Our vision is to build a truly global city region. In order to do this, we need to create and attract more businesses, generate more and higher value jobs, and ensure that we have a workforce with the right skills to fill these roles.
By 2020, we will have created 9000 jobs and 5500 apprenticeships for local people.
The Adult Education Budget (AEB) aims to engage adults (aged 19 and over) who are resident in Liverpool City Region to provide the skills and learning they need to equip them for work, an apprenticeship or other learning. It enables more flexible tailored programmes of learning to be made available, which may or may not require a qualification, to help eligible learners engage in learning, build confidence, and/or enhance their wellbeing.
The Liverpool City Region Combined Authority has been responsible for commissioning and funding AEB provision for learners resident in the Liverpool City Region since 1st August 2019 through a range of Colleges, Independent Training Providers and Local Authority providers of adult and community learning. Devolution of this budget allows local innovation and flexibilities to better meet the skills need of the City Region and its residents.
Liverpool City Region successfully secured £41.1m of Local Growth Fund (LGF) monies in 2014 to support skills capital investments as part of our Growth Deal with Government and a further £8m from LGF Round 3 in 2017. Circa £18m is currently available for skills capital investment under the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority Strategic Investment Fund (SIF).
Our pioneering £4.5m Households into Work programme is supporting 800 families, in which two or more people are in long-term unemployment, find meaningful work.
We know that every family has its own challenges, which is why we provide tailored support for each family, who work with a specially-trained employment advocate to help them identify and overcome barriers, such as personal debt, drug and alcohol addiction, or lack of skills and training, that have otherwise prevented them from finding work.
Across our city region, we are working to radically improve the quality and scope of apprenticeships. We are rolling out gold standard and degree-level apprenticeships for young people to address skills shortages and launching a new Apprenticeship Portal in March 2019.
Steve Rotheram, who started out life as an apprentice bricklayer, has prioritised ensuring that equal importance is given to both technical and academic qualifications and has sought to remove some of the barriers preventing our young people from taking on apprenticeships. The Be More apprenticeship portal has been created thanks to the Metro Mayor’s powers relating to the skills agenda, and brings together apprenticeship opportunities from employers so that prospective apprentices in the Liverpool City Region can find the local information they need in one place.
Our Skills Survey revealed that one of the key barriers to young people taking up apprenticeship opportunities was the cost of travelling to work. While students at our colleges and universities had access to discounted travel, this was not the case for those taking the technical route.
The Apprentice Travelcard means young people enrolled in apprenticeships can get half price bus or train travel across Merseyside when buying weekly and four-weekly Solo tickets or weekly and monthly Railpass tickets. It is available for anyone aged between 19 – 24 living in the Liverpool City Region who’s currently enrolled on an approved apprenticeship with an Education and Skills funding agency.
Working across the LCR, specialist Employment Officers will work in partnership with Jobcentre Plus to provide a service to support those made unemployed, or being made redundant from, declining sectors and assisting them to access jobs within the construction industry.
Skills Bootcamps provide flexible hands-on courses of up to 16 weeks in duration, which are part of the government’s Levelling Up agenda and Lifetime Skills Guarantee.
The aim is to help participants to find jobs in a range of growing sectors across the Liverpool City Region and help employers to close skills gaps.
The Liverpool City Region’s Economies for Healthier Lives programme is one of only four programmes across the UK to be approved for funding from the Health Foundation. The purpose of each programme is to explore at a local level, how health and wellbeing can be effectively incorporated into local economic strategies and demonstrate how inclusive economies can build healthier communities. Each programme will also explore ways that employers, and in particular anchor institutions, can create business opportunities and high-quality local jobs in the community and how those jobs can be made more accessible to people with a health condition.
Find out moreAre you a young person or do you work with young people aged 13 plus? If so, we’d love you to join Youth Impact, a network established by the Metro Mayor to enable young people’s voices to be heard as part of the decision-making process. By being a member, you not only get the chance to influence the big decisions that affect us all but you’ll also gain access to a host of development opportunities and widen your social circle. So what are you waiting for?
Liverpool City Region’s first ever Youth Combined Authority was established in 2022 and is made up of more than 20 young people from all over our city region. They meet weekly and are involved in a range of projects and campaigns designed to ensure that the voices of young people are heard loud and clear as the Metro Mayor and Combined Authority make decisions in areas such as employment and skills, transport, housing, the environment and culture. Find out more about the YCA here.
If you would like to learn more about our skills and apprenticeships policy or are looking for guidance and procedures to get involved with our skills and apprenticeships schemes then please visit our policy documents page. Our policy documents offer detailed information on the various policies.
