an improved, more unified approach to the European Social Fund (ESF) Framework to 2013 by aligning the priorities of commissioners and establishing a more streamlined process for bidders. The estimated value of ESF funding to the Capital between the period 2011 to 2013 is around £120m, a figure matched by the co-financing organisations.

Additionally, the Board influenced some of the Department for Work and Pensions’ (DWP’s) contract specifications within London by including requirements for contracting parties to support the aims of our strategy.

Making it work for business

One of our flagship projects, the London Employer Accord, placed more than 680 Londoners into jobs last year. The project aims to test new ways of joining employment and skills services together, offering a ‘one stop recruitment shop’ for employers. Since its launch in 2008, 1,281 people have found work through the project’s efforts.

The Accord also provides an Employability Support and associated training package to improve the skills and job prospects for workless Londoners. Last year this programme helped 1,500 people, with the number so far making use of the service totalling 3,158.

During last year we attracted more employers to take an active role in the London Employer Accord Advisory group and the Skills for London Ambassador Network. This means we now have 55 members.

These Ambassadors give us direct support, encouraging other employers to become involved in London’s skills and employment agenda and increasing training in their own organisations. We are grateful for their involvement, especially as many of our Ambassadors represent sectors of business in London where investment in employment and skills are important for the Capital.

Over the year our Employer Programme Board, led by the LDA as a sub-group of our main Board, studied and mapped the way employers access services. The aim was to help streamline the service offer, with a focus on increasing how employers engage with the Apprenticeships programme as a means of helping young people into work.

More broadly we gave support to a trial led by Jobcentre Plus of a one-stop employers’ service in Enfield. This tested how account management can be introduced across organisations. It drew some positive lessons, which our partner organisations are considering adopting elsewhere in London.

Making it work for people

Our Individual Programme Board, led by Jobcentre Plus as a sub-group of our main Board, successfully drove forward a series of Into Work and In Work trials in central London, supported by Next Step and the Skills Funding Agency.

As a result, there are now Next Step advisers in 69 Jobcentre Plus offices across the Capital, bringing an integrated, improved service to a wider client group. This includes lone parents and people claiming Incapacity Benefit or Employment Support Allowance (ESA). Since this change, more than 6,200 people have received skills advice referrals, and a further 5,242 people a skills health check.

Our Board also provided a forum for agreeing the London specification for the face-to-face element of the integrated adult careers service – Next Step. This launched on 1 August 2010 and is designed to meet the needs of Londoners, including priority groups such as lone parents, people with disabilities and black and minority ethnic people.

The advances in collaborative working arrangements fostered by LSEB meant the London specification was clear and concisely detailed. The national office of the Skills Funding Agency praised this as an excellent example, with other regions drawing on our approach to the specification.

Further work with LSEB as the coordinating forum produced improvements to the way London’s 54,000 jobless young people use employment and skills services, helping them understand more easily what is on offer.

Improved intelligence on skills and employment

To help achieve strategy objectives, the Board supported proposals for a single source of authoritative skills and employment data for the Capital.

The first stage of this aim came to fruition in February with the launch of the Skills and Employment Observatory for London, co-funded by the ESF and LDA. Our wish is for this to develop and grow into a forum for joint research and a repository for information.

To contribute to greater understanding of key issues, we also commissioned a series of studies over the year. These include:

An assessment of demand-led approaches to skills.
The Impact of Commissioning Models in London. This explores the impact of larger employment and skills contracts on disadvantaged groups and the third sector.
Customer Feedback Survey. A review of what is available and suggestions for improvements on gathering customer views and opinions.
Helping the Highly Skilled Unemployed. A review of how we can better help unemployed people with professional, associate professional and managerial backgrounds re-enter the workplace.
A Joint Investment Plan, led by the LSC. This sets out the ambitions for aligning and jointly commissioning services, and some of the obstacles that hamper integrated working. The plan was a main influence on the work of our System Programme Board sub-group, which explores ways of making London’s skills and employment services easier for customers to understand and use.

To assess the value of the Board’s contribution and impact on employment and skills in London, we have commissioned a new framework for evaluation. It will help us review our strategy against results.

Plugged into the network

Developing links and partnerships, encouraging debate, and communicating with people about our work are all important to us.

In November we co-hosted an event with the London UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES). It brought organisations we work with together to explore and review the integrated approach to employment and skills services in London.

We also funded a pilot with London Councils to work with local authorities, finding ways to improve how customers negotiate their way from help available locally on skills and employment to regional and national programmes.

As an employer-led organisation we have first-hand experience from which to promote the views of business on employment and skills issues. During 2009/10 we responded to several invitations to contribute to public consultations and inquiries. These included the Mayor’s Economic Development Strategy, the LDA’s investment plan, and the Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) Select Committee’s Inquiry into the Skills Funding Agency.

Our Board members are also active through many committee memberships. During 2009/10 we were represented on: the European Social Fund Regional Committee; the 14-19 Regional Planning Group; London Apprenticeships Taskforce; London Child Poverty Delivery Group; London Employer Accord Advisory Group; London Employment and Skills Taskforce 2012; London Higher Skills Board and the UKCES System Review Group.

In December 2009 we published our first annual report, and the following month we began issuing a quarterly e-bulletin. This provides regular updates on our work and the achievements of the main organisations we work with.

The year ahead

The year ahead will herald a sea change in policy for both employment and skills. We will feel the influence of a new political administration in Westminster, and all public sector agencies must respond to the need to cut costs and reduce spending. The impacts will be broad and far reaching.

One change is less emphasis on integrating services for skills and employment. Adult skills will move to a more devolved, demand-led model, while responsibility for employment support will be commissioned nationally. We will continue to identify and support joint initiatives where customers will benefit and where there are obvious cost efficiencies.

We will take a special interest in contributing to the DWP’s new Work Programme, using our comprehensive understanding of London’s employment market. We are keen to support a successful roll-out of the service across the Capital, ensuring it improves the job prospects of unemployed and economically inactive Londoners, including those people from disadvantaged groups.

We intend to set out our expectations of the demand-led skills system so Londoners have the best opportunities to gain skills that can lead to sustained employment and career progression. We will look to both further and higher education providers to ensure they contribute to the Board’s strategy.

Our Board members will take an active role in promoting the take-up among employers of Apprenticeships. We want to make sure that full use is made of the 25,000 potential Apprenticeship opportunities in London. Efforts will focus on communicating and encouraging small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) to consider offering more Apprenticeships to young people.

London is an energetic city with a primary role in the UK economy. Continued success rests, in great part, on a continuing supply of well-qualified employees with the skills needed by businesses and organisations throughout the Capital. We will continue to represent the interests of employers, working to give them the best employment and skills support that fulfils both their needs and the needs of Londoners.


	Home > E-newsletter > Summer 2010: LSEB Review of 2009/10: Preparing for Recovery
Home About Strategy Meetings and minutes E-newsletter Press releases Publications Useful links FAQs Contact us	LSEB Review of 2009/10: Preparing for Recovery The past year saw London battling against the widespread impact of recession and a fragile world economy. Such circumstances increased the need for us to make headway in creating easier paths for people and businesses to access and benefit from publicly funded employment and skills support services. We also made it a priority to suggest adapting or extending programmes to mitigate the worst effects of the downturn. Our aim was to help place employers and people in a position from which they could recover more quickly once the economy picked up. Gaining an extra £14 million of funding in 2010/11 for 4,000 more Apprenticeship places, a programme with growing take-up in London, was very important. In doing so we corrected a shortfall in the Capital’s adult skills budget and negotiated additional funds for one of the Board’s priorities. This demonstrated that our statutory powers can and do make a real difference for London. Working for a better future We describe this and our other successes in more detail in this review of 2009/10. While our principal duty is to keep London’s employment and skills strategy up to date and relevant to the needs of business, we are also the catalyst for ensuring its implementation. To do this we work closely with Jobcentre Plus (JCP), the London Development Agency (LDA) and the Skills Funding Agency (SFA). We encourage pilots of new ideas or ways of aligning services that promise to improve workplace skills and productivity. We commission studies to advance our understanding of skills and employment issues that can contribute to increased prosperity for London and Londoners. Our Board members, with their backgrounds as senior private and public sector employers, represent our position on various advisory panels and task forces. This helps ensure our influence goes beyond our own Board and its work, and that we communicate more widely. While continuing to simplify the skills and employment services, we must respond to meet the demands of a new political agenda and the collective action needed in public services to tackle the national debt. These are our new challenges for 2010/11. Keeping the strategic vision on target In December 2009 we completed an update to our five-year strategy for skills and employment in London. We consulted with all the main stakeholders and organisations with which we work, and they signalled strong support for our Board’s objectives, direction and goals. Called From Recession to Recovery, with its stress on integrating services, the strategy addresses the need for employment and skills bodies to respond to the global downturn. It recognises the resulting pressures on London’s workplaces and the need to get the Capital into a position from which it can respond quickly and positively when markets pick up. At the same time we also published our updated base research document, The London Story. This provides an assessment of the state of employment and skills in the Capital. Throughout the year the three main agencies that helped drive our Board recommendations - the Learning and Skills Council (LSC), the LDA, and Jobcentre Plus - worked closely together. We thank them all for their continuing support and co-operation. Notably, while our Board worked to agree the best means of adapting services to help London combat the worst effects of the recession, it was these three agencies, working together, that put the measures into action. The Board levers results Using our statutory role to review the new Skills Funding Agency’s £653m budget and plans for London, we successfully negotiated an extra 4,000 Apprenticeship places in the Capital for 2010/11 a 20 per cent increase on the opportunities available. Our chair, London Mayor Boris Johnson, and the GLA fully support this win for London. To gear up employers to benefit from this extra £14m funding share, the LDA, in partnership with the National Apprenticeship Service (NAS), will explore jointly how best to stimulate awareness among businesses during 2010/11 to maximise this opportunity. The Board also secured an improved, more unified approach to the European Social Fund (ESF) Framework to 2013 by aligning the priorities of commissioners and establishing a more streamlined process for bidders. The estimated value of ESF funding to the Capital between the period 2011 to 2013 is around £120m, a figure matched by the co-financing organisations. Additionally, the Board influenced some of the Department for Work and Pensions’ (DWP’s) contract specifications within London by including requirements for contracting parties to support the aims of our strategy. Making it work for business One of our flagship projects, the London Employer Accord, placed more than 680 Londoners into jobs last year. The project aims to test new ways of joining employment and skills services together, offering a ‘one stop recruitment shop’ for employers. Since its launch in 2008, 1,281 people have found work through the project’s efforts. The Accord also provides an Employability Support and associated training package to improve the skills and job prospects for workless Londoners. Last year this programme helped 1,500 people, with the number so far making use of the service totalling 3,158. During last year we attracted more employers to take an active role in the London Employer Accord Advisory group and the Skills for London Ambassador Network. This means we now have 55 members. These Ambassadors give us direct support, encouraging other employers to become involved in London’s skills and employment agenda and increasing training in their own organisations. We are grateful for their involvement, especially as many of our Ambassadors represent sectors of business in London where investment in employment and skills are important for the Capital. Over the year our Employer Programme Board, led by the LDA as a sub-group of our main Board, studied and mapped the way employers access services. The aim was to help streamline the service offer, with a focus on increasing how employers engage with the Apprenticeships programme as a means of helping young people into work. More broadly we gave support to a trial led by Jobcentre Plus of a one-stop employers’ service in Enfield. This tested how account management can be introduced across organisations. It drew some positive lessons, which our partner organisations are considering adopting elsewhere in London. Making it work for people Our Individual Programme Board, led by Jobcentre Plus as a sub-group of our main Board, successfully drove forward a series of Into Work and In Work trials in central London, supported by Next Step and the Skills Funding Agency. As a result, there are now Next Step advisers in 69 Jobcentre Plus offices across the Capital, bringing an integrated, improved service to a wider client group. This includes lone parents and people claiming Incapacity Benefit or Employment Support Allowance (ESA). Since this change, more than 6,200 people have received skills advice referrals, and a further 5,242 people a skills health check. Our Board also provided a forum for agreeing the London specification for the face-to-face element of the integrated adult careers service – Next Step. This launched on 1 August 2010 and is designed to meet the needs of Londoners, including priority groups such as lone parents, people with disabilities and black and minority ethnic people. The advances in collaborative working arrangements fostered by LSEB meant the London specification was clear and concisely detailed. The national office of the Skills Funding Agency praised this as an excellent example, with other regions drawing on our approach to the specification. Further work with LSEB as the coordinating forum produced improvements to the way London’s 54,000 jobless young people use employment and skills services, helping them understand more easily what is on offer. Improved intelligence on skills and employment To help achieve strategy objectives, the Board supported proposals for a single source of authoritative skills and employment data for the Capital. The first stage of this aim came to fruition in February with the launch of the Skills and Employment Observatory for London, co-funded by the ESF and LDA. Our wish is for this to develop and grow into a forum for joint research and a repository for information. To contribute to greater understanding of key issues, we also commissioned a series of studies over the year. These include: An assessment of demand-led approaches to skills. The Impact of Commissioning Models in London. This explores the impact of larger employment and skills contracts on disadvantaged groups and the third sector. Customer Feedback Survey. A review of what is available and suggestions for improvements on gathering customer views and opinions. Helping the Highly Skilled Unemployed. A review of how we can better help unemployed people with professional, associate professional and managerial backgrounds re-enter the workplace. A Joint Investment Plan, led by the LSC. This sets out the ambitions for aligning and jointly commissioning services, and some of the obstacles that hamper integrated working. The plan was a main influence on the work of our System Programme Board sub-group, which explores ways of making London’s skills and employment services easier for customers to understand and use. To assess the value of the Board’s contribution and impact on employment and skills in London, we have commissioned a new framework for evaluation. It will help us review our strategy against results. Plugged into the network Developing links and partnerships, encouraging debate, and communicating with people about our work are all important to us. In November we co-hosted an event with the London UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES). It brought organisations we work with together to explore and review the integrated approach to employment and skills services in London. We also funded a pilot with London Councils to work with local authorities, finding ways to improve how customers negotiate their way from help available locally on skills and employment to regional and national programmes. As an employer-led organisation we have first-hand experience from which to promote the views of business on employment and skills issues. During 2009/10 we responded to several invitations to contribute to public consultations and inquiries. These included the Mayor’s Economic Development Strategy, the LDA’s investment plan, and the Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) Select Committee’s Inquiry into the Skills Funding Agency. Our Board members are also active through many committee memberships. During 2009/10 we were represented on: the European Social Fund Regional Committee; the 14-19 Regional Planning Group; London Apprenticeships Taskforce; London Child Poverty Delivery Group; London Employer Accord Advisory Group; London Employment and Skills Taskforce 2012; London Higher Skills Board and the UKCES System Review Group. In December 2009 we published our first annual report, and the following month we began issuing a quarterly e-bulletin. This provides regular updates on our work and the achievements of the main organisations we work with. The year ahead The year ahead will herald a sea change in policy for both employment and skills. We will feel the influence of a new political administration in Westminster, and all public sector agencies must respond to the need to cut costs and reduce spending. The impacts will be broad and far reaching. One change is less emphasis on integrating services for skills and employment. Adult skills will move to a more devolved, demand-led model, while responsibility for employment support will be commissioned nationally. We will continue to identify and support joint initiatives where customers will benefit and where there are obvious cost efficiencies. We will take a special interest in contributing to the DWP’s new Work Programme, using our comprehensive understanding of London’s employment market. We are keen to support a successful roll-out of the service across the Capital, ensuring it improves the job prospects of unemployed and economically inactive Londoners, including those people from disadvantaged groups. We intend to set out our expectations of the demand-led skills system so Londoners have the best opportunities to gain skills that can lead to sustained employment and career progression. We will look to both further and higher education providers to ensure they contribute to the Board’s strategy. Our Board members will take an active role in promoting the take-up among employers of Apprenticeships. We want to make sure that full use is made of the 25,000 potential Apprenticeship opportunities in London. Efforts will focus on communicating and encouraging small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) to consider offering more Apprenticeships to young people. London is an energetic city with a primary role in the UK economy. Continued success rests, in great part, on a continuing supply of well-qualified employees with the skills needed by businesses and organisations throughout the Capital. We will continue to represent the interests of employers, working to give them the best employment and skills support that fulfils both their needs and the needs of Londoners.