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Select Committee · Public Accounts Committee

Developing workforce skills for a strong economy

Status: Closed Opened: 6 Sep 2022 Closed: 24 Feb 2023 6 recommendations 22 conclusions 1 report

In July 2022 the NAO reported that the UK “faces a major challenge in ensuring it has a sufficiently skilled workforce”, with the head of the NAO, the Comptroller and Auditor General, concluding that “There is a risk that, despite government’s greater activity and good intent, its approach may be no more successful than previous …

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Reports

1 report
Title HC No. Published Items Response
Thirtieth Report - Developing workforce skills for a strong… HC 685 14 Dec 2022 28 Responded

Recommendations & Conclusions

3 items
2 Recommendation Thirtieth Report - Developing workforce… Rejected

DfE has not made clear what level of performance would constitute success for its skills...

DfE has not made clear what level of performance would constitute success for its skills programmes. DfE ultimately relies on measuring learners’ subsequent earnings as a proxy for the value of government-funded skills training and the extent to which that training meets the needs of the labour market. The FE …

Government response. The government disagrees with the Committee’s recommendation that DfE should set out what level of improvement in the FE Skills Index it is aiming to achieve and by when.
HM Treasury
11 Conclusion Thirtieth Report - Developing workforce… Rejected

DfE emphasised the importance of the FE Skills Index as its key measure of the...

DfE emphasised the importance of the FE Skills Index as its key measure of the impact of the FE system on productivity. The Index works by estimating the ‘value added’ for all adult learners and apprentices in England who have successfully completed their training during the year. DfE calculates the …

Government response. The department advises against using the FE Skills Index as a sole indicator to measure performance and believes that stipulating an arbitrary target level of improvement for this index would not be a valuable measure of performance and could create …
HM Treasury
13 Conclusion Thirtieth Report - Developing workforce… Rejected

We asked DfE, given the data available to it, whether it planned to adopt a...

We asked DfE, given the data available to it, whether it planned to adopt a system- level metric to determine the success of its skills programmes, and what might this look like or when it could be expected. DfE asserted that having a single metric would not tell it everything …

Government response. The government disagrees with the recommendation to adopt a system-level metric to determine the success of its skills programs, arguing that a single metric would not provide a complete picture.
HM Treasury

Oral evidence sessions

1 session
Date Witnesses
17 Oct 2022 Carl Creswell · Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, Paul Kett · Department for Education, Susan Acland-Hood · The Department for Education View ↗