UKCES

Our strategic priorities: employment and skills in context

In pursuing our mission, we recognise fully that employment and skills are not the only drivers of productivity and social cohesion. Global factors, innovation, research and development, business and industrial strategies, competition and regulatory policy, transport and technological infrastructure, as well as culture and institutions all influence economic prosperity.

We will consistently seek to understand the political, policy, delivery and institutional contexts in which we operate. We will work in partnership with our sponsors and stakeholders to achieve shared goals and ambitions.

Our Constituencies

The scale and complexity of the commitment to secure a world-class employment and skills system by 2020 is immense, as the scope of the priorities set out in the previous section demonstrates. If we are to support this undertaking effectively, we must engage with four constituencies:

• Employers – private, public and voluntary; large, medium and small, especially acting collectively through industry sectors
• Individuals – all individuals seeking to benefit from education, training or skills development – those in the workforce, those actively seeking work and those currently economically inactive, with a primary focus on adults in the working age population (post compulsory education)
• Providers of employment and skills services – private, public and voluntary providers, FE and other colleges, universities and employers’ own work-based training. Although not our principal focus, some of our work will have important implications for schools and pre-19 education, particularly in their role to prepare young people for adult life, work and continuing education and training
• Communities – regions, economic or labour market areas, cities and city regions, significant conurbations or other localities where employment and skills can best be delivered in each UK nation.

We have adopted three top priorities for the period 2009-2014, and we will design our research, analysis and programmes to advise governments on how the UK can succeed in: