South West Skills Newsletter, April 2021
Last month saw the release of the latest Budget and accompanying that were a number of reports. Three of these will impact particularly on the skills an employment landscape and some highlights and links are given in our Reports and Publications section later in this newsletter. The three reports are:
- Building Back Better
- Levelling Up Fund: Prospectus
- Community Renewal Fund: Prospectus
There has been considerable criticism of the targeting methodology for this new funding as it seems to have ignored many measures of deprivation. Financial Times analysis found that in England 14 places that were wealthier than average were ranked in the most needy category, and all had at least one sitting government MP. This follows similar criticism of the Town’s Fund.
Also in the news recently was the finding from the TUC that 1 in 8 of us will be forced to leave the labour market due to ill health or disability before reaching state pension age. The report – Extending working lives: how to support older workers – finds that more than half a million (534,876) workers aged 60 to 65 have had to leave the workplace due to medical reasons.
You can read the full newsletter – here
