Recommendation 21

Targeting consumer demand on its own is necessary but not sufficient and public funding is needed aimed at addressing the supply of skills directly. The commitments in the Spending Review and Industrial Strategy are welcome as is the direction of travel. At some point market signals will be strong enough and funding can be scaled back but we are not at that stage yet. While public funding could be deployed across a variety of worthy initiatives, the schemes the Government chooses to fund must be robustly and regularly evaluated to ensure they adequately address the skills shortages identified in its workforce strategies. (Conclusion, Paragraph 93)