A Local Skills Improvement Plan (LSIP) is a new initiative from the Department for Education (DfE) that will set out the key priorities needed to make technical education and skills provision more responsive to the changing needs of employers and the local economy by:
- ensuring a better match between the supply of and demand for the skills employers most need to thrive and boost productivity, as well as helping to drive greater collaboration between providers to realise the benefits of economies of scale and specialisation;
- making provision more accessible and addressing barriers to progression, especially for the adult workforce, such as driving greater join-up between skills offers, including work programmes; and
- recognising that improving the supply of skills must be accompanied by demand-side measures that drive greater employer engagement and investment in skills and support potential learners through effective careers guidance.
In other words, the LSIP will put employers at the heart of the skills agenda in Norfolk and Suffolk.
There are 38 LSIPs across the UK. Our local LSIP reaches across the whole of Norfolk and Suffolk. So Norfolk Chambers are working in close collaboration with Suffolk Chamber of Commerce to ensure both business communities are engaged.
The remit for the Norfolk and Suffolk LSIP is in four parts:
- Articulate the employers skills needs – what are the skills employers need locally and struggle to find?
- Translating employers needs into changes in provision – how can those employers needs best be met by the provider in more responsive ways?
- Address learner demand and employer engagement – what can local stakeholders and employers do to raise demand for and make better use of those skills?
- Report annually to the DfE on what we want to achieve, why it matters, what changes are needed, and who needs to be involved. In other words what does skills success look like?
The LSIP contract runs from September 2022 until March 2025, but the ‘heavy lifting’ of designing the LSIP programme and processes has to be done in the first 8 months, as we need to submit our Local Skills Improvement Plan for the approval of the Secretary of State for Education by 31 May 2023.
The DfE have made it clear that the LSIP is about quality engagement with a wide range of businesses. To achieve this, we will be working in close collaboration with a wide range of stakeholders across the region including: Norfolk and Suffolk County Councils, New Anglia LEP, all the universities and colleges across Norfolk and Suffolk and several sixth form colleges. We will also work with the private training providers, charities and the voluntary sector, as well as the DWP/Job Centre Plus and other business organisations such as the FSB, NFU, IOD and the CBI.
But the most important people will be the business communities across Norfolk and Suffolk. We want to hear from businesses of any size: from sole traders and micro businesses to medium size enterprises to large corporates – all views and opinions will be sought.
