Unemployed in Lancashire urged to have their say on huge workplace skills survey

Unemployed folk are being given an important chance to share their views on barriers to upskilling and retraining as part of the ground-breaking project to reshape the future of technical skills provision in the county.

The evidence is being gathered as part of the Lancashire Local Skills Improvement Plan (LSIP), which is being led by the North and Western Lancashire Chamber of Commerce on behalf of the Department of Education.

The Chamber’s business engagement team is seeking the views of Lancashire’s workers and those currently seeking employment on the Facebook site www.facebook.com/LancashireLSIP to help form the plan.

Views are also being sought from business owners and HR professionals on topics around upskilling and retraining.

Since launching the Lancashire LSIP evidence gathering programme in November, thousands of business owners, leaders and professionals have shared their views.

The chief executive of the chamber, Babs Murphy, said: “Whether you are in employment and looking to grow or out of work and need to retrain, it is vital that our workforce has easy access to the right skills programme.

"This topic is of huge importance. We’ve been very pleased with the response rate from the business community but this is only one side of the coin; we want to hear from people either in employment or looking for work. Their views are crucial to enable us to help shape the plan.”

As part of the Chamber’s evidence gathering, it has hosted events across a range of skills areas including manufacturing, services, transport and distribution, energy and environmental, construction, internationalisation, digitisation, net zero, sales and marketing, and HR.

Babs added: “We have a number of upskilling and retraining surveys going to businesses week commencing December 6 and giving workers the chance to contribute through social media or speak to us direct.

"While it is still early days, it is clear that employers see the value in this initiative and feel it can help create the right skills environment to help people across many sectors get the right skills, build successful careers while equipping businesses with the skilled talent to grow.”