Ministerial Taskforce for Local Economic Forums (HIE Area) - Forum Tasks for Year 2
Update Paper No. 420th November 2001Purpose 1. To outline the options for the challenge for Forums in year 2. The Taskforce will be invited to arrive at its final view at its meeting in January 2002. Background 2. The Year 1 task for Forums is to reduce overlap and duplication in business support services. This task has a double benefit. It is reasonably discrete and of manageable size, and it provides the Forums with a chance to develop good working practices as well as delivering the immediate task at hand. 3. We now need to consider the Year 2 task for Forums. In particular, the Taskforce are invited to provide initial views on;
4. The choice of business services as the first task reflected the significant progress which had already been made on the Small Business Gateway, and an expectation that Forums could successfully deliver further improvements. An early win was anticipated. A significantly more ambitious task would have put this success at risk. It could be argued that for the second year, a more ambitious task might be achievable, building on the successes this year. On the other hand, a more general and strategic role might put the positive signs of good partnership working at risk. 5. Turning to the subject area, the guidelines for Forums that we published in March 2001 suggested that the Year 2 task would be lifelong learning, tourism or trade. The guidelines also suggested that the Forums' Year 2 task follow a similar process to the initial review of business support services, ie mapping local partnerships with a view to reducing overlap and duplication, and filling gaps in service delivery. We already have some informal indications that Forums are keen to move forward to address local labour market issues (especially from SEEL and Borders). Lifelong Learning issues 6. Taskforce members will be aware of the plethora of reviews and changes presently underway within the lifelong learning area eg the review by the ELL Committee, the review of NTOs, the alignment of career services with the Enterprise Networks, the launch of learndirect scotland last year and the establishment of Future Skills Scotland. 7. The ELL Committee's inquiry into lifelong learning could have a major impact on our plans for Forums. The Committee has already commissioned research to map the current provision of lifelong learning opportunities in Scotland, and it is considering the extent of overlap and duplication within lifelong learning provision, amongst other items. 8. Many organisations in lifelong learning work at a national level, or at least well beyond the local economic forum area. The current uncertainty, and process of change, in the national approach to lifelong learning, will conclude with the publication of a national strategy for Lifelong Learning in spring next year. There may well be merit in awaiting the conclusion of the ELL Committee inquiries and the strategy document before proceeding with a review process by Forums. 9. There are also issues within the area of training about the desirability of choice in provision - when is overlap wasteful, and when does it represent healthy competition, and choice for customers? With local economic development services the ELL Committee had diagnosed the problem as overlap and duplication in service delivery and suggested Forums as a mechanism to reduce the problem. Such a diagnosis is not yet clear in the area of lifelong learning, and there may be a need for a different focus than dealing with overlap and duplication in service delivery. 10. It may be possible to define a task related to labour market issues covering the local activities to improve employment and vocational skills (say up to VQ 3) of the Employment Service, LECs, Careers Scotland, colleges and local authorities. A specific task might be to consider how far these meet the needs of individuals and the local labour market, and contribute to the skills and learning targets of Smart Successful Scotland. This task could help to ensure universal linkages at the local level, with the potential to bring real benefits in delivery and effectiveness and contributing to better job matching. 11. An alternative might be to assist the implementation of Future Skills Scotland. At present a range of organisations (primarily local authorities and the Enterprise Networks, but also ESF units) collate Labour Market Information (LMI) in different ways to meet their organisational or project needs, but there is a lack of consistency across Scotland and issues around the transferability of local LMI between organisations. This was a consistent theme in consultation both on the Review and the Forum guidelines. 12. There may be scope for a two stage approach to the problem, starting with Future Skills Scotland/labour market related issues and extending the task as the results of the various enquiries come in. Whilst the first part of the task may be reasonably straightforward to define, the uncertainty in terms of both content and timescales for the second part, inherent with this approach, could make it very difficult for us to manage, and for the forums to organise. Other alternatives for Year 2 13. An alternative is tourism not least because of its present high profile, and the review of operations presently underway in visitscotland. The Forums could be used as a mechanism to aid the development of a "de facto tourism network" (of VisitScotland and the Area Tourist Boards), which was proposed by the recent PricewaterhouseCoopers review of VisitScotland. 14. The key challenges in enhancing the cohesion between VisitScotland and the Area Tourist Boards while maintaining the important and positive links with local authorities, will be to improve partnership working, ensure greater co-ordination of national and local marketing initiatives and improving accountability and effectiveness, especially with regard to liaison with the tourism industry. 15. Forums could play an important role in terms of partnership working, not least in the light of the lack of co-terminous boundaries in many areas between local authorities, Area Tourist Boards and Local Enterprise Companies. 16. There has been no general push to look at tourism. Only Tayside Forum has expressed a strong desire to progress with tourism next year and there has not been a general call from other forums for us to proceed in this area. 17. The final option of reviewing trade promotion in Year 2, would cover the future role and activities of Local Export Partnerships. This might be useful in the light of the Global Connections Strategy, but does not seem to be a pressing need right now, or necessarily making the best use of the Forums. As with Lifelong Learning, this could cut across development of national policy, including the formation of Scottish Development International. It may be more sensible for this area to be considered at later date. 18. One other possibility is that the Year 2 task should commence in the autumn of 2002, rather than on 1 April. The argument would be that this would give the forums a better chance at visibly progressing their Year 1 task, with the associated benefits of maintaining the present momentum in Forums. There is a risk that perceived delay is not the right message to be sending out, especially in the light of the ELL Committee's forthcoming consideration of Forums. 19. This year, Forums were not invited to review their local economic strategies, but rather were invited to concentrate on enhancing delivery. In the light of the improvements in delivery which the Action Plans predict, there are some concerns that the objectives and targets for more joint working at local level will now need to be reviewed. In particular, this may mean considering how the performance measurement framework for the Enterprise Networks (as prepared by the SE/SEn/HIE Joint Performance Team) applies to the local economic development activities of local authorities. In addition, the Scottish Executive's Cities Review and approach to Rural Areas, and of course to Community Planning, could usefully be considered as part of a fresh consideration of local economic strategies. This goes beyond the task set in Year 1 and could be a valuable additional task of the first six months of next year if required. Conclusion 20. To make good use of the Forum structure we should ensure that we define a task with a clear local focus, where there are significant local variations in both need and provision. There is a general presumption that the Year 2 task will be in the lifelong learning area, but the timing with regard to the ELL Committee review is not ideal. Options do exist to look at a very specific aspect of lifelong learning, or tourism. In addition, there is the option to delay the start of Year 2. 21. The main choices therefore appear to be:
22. Taskforce members are invited to provide initial views on these options. ELLD: ENT 1 |