The Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) is recruiting local business people to help shape the future of employment and skills in the area.
The LEP’s Employment and Skills Board is being reshaped to take account of the needs of business as part of the post-pandemic economic recovery, and to better reflect the LEP’s emerging Local Industrial Strategy, which is an economic blueprint for the next ten years.
The role of the Employment and Skills Board is to provide a link between businesses and local education, training and skills providers to meet the needs of employers in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly.
The aim is to boost economic growth by creating a more inclusive and appropriately skilled workforce, shaping and influencing employment and skills training and support, including higher skills in emerging new industries and people who are being impacted by the economic shock of coronavirus and will need to retrain or adapt their existing skills.
The Employment and Skills Board is a sub-group of the LEP’s main board and is chaired by LEP non-executive director Frances Brennan.
She said: “What I really want to do is put the employment into the Employment and Skills Board. We really need to know what employers want in a post-Covid and post-Brexit world. I don’t want to know third hand. We want a diversity of real live employers who are at the front end of business, of all ages and all backgrounds.
“We’re looking to recruit around 12 people from the business, health and care community and I want them to bring dynamism, energy and enthusiasm to the board. I want people who understand what it’s like in the real world, how difficult it is for people to get work, how difficult it is for employers to bounce back to economic recovery and I want people who are prepared to help shape what good looks like for all ages and for all backgrounds, and that includes new skills, reskills and maximising existing skills.”
It is hoped that new Employment and Skills Board members can be recruited from the following areas of the economy: tourism, agri-food, data and space, creative, digital, marine, construction, health and social care, engineering and manufacturing, energy and the third sector.
Applications can be made online via the LEP’s website and should be returned by 12 noon on Friday, September 4.