SSCs

Employers | SSCs | Business case | Main issues

"Sector Skills Councils, working with others, have a key role promoting 'what works' for employers in terms of diversity, while also tackling the skills infrastructure.

They can make the case for diversity, support targeted training, and embed diversity strategically through occupational standards, qualifications frameworks and the labour market intelligence that shapes future priorities at sector-level.

It is early days in terms of translating this potential into established reality, although there are some excellent programmes already in place and foundations of future activity emerging."

GHK report 2006

Welcome SSCs

What is your SSC doing about Equality and Diversity in your sector?

What are your employers' ambitions for their sector? How can good equality and diversity practice help?

What can your Sector Skills Council and the Sector Skills Alliance do for your employers in their pursuit of Equality and Diversity in the workplace?

The Role of the SSCs

These equality and diversity issues are critical for the SSCs and the Alliance of Sector Skills Councils because of the strong business imperative in supporting diversity.

As the 'employer voice' on skills issues, the Skills for Business Network brings a demand-centred approach to improving productivity through skills. It therefore has the equality and diversity 'business case' at its heart. The network also has a high-level priority of 'increasing the opportunities for everyone in the sector's workforce'. Diversity is therefore embedded within the network's strong employer focus and all of the SSCs interviewed for this study recognised that diversity was an issue within their sectors and considered it to be a priority area.

Using Sector Skills Agreements to Promote Diversity

One of the key roles of the SSCs is to develop Labour Market Intelligence (LMI) on workforce and skills issues. This is critical to making the case for diversity, and a key area in which SSCs can add value. The positive finding is that the SSCs seem to be using the Sector Skills Agreement (SSA) process to produce - and act upon - a more systematic analysis of LMI. Importantly, it also sets the diversity of a sector's workforce within an analysis of future sector skills needs.

For more information about what is happening in the SSC network, check SSC websites and the Cross Sector Working Group's reports from 2006 and 2007