Greg Clark MP, Minister for Cities, provided the keynote address this week at the Solent Local Enterprise Partnership’s (LEP) Solent Skills Summit.
The event on Tuesday saw the launch of the Solent Skills Strategy, which aims to tackle the Solent’s skills challenges across four priority areas: developing world-class skills; transitions to employment; raising business investment in skills and developing a responsive skills and employment system.
Speakers from local businesses, further education colleges and over 100 attendees joined the Rt Hon Greg Clark MP in welcoming the new strategy at City College Southampton. The focus now shifts towards securing resource through the Growth Deal process with Government and delivering on the recommendations in the strategy.
Following the event, Greg Clark MP said: “As the national economy recovers and we seek to create employment opportunities through initiatives such as City Deals and Growth Deals, it is going to be increasingly important to ensure that we have a skilled labour market in the UK that can take advantage of this growth.
“Many of these opportunities will require higher level skills and, increasingly, expertise in STEM [Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics] subjects, which makes it critically important that we address skills gaps in our workforce as soon as possible.
“Skills is therefore an issue right at the heart of local growth and I am delighted to see the Solent tackling this head on with the strategy they have published today.”
Sarah McCarthy-Fry, chair of the LEP’s Solent Employment and Skills Board, said: “Ensuring our economy has the skills it needs to prosper is one of the biggest challenges the Solent faces. Therefore, I believe that this skills strategy will be the foundation supporting all of the LEP’s work to develop the region’s economy.
“It is fantastic to have such support not only from the business and education community at today’s event but from the very highest level, with the minister showing his backing for the LEP’s approach.”
The Solent Skills Strategy has now been published and is available for download at: http://solentlep.org.uk/uploads/documents/Solent_Skills_Plan_2014.pdf
