The £4.7m Local Skills Improvement Fund (LSIF) project for Norfolk and Suffolk is led by Suffolk New College, with partners City College Norwich, the College of West Anglia, East Coast College, and West Suffolk College, together with East Norfolk Sixth Form College and the University of Suffolk all collaborating to transform training opportunities across the region.
The Norfolk and Suffolk Chambers of Commerce teams are key stakeholders, ensuring the objectives of the Local Skills Improvement Plan (LSIP) for Norfolk and Suffolk are met, with the local workforce getting the right skills and training to help businesses thrive.
Running until March 2025, the funding sees investment in equipment, events, teaching and training, enrichment activities for students, employer engagement, and new facilities. Thousands of students and hundreds of businesses will benefit from the investment, which focuses on soft skills, digital and green skills.
Key investments funded by LSIF include –
- Investment in Net Zero technologies and facilities to assist in delivering training in retrofit, renewable heating, solar power, and hybrid and EV vehicle maintenance
- Investment in centres where the partner Colleges can support the employability skills of learners in partnership with local businesses
- New Virtual Reality and digital equipment to enable the partners to use modern teaching tools and meet the local skills need in the latest digital technologies.
- New green technologies for agriculture to enable teaching and learning to meet the needs of the modern workplace and to support the transition to Net Zero
- Training for staff to upskill them in green technologies, and the latest digital teaching tools and curriculum requirements
- Community soft skills programmes and soft skills training for local businesses
- Resources and development time to create and deliver new curriculum in Local Skills Improvement Plan priority areas – soft skills, digital skills and Net Zero skills.
Collaborative initiatives funded by the Local Skills Improvement Fund –
Digital Futures Conference
A major Conference held on Wednesday 13 March 2024 at The Hold, Ipswich featured speakers from across the education and technology sector and brought together all the partners in the LSIF project.
Norfolk and Suffolk LSIF Business Training Programme
This bitesize training offer features courses covering all the local priority areas – soft skills, digital skills and green skills, in response to priorities identified by employers in the Local Skills Improvement Plan. It includes the Norfolk and Suffolk Digital Passport, a suite of training materials in digital basic skills that are free to use for local providers.
Green Futures
This collaborative exhibition stand at the 2024 Suffolk and Norfolk Shows included a film, digital resources, information and activities promoting green skills across all sectors. All LSIF partners and Norfolk and Suffolk Chambers of Commerce took part. The digital resources are available at https://www.icanbea.org.uk/green-futures/ for future careers work.
LSIF partner investments
For information on LSIF investments by individual partners, check –
Suffolk New College – www.suffolk.ac.uk/greenskills
West Suffolk College – https://www.wsc.ac.uk/employers/local-skills-improvement-plan
