North East Ambition To Be Skills Beacon

Working to improve the skills of the North East's workforce is a big challenge, but one the North East Local Enterprise Partnership's Michelle Rainbow relishes.

The pressing need for more skilled workers to fill specialised jobs, tackling a skills mismatch between academic courses and available employment and addressing high levels of worklessness. All issues the North East economy has long wrestled with and crucial in addressing to narrow the productivity gap between the region and the rest of the UK.

An innovative approach to overcoming these decades-old problems is drawing widespread acclaim for Michelle Rainbow, Skills Director at the North East Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP), and her team. With a number of pioneering skills and employability programmes under way, Michelle’s goal is for the North East to become a national exemplar for skills and inclusivity. She says the North East is making huge strides in raising aspirations and improving social mobility. “It would be easy to look at the big picture and feel daunted,” said Michelle. “But the North East LEP has worked long and hard with a wide range of partners to understand the challenges and put a strategy in place that supports the overriding goal of creating 100,000 quality jobs by 2024. “Collectively, we are absolutely determined to help those out of work and whose skills face obsoletion. “Work is underway across five highly targeted work streams, which cover the careers journey from primary school right through to retirement.

Each focuses on lifelong learning for everyone so no-one is left behind. “As well as the university provision available here, there is a large network of private providers offering skills training and many organisations are capitalising on the strength of our technical education and apprenticeships. It’s a positive place to be. “We are confident what we are doing is right too, not least because the Government’s Industrial Strategy reflects our direction of travel and we continue to measure and evaluate progress as we go.” The North East is already pioneering the way after being selected by the Gatsby Foundation to pilot the Good Career Guidance Benchmarks programme in 2015. It improves career guidance within secondary schools by providing a structured framework to follow. Such is the impact of the career benchmarks in schools, teachers and training providers from Barcelona are due to visit the North East in the autumn keen to learn more and see if its success can be replicated in the Catalan capital. “The Good Career Guidance Benchmarks have been transformational for North East secondary schools,” said Michelle. “We’ve traditionally experienced low numbers of students choosing STEM subjects for their A levels or further education and up to recently have generally seen a drop off in attainment levels. This is now vastly improving. “The next step is to work with Government to encourage their roll out more widely here and across the country and to lobby for their introduction in primary schools. “Research shows that young people start to make life-limiting decisions around the age of seven or eight.

We want to halt that and also start to nudge them towards STEM and digital routes because that’s where the greatest opportunities lie.” Recognition for Michelle’s team has flowed with the success of the programme. Ryan Gibson, the facilitator for the pilot, was awarded the title of Career Educator of the Year at the recent Career Development Institute UK Career Development Awards. Michelle’s team hopes to engender similar results through a ‘retain, retrain and regain’ campaign aimed at the over 50s, which is currently in the planning stages. Work doesn’t halt there. Attention is also being given to the four universities within the North East’s LEP’s patch. Ensuring these are seen as anchor organisations within society forms a clear part of Michelle’s vision. “Our universities are world class and play a key role in supporting the local economy,” she said. “The next step is to work with them to support enterprise, retain local graduate talent and help with the latest thinking on knowledge transfer partnerships,” she said. She also wants apprenticeships to be accorded the value and status they deserve: “I’d love nothing more than for high quality apprenticeships to be given the same standing in society as academic attainment and we’ll do whatever we can to make that happen.” But it’s social mobility where Michelle’s passion lies and employability and inclusion sit at the top of her priority list. “Not leaving anyone behind remains our biggest priority which is why all our careers work is focused on ‘all and everyone’ and this translates from school right through to our technical, vocational and academic provision,” she said. “What we need to ensure is that all career advice and guidance emphasises the opportunities in the key sectors here such as digital, oil and gas and life sciences. It’s in this way we’ll support our most successful industries and future-proof our workforce for years to come.”