Skills and Employment Board – Minutes

10 June 2021 10:00am - 12:00pm

Members present

Organisation	Member	Role
York College	Lee Probert (LP) (Chair)	Chief Executive and Principal
Askham Bryan College	Sandra Burnhill (SBu)	Vice Principal
City of York Council - Executive	Councillor Andrew Waller (CAW)	Executive Member - Economy and Strategic Planning
Federation of Small Businesses	Caroline Chapman (CC)	Business Owner and Member Representative
The Skills Network	Mark Dawe (MD)	Chief Executive
West & North Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce	Mark Goldstone (MG)	Head of Policy and Business Representation
York and North Yorkshire LEP	Jude Knight (JK)	Head of Skills
York Jobcentre	Wendy Mangan (WM)	Deputy Employer and Partnership Manager, York & North Yorkshire
York St John University	Professor Karen Bryan (KB)	Vice-Chancellor

In attendance

Organisation	Representative	Role
University of York	Anna Hastie (AH)	Head of CPD
City of York Council	Alison Edeson (AE)	Skills Team Manager
Annabel Jelley Consultants	Annabel Jelley (AJ)	Strategy development consultant
City of York Council	Simon Brereton (SB)	Head of Economic development
City of York Council	Alison Edeson (AE)	Skills Team Manager

Apologies

Organisation	Representative	Role
Independent	Bethan Vincent (BV)	Marketing Director
City of York Council	Maxine Squire (MS)	Assistant Director - Education and Skills
Simpson York Limited	Amanda Davidson (AD)	HR Manager
University of York	Professor Kiran Trehan (KT)	Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Partnerships and Engagement
TUC	Gareth Forest (GF)	Policy and Campaigns

Minutes

1. Introduction

Lee Probert (Chair) welcomed members to the meeting.

Apologies had been received from Maxine Squire (City of York Council), Bethan Vincent (Netsells), Gareth Forest (TUC), Amanda Davidson (Simpson York Ltd), Kiran Trehan and Amanda Selvaratnam (UoY).

Sandra Burnhill attended on behalf of Dr Tim Whitaker from Askham Bryan College and Anna Hastie attended on behalf of University of York.

2. Minutes from last meeting 6 May 2021

The minutes were agreed as a true record of the meeting that took place on 6 May 2021.

Update on actions;

i) The proposed Community Renewal Fund bid for a Skills Hub project was not taken forward as it did not meet the criteria for the fund. However, plans are still being made to scope out the Skills Hub which will be detailed in item 3 of the agenda.

ii) Support for employees of John Lewis is being coordinated by Transition Managers in liaison with JCP and York College. There is funding from John Lewis for individuals to undertake training and develop skills to support them to re-enter the labour market.

LP gave an update on the Skills Accelerator fund which includes the Local Skills Improvement Plan (LSIP) Trailblazers and the Skills Development Fund (SDF). The West & North Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce submitted a bid for a LSIP Trailblazer in alignment with a SDF bid from five York and North Yorkshire Colleges.

3. One Year Plan Commitment Group Updates

AE gave an overview  to members on the developments with the priority activity in each commitment group. The main activity for each group includes;

1. Scope current and future IAG Provision including initiatives (potential pilot) to engage the hardest to reach groups

2. Scoping a skills hub while continuing to align and promote support

3. Scope digital pilot and roll out national provision

4. Develop a framework for improved employer engagement and encourage creation of Apprenticeships and T-Level placements 2021/22.

AE gave a more detailed update on Commitment Group 1 which includes the mapping of what IAG exists in the city to establish what activity is needed and where the gaps are. The emphasis is on access for the hardest to reach communities. With this in mind there is pilot work progressing in community centres using volunteer signposting to services in Foxwood with potential for other areas.

CAW commented that it was very important to keep local councillors informed of initiatives.

JK highlighted that existing initiatives must be linked with new activity and that initial contact with the hardest to reach groups can be challenging.

AH from University of York is the lead for Commitment Group 2 and was present to give an update on progress. Initial scoping of a Skills Hub has taken place which will be a facility for businesses and individuals to get support for skills needs. There is a clear overlap with some of the other commitment groups and this is being built into the plans. More scoping is needed with a view to building on other work such as ERSA and the YNY LEP mapping exercise. The intention is to scope out a viable plan including resource needs in the next 4-5 months and a plan will be brought back to the board for decision making regarding next steps. Members supported the project and suggested aligning it with stakeholder activity and other similar initiatives.

AE gave an overview of progress on Commitment Groups 3 and 4. Both groups are due to complete initial scoping by 21st June. Mapping of digital provision and identification of the interventions needed to fill gaps will be the main focus of Group 3. Work to build employer engagement for T levels and Apprenticeships is progressing well. AE highlighted that there are currently 150+ Apprenticeship vacancies in the York area which was seen as very positive by members.

Members were in support of the activity and made suggestions for greater alignment with existing initiatives such as Kickstart and Traineeships.

4. Update on 2-5 year York Skills Strategy

AJ gave a presentation on progress with the 2 -5 year Skills Strategy. Key points included the inclusion of an extra overarching principle to contribute to achieving  Net Zero by 2030 ambitions . This was endorsed by members.

AJ then went through each of the four commitment areas and outlined the top priorities for each. She also explained the 8 priority sectors which had been settled upon and a discussion followed. The priority sectors include;

1.Health & Social Care - massive need now and in the future, skills shortages, aging population and aging workforce

2.Agritech, bioeconomy and life sciences - growth sector and distinct for York, includes green skills/circular economy

3.Heritage - uses uniqueness of York offer to drive visitor economy in new ways

4.IT & Digital - skills needed at all levels now and in the future

5.Tourism, hospitality and retail (together as one sector?) - sectors important in York, low skilled but large numbers, hit by COVID, mostly small businesses

6.Construction - to keep pace with demand and support developments

7.Engineering (includes food manufacture, transport and rail) - high value jobs in sectors that increase productivity

8.Creative & Communications - links with the York culture strategy which specifically highlights skills needed to enhance the sector.

Members gave views on the inclusion of heritage as a sector. The skills needed in the heritage sector are really a subset of other sectors such as creative and digital but members agreed that heritage was distinct for York and would set it apart from skills strategies for other areas.

AH suggested that more clarity could be brought to the creative and digital sector which is broad in nature. She offered to share some work on this that had narrowed down and brought focus to the sector for York.

AJ introduced a discussion on accountability for the implementation plan. She asked to what extent the members wished to hold themselves to account for outputs and outcomes and how metrics should be monitored and collected.

A discussion followed in which members agreed that metrics should not be onerous and create an industry in themselves. Partners already contribute outputs and have their own sets of measures to adhere to. A key outcome should be the added value of the partnership on top of the work done by individual partners. The question was raised as to how value added could be measured. The UoY has done some work on this. AH agreed to share. AH and KB would also enquire as to whether academic colleagues could support the Board in defining measures. .

5. Future meetings

There are currently no meetings scheduled after this one. After a discussion it was agreed that a meeting is scheduled for end July and then another in September.

            6. AOB None

Action Log

No	Action	Who	By when	Date completed
001	Share copy of economic presentation	SB	W/E 8 January 2021	8 January 2021
002	Share copy of Timeline	AE	W/E 8 January 2021	8 January 2021
003	Amend ToR and issue final version	AE	W/E 8 January 2021	8 January 2021
004	Share copy of communications strategy  presentation	AE	W/E 8 January 2021	8 January 2021
005	Circulate dates for early 2021 meetings	LP	W/E 8 January 2021	8 January 2021
006	Circulate emerging priorities for comment and set out plan ahead of March 2021	AE, AJ, AS, LP	End January 2021	29 January 2021
007	Share copy One Year Plan presentation	AE	29 January 2021	29 January 2021
008	Raise question of LSIP pilot at Higher York	LP	W/E  5 February 2021
009	Follow up on LSIP pilot next steps with MG	LP/AE	W/E 19 February 2021
010	Members to feed into One Year Plan any extra comments	All	W/E  5 February 2021	05 February 2021
011	Members to inform AJ if they wish to join a task and finish group for 2-5 year Plan	All	W/E  5 February 2021	05 February 2021
012	Provide update on Local Skills Partnership Pilots when more is known from DfE	LP		Ongoing
013	Send any further amendments to the One Year Plan to AE	All	4 March 2021	Completed
014	Share existing LMI and any existing provision mapping	TW and All	15 April 2021	Completed
015	Provide a  summary of the main priorities across all four commitments	AS (T&F Group)	15 April 2021	Completed
016	Set up a joint conversation with partners and John Lewis re: skills support package	AE	Ongoing	Ongoing
017	LP, CAW and SB to follow up outside the meeting to ensure that elected members are kept informed of YSEB activity.	LP, CAW and SB	July 2021
018	AE slides to be shared	AE	July 2021
019	AH to share creative and digital sector work.	AH	July 2021
020	AH and KB to enquire as to whether  colleagues at the university could help to define appropriate measures.	AH	July 2021
021	AJ slides to be shared	AJ	July 2021
022	AE to arrange meeting for w/c 19 July	AE	July 2021