“Addressing skill gaps and improving the skills of the working population is central to achieving growth ambitions in the East. A coordinated regional approach is needed to tackle this challenge.”
So said the Eastern Powerhouse manifesto, published earlier this year, which put forward a whole range of recommendations to address key challenges in the region’s education and skills system.
On 7th November, the EPH is taking a major step towards a regional skills strategy by bringing together an influential and expert group, which will include regional employers, education and training providers, universities, local and national politicians, and senior representatives from the Department for Education and other key government agencies.
The aim is to use this event as a springboard for agreeing headline priorities and producing a draft strategy for wide consultation and agreement across the region.
The mini-conference will focus on three main themes.
Making Skills England work for our region
Central to the success of Skills England will be the relationship between this new national body and regional skills bodies. While the East has some tremendous educational assets – major universities with international reputations, thriving further education colleges and training providers, and some excellent schools – their efforts are not coordinated. This is partly due to the geography of the region and its fragmented transport infrastructure, but also because in recent years political devolution beyond the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority has stalled. While we wait for a new devolution deal to be agreed, how can we all work more closely to improve collaboration and develop regional solutions to skills challenges?
Local Skills for Local Jobs
The East is one of the most productive regions in England and contains several sectors with enormous growth potential, such as Plant Science, Agri-tech, Film and TV Production, Life Sciences and Renewable Energy. The Eastern Powerhouse has argued that such a variety of assets across the region means we need to adopt a polycentric approach to growth, skills and jobs. From Silicon Valley onwards, economists have observed how clusters of companies in close proximity to each other drive innovation and growth, especially when their workforce has good access to high-quality education and skills. But how exactly can we begin to make this a reality, not just in Cambridge, but in Norwich, Peterborough, Stevenage, Ipswich and across the region?
The Green Workforce and Delivering Net Zero
The rural character of much of the East, along with its magnificent coastline, offers a unique platform for the development of the region as a national centre for renewable energy industries. But once again there is a challenge of connectivity and coordination. How can we invest in green skills to ensure employment opportunities to support this vision are accessible to local communities and generate high-value jobs for future prosperity?
For anyone with an interest in education and skills in the East, this is a golden opportunity to help shape the agenda. Our belief is that the changed political landscape across the region, combined with a new national government committed to growth, skills and devolution, will introduce new energy to the debate and enable new ideas to flourish.
This event will be a milestone on the road to a skills strategy for the East.