Gatsby Charitable Foundation
A review of the relationship between business support services and further education
Project Overview
In summer 2020 we began work on a project supported by Gatsby which, in light of DfE activity to develop what became the ‘Skills for Jobs’ white paper, explored how business support services and FE may best work together in future to support local economic growth.
The project created an evidence base of the links between business support and FE within localities, built around:
Policy review.
A policy review of business support/growth, setting out the history of key policies and service delivery arrangements (including FE links) within the former.
Online Survey.
An online survey of the scope and scale of business support services delivered by business growth hubs across all LEPs in England, including partnerships with FE.
Research interviews.
Primary research interviews with civil servants, further education sector leaders, growth hubs (including four detailed case studies), and research and policy specialists.
Workshop.
A workshop and subsequent dialogue with civil servants from four Whitehall departments, exploring policy implications of our interim findings.
Our report concluded that significant strategic and operational disconnect exists between further education and business support services, but that there were also grounds for optimism that FE can play a more prominent role as an ‘animator’ of local economies.
First.
FE, more so than HE, has reach into the ‘everyday economy’ where improvements in productivity are required if local economies in many areas are ever going to thrive.
Second.
Plans subsequently announced within ‘Skills for Jobs’ to support the creation of College Business Centres create an opportunity to deliver a broader range of services (such as knowledge-sharing, start-up support, networking space, the sharing of equipment, etc) from FE sites as a by-product of FE’s core function (to deliver the skills that workplaces require).
Third.
There is scope for a range of practical steps that FE and business support providers can take to better integrate and improve their offer to existing and new employers. This includes sharing events, datasets, priorities, language, board-level leadership, and integrating FE into growth offers to employers.