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Overview:

Sussex Chamber of Commerce is delighted to have been chosen by the Department for Education as one of eight Local Skills Improvement Plan (LSIPs) trailblazer chambers across the country.

Over the next few months, we will work with employers and employer representative groups, to identify the local needs and solutions to address them in our key sectors:

• Engineering and Manufacturing
• Construction
• Digital
• Visitor and Cultural Industries
• Land-based
• Health and Care

There is universal agreement that only through a collaborative and joined up approach we will generate a plan that truly recognises the skills needs, and more importantly, some of the solutions that colleges, universities and providers will need to implement to address these.

It is also recognised that we need to build on the intelligence and information that is already available, and this project will work closely with businesses, Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs), local authorities and local skills groups to build on the wealth of existing evidence to develop a skills improvement plan that really will make a difference to Sussex’s productivity and prosperity.

Overall purpose is to:

• Build shared understanding around skills needs
• Extend collaboration between education and training providers and employers to meet identified needs in priority sectors
• Deploy innovative and effective ways of reaching employers and collating futures skills needs in a meaningful way
• Translate needs into an effective tool to support providers adapt their offers

Skills have never been a more important topic as we re-open our economy and lives in general and we start to address the post covid and post Brexit world.

The LSIP plan needs to:

• Add value
• Be different
• Challenge the norm
• Provide new insights
• Disrupt the status quo
• Be innovative

Specification of skills needs

• Marshall on-the-ground intelligence from employers to identify and articulate unmet and future skills needs in Sussex (priority sectors and cross cutting)

What needs to change and why

• identify and set out what needs to change in the local skills system and why (evidence based)
• Set out the identified supply and demand barriers to a more responsive skills system

Roadmap for delivering change

• Agree with providers and others what local action can be taken to improve responsiveness
• Set out specific interventions are needed to address barriers that are preventing the system from adapting

Benefits to Business and Providers:

• Improve productivity and fill skills gaps with locally grown talent
• Create international competitiveness
• Increase economic growth
• Strengthen links between employers and further education and providers
• Place employers at the heart of defining local skills needs
• Improve the skills system will be crucial to building an agile and adaptable workforce
• Support people to get the skills our economy needs and give them opportunities to progress in their careers.
• Make sure people can access training and learning flexibly throughout their lives
• Support growth industries