11 Sep LGA employment and skills

Our recent report for the Local Government Association (LGA) (Employment and skills: The evolving role of local government) captures the vital work that local and combined authorities are already doing on employment and skills, and how this links to the current government’s growth agenda. This is especially timely in the context of the recent English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill which builds on the English Devolution White Paper from December 2024. The report is also relevant to the national Get Britain Working (GBW) agenda and it should provide useful insights for areas that are still developing their GBW strategies.

The state of policy flux provides a timely opportunity to learn from best practice, as local leaders hope to use devolved powers to play an increasingly important role in improving employment and skills outcomes in the communities they represent.

Our report tackles three broad themes of local government activity on employment and skills: supporting the skills system, support to Employer Representative Bodies in the development and delivery of Local Skills Improvement Plans (LSIPs) and the integration of former Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) functions.

To construct the report, we worked closely with employment and skills practitioners in local and combined authorities across England.

Our work reinforced support for familiar themes of fragmentation in the employment and skills support system. However, through our case study examples, we found examples of interesting ways to address fragmentation at the local level. One example included the concept of a “critical mass service”: drawing together in one place, and with a dedicated team, the potential of several separate funding streams. This led to one of our main recommendations, that central government should support the “hubs” model with single pot funding as a form of key local infrastructure for employment and skills training.

On the theme of LSIPs, it was clear that local authorities have played a proactive role in supporting Employer Representative Bodies (ERBs) throughout the LSIP development process. Approaches have included providing data and insight to support the development and selection of sector priorities and working collaboratively with the ERBs to achieve effective business engagement. Such contributions demonstrate the added value local authorities can bring to the LSIP process and underline the importance of establishing a clear role for local authorities in non-mayoral combined authority areas in drafting the generation of the next LSIPs. A formalised role for local authorities in LSIPs will also help policy join-up, for example with the locally led Get Britain Working (GBW) plans.

Overall, this report underlines the continuing efforts of local government to align employment and skills activities with national growth ambitions. The case studies in particular highlight the work of local government to join up employment and skills support and strategy in what is a fragmented and complex system of funding and delivery. Our work aims to support the continuation of effective local practice and to cement the role of local authorities and their partners in the national employment, skills and growth agendas.

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