The 157 Group is working with the UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES) and the Gazelle Group to develop a joint publication that looks at how collaborative, strategic relationships between businesses and colleges can be developed.
The UKCES publication Employer Ownership of Skills—Building the Momentum discusses the importance of incentivising greater collaboration between colleges and businesses and encouraging colleges to look outwards to their local labour markets rather than upwards to funding structures and regulatory requirements.
We believe that a step change is needed by both colleges and businesses to develop relationships that go beyond the transactional. Colleges and businesses need challenge themselves, and each other to reflect on current practice and consider whether what they are doing will make the difference that is needed. We want to identify examples of where this is working well, what helps to support this type of collaboration and what gets in the way.
More detail about the work is available in the Building Strategic Relationship for Economic Growth - Summary Paper.