The Economy, Infrastructure and Skills Committee agreed to undertake an inquiry into Regional Skills Partnerships

Summary

Wales’ three Regional Skills Partnerships are voluntary bodies tasked by Welsh Government to play an important role in understanding their regional skills demands in order to help align skills provision with that demand.

As a matter of Welsh Government policy the partnerships are gaining increasing influence over the prioritisation and spending of approximately £400 million of public funding including that of the Welsh Government’s flagship apprenticeship programme and the work of Wales’s further education institutions.

In view of this increasing influence and their key role in economic development, the Committee is interested in reviewing how well Regional Skills Partnership policy is being delivered, whilst considering any views stakeholders may offer on alternative models

Terms of reference

To do this the Committee looked at the following:

• Understand how effectively the Regional Skills Partnerships are reflecting current and future skills demand, particularly the needs of the foundation economy and skills provision through the medium of Welsh including:
• Exploring the reliability and validity of the evidence used by RSPs to draw their conclusions
• Exploring the effectiveness of their engagement activity and the demand and supply side inputs that shape their conclusions
• Exploring how their City and Growth Deal roles influence their work;
• Understand if the Regional Skills Partnerships are adequately resourced to fulfil their growing role
• Understand how the work of Regional Skills Partnerships is being used by Welsh Government to shape skills provision ‘on the ground’ including:
• Exploring the level of operational detail being set out by Welsh Government in relation to further education institution activity.
• Understand in general what is working well, not working well and if there are any unintended consequences from how current Regional Skills Partnership policy is operating including
• Exploring delivery against the objectives of the RSPs and their impact;
• Exploring the particular focus Welsh Government places on RSPs as a source of regional skills requirements
• Consider both improvements to the current way of working and any views stakeholders might offer on potential alternative models for aligning skills provision with the needs of the Welsh economy