WMCA Industrial Strategy Consultation

Policies for an Inclusive Economy

A response from the University and College union (UCU) to the West Midlands Industrial Strategy consultation document

We welcome the opportunity to respond to the West Midlands Industrial Strategy (WMIS) consultation document. [1]

Background

UCU supports devolution of skills funding where it is transparent, democratic and improves outcomes for local people in the broadest sense, including positive social and community outcomes.

Our focus in this response is on the claim that the WMIS is a strategy for Inclusive Growth.

Before we address specific issues we comment on the overall context and framing of the document.

‘Growth Plus’ or an ‘Inclusive Economy’?

The Greater Manchester Combined Authority was established before the WMCA and there are useful lessons that we in the West Midlands can draw from its experience. The Inclusive Growth Analysis Unit at Manchester University, which is funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation as part of its Cities, Growth and Poverty programme, has been researching the development of the GMCA for several years. In its report Inclusive Growth Opportunities and Challenges for Greater Manchester, published in October 2016, the IGAU points out that there are differing versions of the concept of inclusive growth: [2]

• views on inclusive growth tend to be located on a spectrum from a ‘growth plus’ position (which emphasises greater efforts to connect people to ‘growth as usual’), and an ‘inclusive economy’ position (which emphasises the need to change the nature of the economy in ways less likely to produce poverty and inequality). (p3)

The following table, adapted from the table on page 4 of the report, summarises the two conceptions of growth.

'Growth Plus'

• This position sees the existing economic model as necessary and/or unproblematic but acknowledges the need to connect more people in to this growth. More growth requires more inclusion.
• Focus on connectivity and the supply side of the labour market
• Pulling up the bottom of the distribution rather than questioning business models that create inequality
• Inclusion important because it supports growth
• Better distribution of future growth rather than of growth that has already occurred

'Inclusive Ecomony'

• This position maintains that the economy should serve inclusive, social goals. The current economic model produces inequality so needs to change to achieve greater inclusion.
• Focus on the demand side of the labour market
• Challenging business models that create inequality
• Inclusion important in its own right
• Distribution of existing prosperity not just dependence on future growth

An ‘Inclusive Economy’ approach

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation report Inclusive growth in the West Midlands: an agenda for the new Mayor [3] is an example of an ‘inclusive economy’ approach:

…inclusive growth - growth that benefits everyone across the city region. Such an approach would have clear economic, fiscal and social benefits.
Creating more and better jobs and connecting people in poverty to opportunities are at the heart of an inclusive growth agenda.

Attracting, retaining and generating investment to grow the economy is vital for a more prosperous city region. But while growth is necessary, it is not sufficient on its own to develop an economy that works for everyone and where poverty is lower.

…all too often the bottom end of the labour market is overlooked in local economic strategy. For inclusive growth, the quality of jobs created and the skills and capabilities of local residents to take them up is every bit as important as the number of jobs.

A ‘whole economy’ approach is needed. Alongside the targeting of traditional high growth sectors, activities to raise the productivity and pay in low pay sectors should also be a priority.

The government’s Industrial Strategy is based on a ‘Growth Plus’ model

As the Centre for Local Economic Strategy (CLES) points out in What Needs To Be Done: The Manifesto For Local Economies (May 2017), the Conservative government’s economic policies exemplify the ‘Growth Plus’ approach and it is the basis of its devolution policy: [4]

The devolution deals have been framed by austerity and locked into an economic model prescribed by the Treasury. People and places are expected to benefit either through trickle-down of new wealth generated through jobs, or a geographic ‘trickle outwards’ of wealth from city centres and growth areas. (p8)

The analysis by CLES is borne out by the Government’s ‘Local Industrial Strategies Policy Prospectus’, published in October 2018. [5] The Prospectus makes clear that ‘Local Industrial Strategies will be … long-term, based on clear evidence and aligned to the national Industrial Strategy.’ (p4) and that ‘Agreeing a Local Industrial Strategy for their area with Government will be a necessary condition for Mayoral Combined Authorities and Local Enterprise Partnerships to draw down any future local growth funding being deployed through them.’ (p7).

There is no mention of Inclusive Growth in the Prospectus:

The recently published Strengthened Local Enterprise Partnerships set out that reformed and stronger Local Enterprise Partnerships will adopt a single mission: to promote productivity by delivering Local Industrial Strategies. (p3)

A single-minded focus on productivity will not promote inclusive growth and in fact will tend to widen existing inequalities.

In 2017 the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Inclusive Growth published a collection of paper titled ‘The State of the Debate 2017’. The implications of government policy for an inclusive economy are explained by Professor Ruth Lupton, Director of the Inclusive Growth Analysis Unit (IGAU), in her paper ‘Inclusive Growth at City Region Level: A Perspective from Greater Manchester’, which is based on research with a range of stakeholders. [6]

…central government is in the way. I mean this partly as a point about England’s highly centralised governance structure.
But I also mean that specific current policies of central government are getting in the way. Three issues have occurred most commonly in our consultations:

1. the role of a punitive welfare system in preventing sustained employment;
2. cuts to the services which underpin inclusion in the labour market (such as adult and community learning, libraries, Sure Start centres and employment tribunals);
3. and cuts to social security which are taking money out of local economies.

The IGAU report concludes that ‘We will not see substantial progress unless central government also understands that social investments, funded through general taxation, underpin economic inclusion, and very likely also underpin greater prosperity and stronger national economic performance.’

The report also concludes that inclusive growth requires a radical change in business behaviour:

‘We have also learned that ‘inclusive growth’ doesn’t resonate very well with businesses or business representative organisations. A key challenge nationally and locally will be to leverage change in business behaviour.

There is a clear danger that stakeholders will sign up to inclusive growth in a ‘motherhood and apple pie’ way and that one or two additional things will get done, with no overall transformational effect.’

Another report from the Inclusive Growth Analysis Unit, ‘Towards Inclusive Growth in Greater Manchester’ (2016), warns that ‘While the development of a more inclusive economy appears to have wide support, it also requires large-scale change and the development of new policies and strategies that have not been part of mainstream urban economic development in recent years.’ [7]

The West Midlands Industrial Strategy consultation document and Inclusive Growth

The points above provide a context and framework within which to assess the West Midlands Industrial Strategy (WMIS) consultation document.

The first point to make is that the 40 page WMIS consultation document contains a page headed ‘Inclusive Growth’ (p24). The recognition of the need for growth to be inclusive is a welcome development, since the concept of inclusion has been largely absent from previous key documents of the WMCA until very recently. For example, one of the foundation documents of the WMCA, the 2016 Strategic Economic Plan, which is still in force, makes no reference at all to inclusive growth or inclusion (including no mention of gender and ethnic inequality). But the WMIS contains no acknowledgement that it represents a departure from previous policy. It contains no critical review and balance-sheet of previous and current policy.

A Growth Plus rather than an Inclusive Economy model

This raises the crucial question: how integral is inclusive growth to the industrial strategy of the WMCA? The WMIS draws together its strategies for growth in a page headed ‘Commitments’:

‘We have agreed ten ambitious but deliverable commitments. These show the kind of West Midlands we will achieve, by working together on connectivity and access to opportunities, on supporting successful supply chains and building on our distinctive competitive advantages.’ (p22)

There is no mention in these ten commitments of inclusion or inclusive growth. For example, there is no Commitment to a Living Wage, to eliminating zero-hours contracts or compulsory self-employment, and no commitment to trade union recognition.

Page 24 is headed ‘Inclusive Growth’. It too contains ten ‘commitments’. The problem is they are not integrated into the ten preceding ‘strategies for growth’ commitments, they are presented as an appendage to them and the relationship between them is not made explicit. This exemplifies a Growth Plus rather than an Inclusive Economy model.

How will Inclusive Growth be measured?

The WMCA’s principal measures of growth have been Gross Value Added (GVA) and numbers of jobs, rather than inclusive growth. Despite there being a page in the WMIS headed ‘Inclusive Growth’ it contains no proposed measures of progress towards inclusive growth. The WMIS states ‘Metrics by 2030 including: Increased healthy life expectancy, 500,000 Jobs, 215,000 Homes, 20,000 New Businesses’ (WMIS p7.) These are not measures of inclusive growth. To be so they would need to specify a narrowing of the gap in healthy life expectancy between the richer and poorer areas within the West Midlands and an increase in the proportion of ‘affordable’ homes including social housing. And they would also specify an increase in the wealth of the poorest and a reduction in the wealth equality gap.

They would also include issues of gender, ethnicity and dis/ability. The WMIS notes that ‘Black and minority ethnic (BAME) employment rates are 15% lower than for white groups. There are similar disparities for those with disabilities…’ (p10) but there is no mention of the gender disparities, including in pay. And none of these issues of inequality are mentioned in the page headed ‘Inclusive Growth’. This is disappointing and a missed opportunity.

These measures should be elements of a comprehensive set of ‘impact assessments to ensure that major strategies and developments reach, and do not further disadvantage, people who are already marginalised.’ (‘Towards Inclusive Growth in Greater Manchester’).

The TUC published a paper in June 2017 called ‘Can devolution generate inclusive growth in the West Midlands?’ [8]. It refers to the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) Inclusive Growth Commission report ‘Making Our Economy Work For Everyone’, published in March 2017. [9]

The RSA argued that we need to get much better at measuring growth, by taking into account things like:

• Job quality (e.g security, flexibility and contract types).
• How are skills used, detailed to the firm - and small town - level.
• Living standards (e.g. median household savings at neighbourhood, local and city-region level; health and wellbeing; individuals’ sense of agency and belonging).
• Level of enterprise (e.g. rate of new businesses opening up; share of workforce protected by employment rights).

The TUC paper adds that ‘a new “Quality GVA” metric should also measure worker voice (e.g. collective bargaining coverage, worker representation on boards).’

Developing a more inclusive economy and connecting more people to economic opportunity

The Inclusive Growth Analysis Unit report ‘Towards Inclusive Growth in Greater Manchester’ (October 2016) makes a useful distinction between two ‘main spheres of activity’: ‘those concerned with developing an inclusive economy and those concerned with including more people in economic opportunity.’

‘The former would include actions to ensure decent pay and working conditions, to develop economic activity in communities which have suffered economic decline, and to ensure equitable employment practices which do not discriminate between ethnic and social groups.

The latter would include strategies to increase knowledge and skills, and to connect people to jobs physically (via transport infrastructure and services) and via employment programmes, advice and guidance and the building of networks. They would also include support services to support and sustain employment, such as childcare and the mechanics of the social security system.’ (pp 4-5)

Developing an inclusive economy: a place-based approach

We are pleased to see that the WMIS integrates economic and social policies: ‘Taking a place-based approach - integrating investment in specific sites and growth corridors bringing together transport, housing, skills, Public Service Reform and wellbeing investment to drive long-term change.’ (p24). The WMIS page headed ‘Inclusive Growth’ does contain a number of positive proposals for developing a more inclusive economy:

Use our role as the public sector to deliver ‘anchor’ commitments – through procurement and our social value commitment minimise barriers to bidding for SMEs and new entrants.

Lead by example to promote diversity by implementing the Leadership Commission’s recommendations of organisational culture change policies and policies to support individuals in the WMCA and wider public sector.

Embrace the role of social enterprise – to diversify the types of economic activity available to create opportunities and improve wellbeing and productivity for people and communities. (p24)

The IGUA report ‘Towards Inclusive Growth in Greater Manchester’ makes a related point about promoting different forms of business organisation such as co-operatives, mutual and social enterprises: ‘Understanding how different forms of economic growth contribute to inclusion and exploring broader economic strategies including: developing sectors that may be slower or lower growing but create higher quality jobs; and increasing support for local start-ups and small businesses.’

Developing an inclusive economy: a whole system approach from cradle to career

In Manchester the Inclusive Growth Analysis Unit has taken the logic of a place-based approach further. Their 2017 report ‘Education and Skills from Cradle to Career: A whole-system approach for Greater Manchester’ identifies the following steps to be taken. [10]

• Set out a vision and strategy for education and skills as a whole linked to GM’s social as well as economic objectives.
• Develop new structures to bring all aspects from cradle to career into one system.
• Work with partners to develop oversight and coordination of system resources including
• - the type and quality of provision in relation to need, teacher demand and supply, teacher
• - development, and funding.
• • Develop analysis and intelligence capacity at the GM level. Develop better measures which
  - capture a wider range of outcomes and enable a focus on transition and progression.
  - Make maximum use of system capacity and move knowledge around, for example by setting up a knowledge-sharing hub, working with the Regional Schools Commissioner to identify schools in need of support, and maximising the contributions of universities.

UCU agrees with this analysis. Too often at a national level there has been a failure to think about how schools, colleges, universities and adult learning services can work together to complement each other and provide clear pathways for learners at all ages and stages. UCU would like to see a 'joined-up' approach, ensuring that all parts of the skills system link as seamlessly as possible. The WMCA could support this by ensuring providers work collaboratively instead of in competition for local resources.

The IGAU report goes on to call on the Mayor of the GMCA to ‘place equity and the reduction of inequalities at the heart of his strategy, and work with partners to:

• • Consider how resources could be distributed within the system to focus more effort on the most disadvantaged people, institutions, and places which are the keys to success.
•  Support place-based multi-agency approaches to address the “social determinants” of educational underachievement.
•  Identify aspects of the current system that contribute to educational inequalities and work out which could be dismantled by local action.
•  Draw systematically on research and on local evidence of success in addressing inequalities and make sure this knowledge is spread around the system.
•  Advocate for strength-based approaches and those that work closely with families and communities.’

Again UCU supports this analysis. The provision of accessible, local learning opportunities is important in engaging hard-to-reach groups who may be resistant to the idea of attending a college or university. Funding levels must allow providers to develop and adapt provision to meet learner needs in the community. This also means ensuring that local venues where adult learning courses are hosted (e.g. libraries) remain accessible. The WMCA could therefore play an important part in ensuring our physical skills infrastructure at a local level facilitates education for those not engaged with formal learning environments.

Developing an inclusive economy: employment standards

The TUC paper ‘Can devolution generate inclusive growth in the West Midlands?’ makes a number of proposals which focus on employment standards, especially in the low pay sectors of the West Midlands economy:

The WMCA should focus on upgrading jobs in lower skill, lower value sectors of the region’s economy. It should encourage all employers to go beyond the legal minimum on issues like voice at work, fair and decent pay, regular hours, fair treatment and respect, healthy workplaces, and learning and progression.

The WMCA should work with the government to develop industrial bodies charged with driving up pay and conditions in low-paid sectors.

The mayor should use his procurement powers to lead from the front in setting employment standards.
This is a massive task to undertake, but the Midlands can learn from the Welsh Government’s ‘Fair Work Nation’ programme, and kick things off by establishing a ‘Commission on great jobs’.

With unions and employers, the Commission should be tasked with enhancing procurement policy and work out how to promote great jobs across the region.

UCU would add to this list the importance of good careers Information and Guidance (IAG) which helps to connect local people with opportunities. Particularly given the large young population in the West Midlands, developing a high quality IAG network, accessible to all, should be a priority for the WMIS.

The TUC’s proposals relate to those in ‘Towards Inclusive Growth in Greater Manchester’, which include:

actions to ensure decent pay and working conditions, to develop economic activity in communities which have suffered economic decline, and to ensure equitable employment practices which do not discriminate between ethnic and social groups.

Increasing the number of employers paying the Living Wage, particularly those operating in low paying sectors and large employers, partly by promoting the Living Wage campaign but also by establishing and promoting standards of decent employment across the city-region, building on experience in certain local authorities.

The TUC paper stresses the need not only to focus on low pay often low skill jobs but to protect high-productivity jobs:

The TUC is keen to work with the WMCA and partners in the region to explore how to create the best possible investment environment for high productivity sectors, like automotive. This is a key priority given the prospect of a ‘hard Brexit’, which could have severe impacts on the automotive supply chain and FDI.

The mayor and WMCA should work in partnership with automotive employers and unions in the region to make the strongest possible case for Single Market access.

The Greater Manchester Combined Authority is currently developing a ‘Greater Manchester Employer Charter’. It’s an idea which the WMCA should adopt in the WMIS.

The Inclusive Growth Analysis Unit’s response to the ‘Greater Manchester Employer Charter’ consultation (March 2018) contains a series of proposals which UCU would recommend to the WMCA. [11]

What commitments should the charter contain?

•  Offering fair terms and conditions of employment: to include fair pay for all workers (including those in a company’s supply chain); a review of promotion criteria and decisions to ensure following best practice and equalities duties;
• Seeks to create pathways into work for under-represented and/or disadvantaged groups: employers commit to recruit from under-represented groups through targeted recruitment activities, and review current recruitment practices and decisions, particularly in relation to ethnicity, disability, and gender; employers encouraged to offer more well-paid jobs on a flexible, part-time basis.
• … It has already been suggested that the charter may include commitments to address the gender pay gap, tackle the use of exploitative zero hour contracts, promote ethical business practices, and ensure that we offer fair pay to apprentices.

Some principles for designing a GM employment charter

•  Prioritise clear and meaningful commitments and includes resource to engage and work with employers to secure change;
•  Contextualise employer achievements: set the bar high but recognise where progress is being made
•  Build a movement around the charter: the idea would be to bring together employers, employee representatives, campaigners and others on equal terms to review the charter. They could also act as a resource, helping to engage others;
•  Bring employers together to share learning and ideas on how to change employment practices. For example, the Green City Business Consortium aims to offer opportunities for business-to-business learning on environmental issues. This might be replicated for employment practices, perhaps with coordination by the Chamber of Commerce;
• Set out what the charter is aiming to achieve and commit to regular and transparent review. The aim should be to understand the extent and level of engagement and how many workers have been affected across Greater Manchester. The Living Wage Foundation, for example, collects data on the number of employees that have benefited from employer accreditation.

Developing an inclusive economy: procurement through ‘anchor’ institutions

The WMIS page on Inclusive Growth proposes to ‘Use our role as the public sector to deliver ‘anchor’ commitments – through procurement and our social value commitment minimise barriers to bidding for SMEs and new entrants.’ (p24).

This is supported by UCU and echoes a strategy being pursued successfully by the GMCA:

Maximising the local employment impact of the activities of the city’s ‘anchor institutions’ by

increasing local procurement and developing the capacity of smaller local businesses to supply their goods and services. (‘Towards Inclusive Growth in Greater Manchester’)

A similar approach is being adopted by Birmingham City Council which UCU supports and would encourage in other parts of the WMCA area. The commitment in the 2018 Manifesto has been followed by a ‘Local Wealth Building Summit 2018’ held on 17 July 2018 and the publication of Local Wealth Building in Birmingham & Beyond: A New Economic Mainstream, a report by the Centre for Local Economic Strategies. [12].

Developing an inclusive economy: gender and procurement

David Etherington and Martin Jones in their report 'Devolution, Austerity and Inclusive Growth in Greater Manchester: Assessing Impacts And Developing Alternatives’ [13] describe how ‘Public investment in social infrastructure makes economic sense, as it not only generates employment, but also contributes to gender equality and human development.’

They give the example of the care industry:

Reducing the employment gap is not the only gender inequality that could be improved through investment in care. Wages and working conditions in the care industry (including Health and Social Care which is identified as a key growth sector by the GMCA) would have to improve considerably if such an investment were to be successful, given existing retention and recruitment problems in the industry. Achieving high quality care is a gender issue in its own right, since women predominate among one significant section of care recipients, the elderly.

The 2017 report ‘Social care as a local economic solution for the West Midlands’, by the New Economics Foundation together with Localise West Midlands, argues that local authorities could use their procurement strategies to shift funding for social care from large often national profit-driven social care providers to small local businesses and social enterprises, which would provide more personalised care and also better working conditions for their largely female workforce. [14]

Connecting more people to economic opportunity

The principal approach of the WMCA to address this issue has been to focus on the need for a more skilled workforce and for better skills and qualifications for those wanting to access the labour market. Page 10 of the WMIS, headed ‘People, skills and employment’, summarises the problem.

Here are two extracts:

We have record levels of employment. But our social mobility, wage growth and access to opportunities lag behind overall growth and vary widely across the West Midlands. We have concentrations of low employment and high levels of unemployment and deprivation. Too many of our communities don’t enjoy the access to jobs, skills and support for enterprise that they should, and face entrenched structural issues creating a confluence of poor economic, social and health outcomes.

The West Midlands as a whole also performs below the national average on GCSE attainment, adult attainment, employment and unemployment. 86,036 people need to be upskilled to close the skills gap. On basic skills, 11.4% of the WMCA area had no qualifications in 2017 compared to 8% nationally, and there is a ‘missing middle’ of technical skills at Levels 3 and 4.

UCU believes that a highly qualified, well-supported and fairly remunerated workforce must be underpinned by a quality education system. To ensure education staff can perform to their best, we need to tackle systemic issues including low pay, high workloads and insecure employment practices in education as well as in the wider regional economy.

For example, staff pay in both the further and higher education sectors has fallen against inflation for several years, while many staff report that their workloads are becoming increasingly unsustainable. This is making it harder for institutions to compete with industry in recruiting and retaining staff, and has real implications for the future sustainability of the education workforce. In the FE sector alone over 15,000 teaching staff have been lost nationally since 2009, and UCU estimates that it would cost around £700m to restore capacity in the sector.
There is also a problem with widespread insecure precarious employment contracts in both the FE & HE sectors. Poor working conditions for staff mean poor learning conditions for students. As stated previously we believe the WMCA could help tackle insecure working conditions in the sector through specifications in its procurement and commissioning.

High-quality technical skills education needs to be led by dual professionals who are both educational and occupational experts. The Commission on Adult Vocational Teaching and Learning (CAVTL) highlighted the importance of the ‘two-way street’ in ensuring proper collaboration between employers and educators to ensure that those delivering technical education stay at the cutting edge of their field. There needs to be investment to ensure the workforce is able to access professional development opportunities and stay abreast of industry developments which inform high-quality skills learning.

The WMIS page headed ‘People, skills and employment’ has a number of positive proposals:

bespoke solutions for individuals, for example through the ‘Thrive into Work’ programme – a new employment support service for people with a mental health and/or physical health condition in primary and community care.

Targeted action to reduce youth unemployment – a fresh new approach to working with young people through the Transition to Work scheme to create a sustainable pipeline of young talent in the region.

Ensure that skills and employability support for residents are aligned with business support and that it is designed in a flexible manner that can address evolving needs of employers.

Nurture children & young people as our social capital of the future - developing new ways of tackling social problems that have become entrenched in the region and which block the potential of so many of our communities.

Expand radical prevention programmes - includes work with NHS such as the MCP EXPLAIN model in Dudley or Wolverhampton’s health integration.

The document offers two case studies of positive programmes in addition to the ‘Thrive into Work’ project: Black Country City Deal Working Together pilot [15] and the Inclusive Economy Partnership - Transition to Work (p25). [16]

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation report ‘Inclusive growth in the West Midlands: an agenda for the new Mayor’ (2017) makes two useful proposals:

Connect economic development and poverty reduction – where economic development leads to new jobs or local anchor institutions (the biggest local spenders and employers such as local authorities, universities, the NHS) are recruiting staff, action should be taken to ensure local people with barriers to the labour market benefit. (p13)

Individual Placement and Support schemes (where rapid entry into a mainstream job is complemented by on-the-job training and ongoing support to sustain employment) for people with learning difficulties and severe and enduring mental health difficulties. (p18)

The IGUA’s report ‘Towards Inclusive Growth in Greater Manchester’ points out that a major cause of exclusion of women from the economy is the lack of affordable high-quality childcare. It also stresses the importance of ‘the contribution of flexible working to reducing non-employment and under-employment and seeking mechanisms to promote this.’

Connecting more people to economic opportunity: the problem of low skill low pay jobs

Jonathan Payne has recently been carrying out research in the West Midlands focusing on local actors’ understandings of the ‘skills problem’ and approaches to addressing it. He provides a critical analysis which is absent from the WMIS report. It is worth quoting in some detail. [17]

The main finding of his report ‘Devolution, Inclusive Growth and Local Skills Strategies’ (2018) is that ‘local skills strategies are struggling to move beyond a narrow supply-driven agenda and develop a more integrated approach which fronts up to the challenges presented by low skill, low wage jobs.’

Equipping people with education and training can help some individuals to get better work but it cannot magic away low-skill, low-pay, insecure and dead-end jobs which still have to be done by someone.
The danger is that local skills strategies focus simply on boosting qualification stocks, addressing skills gaps and shortages, and equipping young people and the unemployed with the ‘right’ skills and attitudes for work, against the backdrop of massively reduced funding.

As the OECD/ILO have also argued, if local skills strategies are to contribute to national productivity and inclusive growth they need to go beyond traditional skills supply measures and address employer demand and utilisation. They call for a major re-think of the ‘skills problem’ which would involve integrating skills into broader initiatives around economic development and business improvement, and working with employers to address issues of product market strategy, work organisation and job design, and the way people are managed. A key challenge is firms bedded down on the ‘low road’, competing on the basis of price, with low wages and low skill job design.

This raises interesting questions for local skills strategies in England at a time when Government is asking Combined Authorities and LEPs to bring forward ‘local industrial strategies’. How far will local growth strategies address low paying sectors? Will we see skills integrated with economic development and business improvement initiatives in ways that do not neglect the lower end of the labour market? Do local actors have the resources, capacity and expertise available to do any of this and can they think differently about the ‘skills problem’? How much progress can be made locally in terms of raising employer demand for, and use of, skills in the context of a weakly regulated labour market and shareholder-driven economy?

Connecting more people to economic opportunity: the funding crisis

The TUC paper ‘Can devolution generate inclusive growth in the West Midlands?’ points out that ‘The West Midlands devolution agreement gives the mayor powers over adult skills. However, this is in the context of substantial cuts to Further Education since 2010, which the WMCA should call on the government to reverse.’ It recommends that the WMCA should:

Analyse the potential impacts of the loss of the EU European Social Fund, and consider making the case to government for post-Brexit replacement funding.

Explore opportunities to redistribute savings recouped by the Department for Education through the Apprenticeship Levy scheme towards adult education.

Connecting more people to economic opportunity: Apprenticeships

David Etherington and Martin Jones (2017) in their report 'Devolution, Austerity and Inclusive Growth in Greater Manchester: Assessing Impacts and Developing Alternatives’ advocate an Apprenticeship Charter:

Apprenticeships should be designed with respect to standards set down in an Apprenticeship Charter relating to pay, work quality and mentoring. Also there needs to be clear routes and pathways to accessing apprenticeships via schools and FE system. We recommend that a work and skills plan should be drawn up with the trade unions as well as employers and funding requirements based on both a demand and needs based assessment. The possibility of pooling levy funding exists and establishing a regional skills fund needs to be explored which can fund social investment projects such as Unionlearn workplace skills and Job-Rotation…. (p10) [See Note 1]

Connecting more people to economic opportunity: in-work progression

The WMIS makes a positive proposal:

Help workers to move up the value chain and access more employment opportunities through in-work progression … particularly for employers and residents working in tourism, retail and other historically lower paying sectors, where technological change will open up new, higher skilled roles. This will require focus through business support and skills provision. (p24)

The TUC paper ‘Can devolution generate inclusive growth in the West Midlands?’ makes a number of proposals:
The WMCA should focus on upgrading jobs in lower skill, lower value sectors of the region’s economy.

The WMCA should work closely with the Talent Retention Scheme to strengthen its understanding of the potential skills shortages on the horizon, and identify opportunities for partnership. It should also work with unions and employers to consider which other industries in the region could benefit from a similar scheme.

The WMCA can also use its devolved budget to:

• Create personal learning accounts and enable low income adults, the unemployed and others to access fully funded retraining courses.
• Provide an entitlement to face-to-face careers guidance and a new right to a mid-life career review for workers at the age of 50.

Finally, the government-sponsored Union Learning Fund could support skills and learning relating to major infrastructure projects in the region such as HS2. The WMCA should explore opportunities to support union ULF bids on projects like these in 2017-18 and beyond.

The WMCA should work closely with the Talent Retention Scheme to strengthen its understanding of the potential skills shortages on the horizon, and identify opportunities for partnership. It should also work with unions and employers consider which other industries in the region could benefit from a similar scheme. [18]

UCU supports all these proposals.

Richard Hatcher and Anne O’Sullivan for UCU.

November 2018

References

West Midlands Industrial Strategy (WMIS) consultation document. Undated, published September 2018. https://www.wmca.org.uk/media/2591/west-midlands-industrial-strategy.pdf

Ruth Lupton, Anthony Rafferty and Ceri Hughes (2016) ‘Inclusive Growth Opportunities and Challenges for Greater Manchester’, Inclusive Growth Analysis Unit, University of Manchester.
http://hummedia.manchester.ac.uk/institutes/mui/igau/IGAU-report-2016-F…

Joseph Rowntree Foundation (2017) ‘Inclusive growth in the West Midlands: an agenda for the new Mayor’. https://www.jrf.org.uk/report/inclusive-growth-west-midlands-agenda-new…

Centre for Local Economic Strategies (2017) ‘What Needs To Be Done: The Manifesto For Local Economies’. https://cles.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/What-Needs-to-be-Done_Th…

HM Government (2018) ‘Local Industrial Strategies Policy Prospectus’. October.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uplo…

Ruth Lupton (2017) ‘Inclusive Growth at City Region Level: A Perspective from Greater Manchester’. In All-Party Parliamentary Group on Inclusive Growth (2017) The State of the Debate 2017.

https://www.inclusivegrowth.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Final.5-AP…

Inclusive Growth Analysis Unit (2016) ‘Towards Inclusive Growth in Greater Manchester’. October. http://hummedia.manchester.ac.uk/institutes/mui/igau/Inclusive-Growth-S…

Silkie Cragg (2017) ‘Can devolution generate inclusive growth in the West Midlands?’. TUC. http://touchstoneblog.org.uk/2017/06/can-devolution-generate-inclusive-…

RSA Inclusive Growth Commission (2017) ‘Making Our Economy Work For Everyone’. https://www.thersa.org/discover/publications-and-articles/reports/final…

Ruth Lupton (2017) ‘Education and Skills from Cradle to Career: A whole-system approach for Greater Manchester’. Inclusive Growth Analysis Unit. http://hummedia.manchester.ac.uk/institutes/mui/igau/briefings/IGAU-Bri…

Inclusive Growth Analysis Unit (2018) ‘Response to the ‘Greater Manchester Employer Charter’ consultation’.

Centre for Local Economic Strategies (2018) ‘Local Wealth Building in Birmingham & Beyond: A New Economic Mainstream’. https://cles.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Local-Wealth-Building-in…

David Etherington and Martin Jones (2017) 'Devolution, Austerity and Inclusive Growth in Greater Manchester: Assessing Impacts and Developing Alternatives’, https://www.mdx.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0030/368373/Greater-Manche…

David Powell, New Economics Foundation, With Karen Leach and Karen McCarthy, Localise West Midlands (2017) ‘Social care as a local economic solution for the West Midlands’. New Economics Foundation. https://neweconomics.org/uploads/files/West-Midlands-Social-Care-report…

https://www.blackcountrylep.co.uk/news/black-country-partners-agree-to-…

https://www.wmca.org.uk/news/west-midlands-launches-ambitious-pilot-to-…

Jonathan Payne (2018) ‘Devolution, Inclusive Growth and Local Skills Strategies’. Centre for Urban Research on Austerity, De Montfort University. 29 June. https://cura.our.dmu.ac.uk/2018/06/29/devolution-inclusive-growth-and-l…

For a more detailed report see Jonathan Payne (2018) ’In the DNA or missing gene? Devolution, local skills strategies and the challenge of inclusive growth in England’. SKOPE Research Paper No. 126, March.
http://www.skope.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Payne-2018.-In-the…

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