A new plan will be drawn up to help stop Cumbria’s brain drain.
Cumbria Chamber of Commerce will lead the Local Skills Improvement Plan to set out the priorities needed to make technical and skills provision in the county match up with employers’ needs.
It has been chosen by the Department for Education as part of a national roll-out of the scheme and the chamber must produce a plan for Cumbria this year and continue to refresh, build on, and implement the plan over the following two years.
The aim of a Local Skills Improvement Plan is to:
- Ensure a better match between the supply of and demand for skills
- Drive greater collaboration between training providers
- Make provision more accessible and addressing barriers to progression
- Recognise that improving the supply of skills must be accompanied by demands and measures that drive greater employer engagement
It follows on from the chamber’s successful delivery of an LSIP Trailblazer pilot earlier this year, which involved engagement with hundreds of employers countywide, employer bodies, providers and other stakeholders.
Other employer representative bodies partnering in the delivery of the Trailblazer included Britain’s Energy Coast Business Cluster, CBI, CITB, CLA, Cumbria Tourism, The Farmer Network and the NFU.
The chamber’s plan will build on the work done during the Trailblazer pilot by identifying and clearly articulating employer needs, issues and opportunities and setting out how these can be addressed and acted on.
Suzanne Caldwell, managing director of Cumbria Chamber of Commerce, said: “We’re delighted to have been appointed to take this forward, working with employers, partners and wider stakeholders and we are looking forward to doing that.
“The pilot was a great success. A good number of the actions identified have already been implemented or are underway – some before the report was even finished in March and stakeholders are continuing with that.
“That in itself speaks volumes about Cumbria, the practicality and commitment of Cumbria’s people and what we can achieve working together. The national roll-out gives us all a valuable opportunity to build on what we started in the pilot, going into more depth and expanding the sectors covered.”
