Links to other programmes
Please use the following menu for information and links to other related programmes.
Sector Skills Councils
Skills for Life
Support for Excellence
Train to Gain
Apprenticeships
Sector Skills Councils
To help you become more employer responsive, by ensuring that you are aware of sectoral needs and priorities, you might find useful information on your Sector Skills Council website.
Sector Skills Councils (SSCs) are independent, employer-led, UK–wide organisations designed to build a skills system that is driven by employer demand.
There are currently 25 SSCs covering over 90% of occupational sectors and they all work towards the following four key goals:
- reduced skills gaps and shortages
- improved productivity, business and public service performance
- increased opportunities to boost the skills and productivity of everyone in the sector's workforce
- improved learning supply through National Occupational Standards, apprenticeships, and further and higher education.
Please click here for the Sector Skills Councils pages on the UK Commission for Employment and Skills website
Please click here for a full list and contact details for the 25 licensed SSCs
The Alliance of Sector Skills Councils:
The Alliance is a new organisation comprising all 25 licensed UK Sector Skills Councils (SSCs), Its core purpose is to:
- Act as the collective voice of the Sector Skills Councils
- Promote understanding of the role of SSCs within the skills system across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland
- Co-ordinate policy positions and strategic work on skills with stakeholders across the four home nations
- Help build the performance capability of the Sector Skills Councils, to ensure they continue to work effectively on the employer-driven skills agenda.
Please click here for the SSCs Alliance website
Skills for Life
Skills for Life - literacy, language and numeracy – is central to providing truly employer responsive support. Skills for Life underpins everything that we do and these practical skills are key in supporting businesses to run smoothly and maximise their potential as well as supporting individuals in achieving their vocational goals. Skills for Life needs currently cost the economy an estimated £10 billion per year, and for an organisation that employs 50 employees, it is estimated that low skills cost up to £165,000 per year. For organisations that employ 1,000 or more employees, it is estimated to cost the business in the region of £500,000.
As part of the World Class Skills programme, Skills for Life is supported through two key initiatives – the Skills for Life Improvement Programme (SfLIP) and Move On.
SfLIP is designed to help support you and your organisation in improving learner success through the development of an organisation wide approach to embedding literacy, language and numeracy.
The Move On programme supports organisations in the positive engagement of learners, focused delivery, flexible delivery of national qualifications, and training for trainers, assessors and tutors.
Through the World Class Skills Programme, all engagements with providers look at identifying and developing any Skills for Life needs within providers with regards to delivery and the support they offer to employers. All support is fully funded and focuses on the centrality of Skills for Life within all teaching, assessing and accreditation.
If you would like futher information please contact us by email at, wcsenquiries@kpmg.co.uk or call us on 0800 32 86 075.
Support for excellence
The Learning and Skills Improvement Service (LSIS) Support for Excellence Programme has been met with huge enthusiasm from across the further education system and by 2009 had recruited over 750 participating organisations.
This innovative programme helps colleges and providers work together in peer groups to refine their self-assessment and quality improvement processes. Centred on ‘peer review and development’ (PRD) activity which focuses on an holistic approach to organisation development, it looks to support colleges and providers to build capacity for self-improvement and to support them as they move towards becoming self-regulating.
The Programme includes Offender Learning PRD groups comprising organisations from across prisons, probation and OLASS-funded providers. Many of these groups have already started their collaborative journey.
The Support for Excellence website provides a dedicated Resource Centre for peer review and development activity and a new online LSIS self-assessment practitioner guide, current being research and developed, is planned for release by May 2009.
Train to Gain
For information on Train to Gain please use the following link: Train to Gain website.
Further details to follow.
Apprenticeships
As employees, apprentices work alongside experienced staff to gain job-specific skills. Off-the-job, usually on a day release basis, apprentices receive training with a local training provider or college.
The employer responsive support offered by WCS can help providers secure and deliver work based learning through apprenticeship funding.
For further information on apprenticeships please visit the National Apprenticeship Service (NAS) website at www.apprenticeships.org.uk