Agenda and minutes

Andrew Kirk (Vice Chair and Chair for this meeting) welcomed Clare Marchant to the Board.  Clare is the new Gloucestershire Employment and Skills Board and will chair the next meeting on 11 April 2018. 

Matthew Burgess declared an interest in Institutes of Technology, should the topic arise.

The minutes of the meeting on 4 October 2017 were accepted as an accurate record.

Comments and updates on the action log:

·         Item 2:  Priorities and Work Plan – data:  It was suggested that other LEP groups could provide data.  Kathryn Wagstaff reported that the new Gloucestershire Economic Intelligence Working Group will help to collect and coordinate information and data.

·         Item 4:  Priorities and Work Plan – Business Survey/Brexit:   Kathryn Wagstaff updated the meeting on the scope and size of the survey.  It is targeted at 1200 businesses in the county which is designed to be a representative sample.   The last business survey was undertaken in the 1990s.   Headline findings from the survey will be reported at the April meeting. 

·         Item 6:  Priorities and Work Plan – Skills Budget Devolution:  In answer to a question from Clare Marchant, Pete Carr reported that he understands that devolution is on hold in Gloucestershire.   There is a ‘watching brief’ on progress in areas that already have devolution deals such as West of England and Greater Manchester.   Sara-Jane Watkins updated the Board on latest information – the plan is for West of England to have a shadow year in 2018/19 for its devolution of Adult Education Budget with go live in 2019/20.   Councillor Lynden Stowe suggested that from a strategic point of view Gloucestershire needs to align with Midlands and Oxford/Milton Keynes/Cambridge as well as Bristol.

·         Item 10:   Industrial Strategy:   Pete Carr reported that there is more information due to come out from central Government.  Funding around this is still unclear. 

GESB members are asked to confirm/add to proposed actions

Pete Carr introduced his paper and asked that the Board agree whether these are the priorities and actions of this group.   The following comments were made:

·         Stronger links between schools and businesses – it was suggested this should also include colleges

·         Councillor Steve Lydon suggested that the focus of the Board should be on producing the skills section of the Industrial Strategy

·         Members feel that this Board has a role in finding out from schools what they are currently doing and if there is an appetite for industry to work more closely with schools and the wider community.

·         The work of the Gloucestershire Employment and Skills Board needs to have profile

·         Concern that there are too many priorities but it was agreed the Board needs to start somewhere so the proposed four priorities were confirmed as the starting point. 

Kathryn Wagstaff presented a suggested dashboard of information, based on the priorities and KPIs, together with other relevant, helpful and available data sourced from local and national datasets.   It was agreed that the dashboard would provide valuable initial data which can be refined at a later stage.

Kathryn will update the dashboard following the comments of Board Members and circulate for final comments, and will complete the dashboard as much as possible for the next meeting.

Discussion, facilitated by guest Andrew Lloyd from Prospects

·        Understandingthe proposals

·        What can Gloucestershire add?

·        Recommendations and actions

Members welcomed Andrew Lloyd to the meeting to give some insight in to the recently published Careers Strategy.   He circulated summary/key points from both the Careers Strategy and the newly published ‘Careers guidance and access for education and training providers – statutory guidance’,  Andrew works at Prospects – provider of careers information, advice and guidance – and is employed as a Careers Advisor and Coordinator at a Gloucestershire school.

Main discussion points were as follows:

·                     Focus is to use careers guidance to drive social mobility

·                     GATSBY benchmarks to be used by all schools

·                    Use of quality awards – expensive in time and commitment, but valuable as a framework

·                     Appointment of careers leaders – varies from school to school

·                    Anne Stokes reported that there are almost as many models for delivery of careers education, information and guidance as there are schools

·                    Very few local authority secondary schools, with the local authority having no influence on academies/independent schools which number 39

·                    Challenge of encouraging young people to return to Gloucestershire after going to university outside the county

·                    Anne Stokes will ensure that Heads are aware of the new statutory guidance and open dialogue between the Gloucestershire Employment and Skills Board and the heads so that they can work collaboratively.

Members agreed that it is important for the Board to proactively engage with Heads/Principals to share the Board’s purpose and priorities with a view to building relationships before requesting information and data.

Pete Carr explained that Local Enterprise Adviser Networks were central to the delivery of the new Careers Strategy and that GFirst LEP was currently employing a team of three staff to manage the network and coordinate links between schools and businesses.   He reported that two of the three staff had just resigned and this had prompted GFirst LEP to review options for the work of the team.  He would welcome dialogue with any GESB members about possible solutions.

There was no other business

The date of the next meeting is Wednesday 11 April 2018 at 10am at the Growth Hub, Oxstalls Campus, Oxstalls Lane, Gloucester.