Steer ED to develop strategic framework for Wigan's refreshed skills and employment strategy

Steer Economic Development has been commissioned by Wigan Borough Council to develop the evidence base and strategic framework for a Refreshed Skills and Employment Strategy. Steer-ED’s work will provide evidence and intelligence – quantified and qualitative - to help identify the world-class skills and talents that Wigan needs to keep pace with technology and market change. With such skills and talents identified, the intention is to drive these forwards to enable productivity, business growth, investment allocation, and increase wealth and economic participation for all.

The work is being ‘co-produced’ with Wigan’s Employment and Skills stakeholders (and indeed wider ones). This is demanding an approach which has local insight and ownership at its core, so that as we (as external advisers) step back at the end of the study, local stakeholders can pick-up the baton and maintain forward momentum.

Against this context, the study’s deliverables will be three-fold:

• A SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis of the Employment and Skills landscape in Wigan;

• A Strategic Framework which addresses the issues identified in the SWOT and Skills evidence base; and

• A recommended route map, at headline level, setting out how the Strategic Framework can be translated from concept into operating reality.