Skills in England 2003 is presented in four volumes this year. Volume 1 provides key messages and an overview of the research findings in the other three volumes. Volume 2 is the main research report. This year, as well as containing the same core of information as in previous years – separate chapters on skills supply, skills demand, mismatches between demand and supply, and future skill needs – it also contains other chapters that look at issues which are particularly topical this year. To this end, a chapter is contained on the latest developments in policy given the publication of several important policy documents since last year’s Skills in England report. Given the emphasis in policy on stimulating the demand for skills, a chapter is presented on the links between investments in skills and training and organisational performance.
It is important to recognise that the benefits of economic growth and investments in training and skills do not affect everyone equally. There are groups in society that fail to obtain advantage from training and skills development and to illustrate this a chapter on social exclusion and equality of opportunity has been included this year. An important element of combating social exclusion has been the use of labour market programmes such as New Deal. Labour market programmes often contain a large element devoted to training of one kind or another and have been an important tool of labour market policy in many European countries. Arguably there is much more emphasis on active labour market policy in Britain today than hitherto with programmes such as New Deal, so a chapter has been devoted to this aspect of skills development. Finally Volumes 3 and 4 provide evidence related to industrial sector and regional/local trends respectively
