Author Description

This study, jointly conducted by the University of Warwick Institute for Employment Research (IER) and SQW Ltd., discusses the UK Government's intention to accelerate the process of ceding more responsibility for delivering a range of services to the local level. The logic is that local actors are better placed to identify local priorities. This raises the issue of how local skills systems--including further education and apprenticeship providers, schools, universities, employers, local authorities and associated agencies, Local Enterprise Partnerships, and the voluntary sector--can work better. Overall the study on which this report is based provides an opportunity to understand the way in which local-national and local-local collaborative working needs to develop if it is to enhance skill development in England. This entailed: (1) identifying how other countries have devolved their skills and employment policy to local or regional levels; (2) undertaking a local case study, that encompassed multiple local authorities--where moves to shape local skills provision to local demand were already in train--to understand how local skills devolution can be best realised. The Black Country in the West Midlands was selected as the case study; and (3) reflecting upon the international and local evidence to develop a framework to be used as a tool that will allow local actors to use their combined local knowledge to answer key questions about the context, drivers for change and desired outcomes to enable them to more effectively deliver local skills to meet local needs. The study provides learning lessons from abroad that were drawn from the USA, Canada, Australia, Belgium (Flanders), and Sweden. All have skill systems and models of local governance that reflect their unique historical development. But this does not preclude learning lessons from their experiences that can inform the process local areas in England are embarking upon. The following are appended: (1) Local skill