MPs to investigate skills and growth
Author: Ruth Keeling, LGC |
MPs have launched an enquiry into the role played by skills provision in local economic growth plans amid pressure for funding and decision making to be devolved to the local level.
The all party parliamentary group on local growth has announced it will examine the issue and aims to report its conclusions in spring.
The inquiry will scrutinise whether skills providers are adapting to the new local growth landscape, the role of local enterprise partnerships and whether accountability could be devolved from existing structures.
The group’s intervention comes as the government considers recommendations from Lord Heseltine’s growth review. This includes calls for the creation of a single pot which covers growth-related funding such as skills and a recommendation that local enterprise partnerships work more closely with employers and learning providers.
The government is also considering requests for reform of skills provision from the community budget pilots. Responses to both are expected in the next few months.