By Zografia Bika (left), Director of Research, Norwich Business School – University of East Anglia & Adi Gaskell (right), Consultant

The recent launch of “Skills England” by Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer aims to be a major step in closing the skills gap in the UK and promoting economic expansion. This programme, which formed a key component of Labour’s manifesto pledges, attempts to bring the disjointed skills training system in the nation back to life.

The programme has many of the hallmarks of findings from the five-year ‘Increase Valorisation Sociale’ applied research project (2018-2023) from the University of East Anglia (UEA), which explored how people in underprivileged communities can be helped into either employment or entrepreneurship over the long term. These suggestions, which emphasise creating connections, assisting in skills-based hiring, providing job-matching services, and working with community colleges, culminated in a recent whitepaper (2024) reflecting on the role of ‘housing associations as changemakers’ that is highly aligned with the goals of Skills England.

Creating Bridges

One of the key aspects of both our research and the Skills England proposal is the ability to build bridges between the various stakeholders involved in boosting employability. Our whitepaper put forward that having housing officers with employability expertise, who can capitalise on their local knowledge, build trust, and bring together stakeholders from different industries, such as local governments, corporations, social enterprises, and academic institutions was crucial to offering targeted skills development programs in underprivileged communities.

Crucial to the development of these networks is being able to span multiple domains, ‘build bridges’, and integrate micro-enterprise and employment support services when tackling complex issues, such as regional inequality. Such housing officers, who should work separately from those in housing management, can play this bridge-building role and be trained to motivate, enable, convene, and integrate stakeholders from across multiple sectors. This way, they can bring a multitude of local and regional actors into the task of supporting residents toward work or entrepreneurship, albeit without employing a ‘payment by results’ model of engagement.

Through bringing together employers, trade unions, central and local government agencies, and training providers, Skills England hopes to bring about significant change in this area. By achieving this, it aims to provide a more unified framework to help tackle the skills gap and promote growth throughout the country. We would argue that housing associations can be trusted local stakeholders to help deliver this goal given their commitment to place and ability to coordinate a micro-enterprise and employment support service offer which is both integrated and to which one can return over the long-term in the face of setbacks.

Encouragement of Skills-Based Hiring

Our whitepaper also emphasises the growth of skills-based hiring rather than assessing candidates according to traditional qualifications. This change is especially advantageous for people who have learned skills ‘by doing’ in unconventional ways.

This was demonstrated by research published in SHRM, which outlined the value of skill credentialling programmes that offer people who are “skilled through alternative routes” the ability to prove to employers that they have certain skills. Organisations such as Climb Hire and Merit America showcase what can be done in the tech industry and recent data from LinkedIn shows that employers are increasingly open to recruiting based on skills rather than formal credentials.

As part of its role, Skills England will closely collaborate with the Migration Advisory Committee to make sure that the domestic workforce can fulfil the demands of the economy. This strategy is consistent with Labour’s overarching objective of reshaping the apprenticeship levy to better meet the demands of the market, although as with many policies, the implementation will reveal more than the intention.

Employment-Matching Programs and Community Involvement

Alongside skills-based recruitment, there is also an important role for middlemen, such as housing associations and training providers, to verify and recognise the skills and learning capabilities of those far from the labour market. Traditional qualifications provide robust and reliable signalling for employers, so those without such qualifications need other forms of signal to act as a mental “guarantor” for employers to feel confident in their hires.

As respected stakeholders in the communities, housing associations can act as trusted labour market intermediaries. This can be important, as many people are frozen out of the labour market due to uncertainty about their skills or character. This could be gaps in their employment record, mental/physical illness, or even military service. Housing associations can help to bridge that trust gap and provide employers with the confidence to hire otherwise “invisible” workers.

Our whitepaper explains that housing associations increasingly want to move beyond their core job of providing quality and affordable housing and provide a wider range of support for those in the community. They’re doing this either by collaborating with training providers or developing training in-house to make sure locals acquire or mobilise the skills needed by local companies. Housing associations are reputable community partners whose futures are locally invested and can therefore be helpful in matching qualified workers with local job openings.

The INCREASE VS project was a partnership of nine housing associations and training providers in England and France that showcased the potential of this model. Not only were over 1,000 new businesses created and 1,100 people helped into work but also a place-based ecosystem of integrated micro-enterprise and employment support services came into being that extended beyond technical skills to encompass confidence-building that empowers individuals where they live.

A national platform that enables these connections on a larger scale but also engages with place-based deprivation, thus helping to guarantee that skills training is directly linked to career prospects where people live and work whilst capitalising on what local labour market intermediaries can offer, is one way that Skills England may build on this idea.

Working together with community colleges

A common theme throughout our research was the importance of employers and educators working together. Universities have long been engines of economic activity, but we found that community colleges are just as important in supplying the skills needed for local communities to prosper.

Indeed, research from Harvard demonstrates the untapped potential of community colleges to drive growth, not least because of poor communication between schools and employers. As trusted labour market intermediaries, housing associations can become the “hub” in the centre of a place-based network of partners. They can therefore play a crucial convening role in ensuring education providers and employers are working in unison to ensure the local community has the skills needed to thrive including those needed within the housing associations.

By bringing together different educational institutions and businesses to connect training programs with the demands of the job market, Skills England can underpin and support this kind of cooperation to ensure that the economy has the skills both to spur innovation and also tackle rising regional inequalities, but it’s clear from our research that a wider ecosystem of participants can also play a role, both as active players and as conveners and bridgebuilders.

In summary

Tackling the skills gap is crucial to both national and regional prosperity. Our whitepaper mirrors many aspects being taken by Skills England, emphasising the importance of place-based collaboration among stakeholders, developing bridges between sectors and stakeholders, and encouraging skills-based recruitment.

Skills England can make a greater effect and guarantee that everyone, especially ‘invisible workers’, such as the disabled, people with a criminal record, older adults, military veterans, or people with physical/mental health problems, who face complex barriers to work and have gaps in their employment record are better supported in getting meaningful work. Our whitepaper highlights a number of ways in which this support can be sustainably extended into underprivileged communities that have often proved beyond the reach of previous policies. This new UK government programme aims to provide the groundwork for a more prosperous and inclusive future that works long term in addition to meeting the urgent demands of the economy.

One of the core criticisms of the UK government in recent times is that it is excessively centralised, and the so-called “levelling up” agenda has done little to change that. Our findings from the INCREASE VS project demonstrate how effective local stakeholders can be in delivering meaningful change and improved local earnings particularly for low-skilled workers without requiring central government oversight or funding. If regional inequality is to be effectively tackled, this is perhaps a finding that Skills England should consider.

References

Bika, Z. and Gaskell, A. (2024) Housing Associations as Changemakers – Whitepaper. University of East Anglia.

Bika, Z., Gaskell, A. and Orlandi, C.M. (2023) Cost effective ways to make levelling up happen right now. LSE Business Review.

Bika, Z., Locke, C., Orlandi, C. M. and Valcke, B. (2022) Theorising ‘best practice’ in supporting those furthest from the market into work or self-employment in France and England. RENT Conference, Naples, Italy.

Gaskell, A. and Bika, Z. (2023) Skills-based employment can help to find ‘invisible workers’. Forbes.