A panel of MPs and peers will today call on the Coalition to give Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) greater control over skills provision and welfare to work schemes in the forthcoming Spending Review.
The All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on local growth is set to publish a report entitled ‘Skills and employment in the age of local growth deals' which calls for greater incentives to match more closely needs of LEPs and local employers.
Among key recommendations, the report suggests giving skills providers a greater share of payment-by-results cash when students land jobs rather than simply attain qualifications.
It also suggests local growth deals give areas more control to direct the Department for Work and Pensions' flagship Work Programme where they can demonstrate greater results.
There is also a call fore more sharing of resources and business intelligence between councils and LEPs to make it easier for employers to understand the local skills base.
Chancellor George Osborne will announce as part of the Spending Review on 26 June how much pro-growth funding will be devolved down to local areas through the ‘single local growth pot' – as advocated in Lord Heseltine's growth review.
However, although Lord Heseltine calculated upwards of £50bn in funding could be decentralised over the next spending review period up to 2020, Whitehall insiders forecast the actual sums are more likely to run into the low billions.
Business Secretary Vince Cable has publicly stated his preference for City Deal arrangements and derided the notion ministers would simply hand out billions of pounds of Whitehall funding to spend locally.
Co-chairs of the APPG on Local Growth, Caroline Dinenage MP and James Morris MP, said the ‘Heseltine Review presents a huge opportunity to do things differently'.
‘As we approach the Spending Review, this report presents some ambitious but practical ideas to support and incentivise Government, skills and employment support providers and local partnerships to work together.