Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, if he will take steps to ensure that EU and UK funding programmes aimed at increasing young people's skills prioritise interpersonal skills known to be highly valued by employers.

Our mainstream vocational education programmes in England are designed to equip people with the wide range of vocational and generic skills that employers need:

• Employers are in the driving seat of new apprenticeships – by designing frameworks and standards so that they contain the elements, and young people are equipped with the skills, that employers need.

• Work experience and employability skills are key elements of traineeships which are designed for those who are motivated to work but lack the necessary skills, behaviours and experience.

• Projects under the Employer Ownership Pilot cover a wide range of training provision led by employers. Many of these training areas will cover interpersonal skills as it is ultimately for employers to decide which areas of training they value and are of most importance.

• Ofsted inspection of vocational education provision includes consideration of employability skills.

One of the main priorities of the new European Social Fund (ESF) programme for 2014-2020 is to develop the skills of the potential and existing workforce, with special emphasis on helping young people. There will be particular focus on reducing the relatively high proportion of people with low levels of qualifications/skills and developing those skills, including interpersonal skills which have been identified by employers as meeting their needs.

Young people are being given better support to get ready for employment through the Department for Education’s 16-19 Study Programmes. These focus on exactly the areas that employers say matter, such as employability skills and work experience, and under which schools and colleges could chose to prioritise activity which relates to inter-personal skills.