South West Regional Skills Enterprise and Employment Analysis 2007/2008

Final Report

8. RECOMMENDATIONS FOR ACTION

C Sectors

C1 Issues

• The very focused sectoral nature of the skills shortages and gaps in the region demands a sectorally-focused approach. The RSP's Sectors Operations Group is already contributing to this by establishing a dialogue between individual sector groups and partner agencies to develop solutions for the short and the medium term. This work needs to be built upon.

• Significant cross-sector themes identified by the sector analysis include:

• Leadership and Management
• Information, Advice and Guidance
• Level 3 Skills
• Improving the supply of Apprenticeships
• Improving the supply of Level 2 skills.

• These themes are considered individually elsewhere in this Recommendations section of the report. What the sectoral analysis has shown, however, is that in developing plans to make improvements in these areas, there is a particular requirement to ensure that the needs of individual sectors are met. Some of this can be achieved directly through the work of the Sectors Operations Group, but there is also a need to feed the output of sectors' work into the development of specific thematic plans.

• There is a need for better and more robust sectoral intelligence at regional level and this may be achieved by supporting the model established by the Construction Skills Observatory for other priority sectors.

C2 Recommendations

• In parallel with the on-going work on SSAs, the Sector Operations Group should develop longer-term skills development plans in line with the Sector Skills Strategy which should be an ultimate output of this review process. This should include setting a common definition of Sectors.

• The Sector Operations Group should work closely with the leads for the identified cross sector themes to ensure that sector requirements are being taken into consideration by sharing information on demand as articulated in SSAs.

• The Sector Operations Group should work with SLIM to develop improved intelligence and reporting on skills for individual sectors.

• The RSP and its constituent partners should work closely with the Skills for Business Network (SfBN) Skills Alliances to ensure that all current and future sector skills needs are comprehensively understood and actioned where appropriate.