Skills Bill: key takeaways from CBI submission

As part of our ongoing engagement on the government’s agenda for skills reform, the CBI has submitted evidence to the Public Bill Committee considering the Skills and Post-16 Education Bill.

This legislation aims to boost lifelong learning, bring employers into skills planning, and ensure that technical qualifications are delivering good outcomes for people, firms, and the economy.

However, there are several areas where the Bill can be strengthened:

1 - Removing funding barriers and ramping up flexibility will boost participation in lifelong learning.
Ensuring people can train, retrain, and upskill throughout working lives is vital in a changing economy. In addition to the Lifelong Loan Entitlement, further steps are needed to ramp up flexible education and remove barriers to training.

2 - A coherent place-based and coordinated national approach are both key to delivering the skills our economy needs.
Local Skills Improvement Plans can support better collaboration between business, education providers, and local government, allowing areas