Successful Skills Conference focuses on higher level skills

More than 100 people from Warwickshire’s business and education communities came together at Warwickshire County Council’s (WCC’s) annual skills conference on 6 March at Stoneleigh Park, Kenilworth.

Representatives from the worlds of business and education discussed ways higher level skills can help drive the region’s economic growth.

Key messages delivered at the conference

1. Monica Fogarty, Chief Executive, WCC outlined the priorities of the new all-age Careers Strategy which the Council is currently developing and will consult on in the spring with a view to publication in the summer.

2. David Ayton-Hill, Economy & Skills Group Manager, WCC, gave delegates plenty of key data and information to consider about the county’s skills picture now, and in the future including:

• Between 2012-2022, 60% of jobs that will need filling will require higher level skills

• Higher level skills are those needing qualifications at Level 4 and above. (Level 4 includes: Higher Apprenticeships, Certificate of Higher Education, Higher National Certificate and Level 4 NVQ.)

• The attributes associated with higher level skills and increasingly needed are: higher cognitive functions of creativity and processing complex information; social and emotional skills such as taking initiative, management and leadership; and technological skills including advanced IT skills and programming.

• Despite Warwickshire seeing a strong growth in the proportion of the population with a Level 4+ qualification (increasing from 31% in 2010 to just over 40% in 2017), recent data suggests that up to 50% of people with these higher level qualifications are working in roles that do not require them.

• There is a need to better connect our businesses with our education providers to enable a better matching of roles, skills and behaviours to support our continued growth and make best use of this growing highly skilled population.

     

3. Cllr Peter Butlin, Deputy Leader of WCC announced an innovative Apprenticeship Levy Transfer Programme for small businesses.  Many large employers, including the Council, struggle to fully utilise their Apprenticeship Levy.  Utilising the new flexibilities, the Council aims to transfer up to £300,000 per year to help support smaller, non-levy paying businesses, such as organisations operating in the adult social and child care sector, and cover their apprenticeship training costs.  

4. Delegates also heard an interesting summary of how employers can access the graduate talent pool from Professor Pat Tissington, Academic Director of Employability and Skills, University of Warwick;  insights into how FE colleges can help, from Neil Coker, Director of Warwickshire College, Rugby and finally an overview of the range of exciting skills initiatives being undertaken at The Coleshill School from Headteacher, Ian Smith-Childs.

5. Lively discussion took place round the tables, coming up with a number of ideas of how WCC, businesses and education providers can help businesses tackle skills shortages and gaps.  Several delegates stressed the importance of identifying and communicating changing future skills needs as soon as possible to enable providers to respond by aligning their provision. The County is going to explore ways of doing this. 

The Skills Conference is a key element of Warwickshire County Council's £3 million Skills for Employment programme which has funded more than 40,000 careers and employability activities in more than 600 local businesses during the last four years.

For further information about the programme please e-mail skillsforemployment@warwickshire.com