Skills England Submission

In this submission on October 2024, The Bell Foundation elaborated on how Skills England should consider incorporating second language speakers in its planning for economic growth. With the right language training, people whose first language is not English can make a significant contribution to the nation’s economic growth. English language proficiency has been forecast as one of the most essential skills for the future labour market, with the National Foundation for Education Research placing it third among the skills which demand the highest increase in utilisation between 2020 and 2035. For the UK to meet the skills needs of the future, it is important that everybody is equipped with the tools to succeed. For those individuals with low proficiency in English – many of whom are UK citizens – English language provision is essential to ensure that everyone can fully participate as part of a skilled workforce.

We recommend that the Government:

• Consults with employers and employer networks on the levels and types of language and communication skills that their workforce needs both now and, in the future, to function effectively in the workplace.
• Works with providers to construct curricula which enable learners to acquire domain-specific language in specific sectors and/or jobs.
• Pilots the domain-specific provision in a sector such as construction; and evaluate its impact on the development of language skills and employment outcomes. Use lessons learnt to roll out into other sectors with labour shortages, such as health and social care and medicine.
• Includes second language speakers in Skills England as an important source of labour and view ESOL provision as central to upskilling the labour force.
• Puts in place ESOL provision that enables learners to achieve language levels which are high enough for them to find employment and/or progress to further education provision.
• Ensures that providers take active steps to identify learners’ professional and work backgrounds, and that they use this information to inform the content of discrete ESOL provision as well as sector-specific course provision.
• Introduces an ILR-marker to collect information across all FES provision types on learners who do not speak English as their first language and who are identified as needing help with their English. The Bell Foundation has developed a separate briefing on this.
• Produces and implements an ESOL policy which sets out strategic plans and targets for the delivery of ESOL in terms of work-related content. Cross-government coordination will be key, considering the many departments and organisations involved with aspects such as policy, standards, qualifications, delivery, funding, examinations, teacher training, audit, inspection and lately the Mayoral Combined Authorities.