Hosted at Imperial ScaleSpace Wood Lane.

Skills Gap summaries.

LSIP funding renewed.

Wave 6 Bootcamps GLA – 25 million pounds.

West London, Transport and logistics hot spot.

Lomas, ‘Are map skills for logistics paper based or wholly digital?’

Hosted at ScaleSpace by Westfield Shepherds Bush, Tom Bailey strategy director for Imperial welcomed guests to the University's innovation campus, over a hundred spin up start ups alongside research students, science technology and business, AI and Bio with Hammersmith Hospital just up the road for meds. A location in the heart of the White City Innovation geographic.

West London Skills board Chair Cllr Cowan highlighted the contrast between exceptional success of the PhDs and the work skills gaps in the West London employment for practical work. The modern practical job role needs agility.

Skills Gaps in West London – retail – Health Care – Transport & logistics – Hospitality.

Overview paper highlighting information we do have and where the gaps are. Data to hand. Inter-Departmental business register 2024 gives units in a geographic area to sector. Local skills improvement plan 2023-24 (shows six priority sectors) – London growth plan 2025. Eighty thousand unemployed in West London.

Combined data then shows priorities for Retail, Health and care, Transport and Logistics, Hospitality, Creative, Construction, Green Life, Sciences.

Comments from members on how we can effectively pull this information together.

Logistics and Transport got strong focus as a West London hot spot for the sector of logistics. Carl Lomas mentioned digital focus in the present DFE IFA Trailblazer review considering need for paper based map skills in the land of developing tech of sat nav and route finding systems.

Next steps – Achieving Better data for West London. Skills gap data, building accuracy, completeness, reliability, relevance, timeliness. Time to look at a small number of sectors over the next few months, possibility for a UWL PhD student to review. Opportunity through second iteration of LSIP, a route to better data collection for skills gap focused on a few priority sectors.. A further study of private sector training could help. Some private sector employers delivering key training outside the funded mapping.

West London Board - ways of working and proposed sub-groups

Proposed sub-groups (based on member survey) - Employer engagement, Youth employment, Strategy & devolution, (Trailblazers) & a smaller group to look at Data.

Wave 6 Bootcamps GLA – 25 million pounds

GLA timescales are very short, discussion at table to form alliances for bids. 25 million available in wave six. Key issue is employer engagement and jb interview opportunity.

Board updates:

• Trailblazers

o Pilot programmes announced in the Government’s Get Britain Working White Paper, to better join

up skills, health and employment support in places. London hosting two Youth Guarantee and two

Economic Inactivity trailblazers.

o Economic inactivity: West London will host a £9m programme spanning across two NHS geographies

(North West London and North Central London) which will aim to support people with

musculoskeletal (MSK) conditions back into work through combined health and employment

support. After mental health, MSK is the second biggest reason for people being off work with long

term health conditions.

o Youth Guarantee: the GLA are running a pan-London pilot on youth unemployment, but have

worked with sub-regions to develop proposals and anticipate that various aspects of the offer will be

tested at sub-regional level. The proposal is wide-ranging and focuses on ‘hidden’ NEETS that drop

out of education or employment at transition points such as the move from school to college; care

leavers; and young people with mental health barriers. Aspects of the proposal include social media

promotion and an online resource learning from work that West London has led, as well as support

to frontline youth workers and advisors.

o A conference is being planned to kick off delivery in London in May.

• Inclusive Talent Strategy

o Commitment in the recently published London Growth Plan, and GLA updated the Board on this in

January

o Plan aims to be a ‘workforce plan for the capital’ and seeks both to support the Growth Plan’s

ambitions on London’s high-growth sectors, and to underpin efforts to help Londoners further from

the labour market into jobs and careers

o Engagement and work has started with a view to completing and publishing the strategy in

September

o Early discussions have highlighted the need for this to align with any place-based plans

commissioned by DWP / DfE (‘Get Britain Working Plans’), work being done by the NHS locally, and

the refresh of the London Local Skills Improvement Plan.

• Local Skills Improvement Plan (LSIP)

o DfE has confirmed that funding for LSIP work will be continued in the new financial year

o We anticipate being able to start a refresh of the current London LSIP / West London Annex in the

autumn

• Skills Bootcamps – Wave Six

o GLA will be inviting bids from interested providers for the next round of Skills Bootcamps shortly

• Political engagement

o West London further education, higher education and local authority leaders will meet with Skills

Minister, Jacqui Smith on 31 March at the University of West London