Accountability Statement & Plan 2024 – 25

1. Mission & Purpose

The City of Liverpool College’s mission is to support the growth of Liverpool and the wider city region by developing talent from all social and economic backgrounds and unlocking opportunities for all.

The City of Liverpool College offers a diverse curriculum that ranges from GCSEs and A-Levels to higher technical vocational skills and apprenticeships that reflect the industrial growth priorities of the Liverpool City Region. As an anchor institution, the College specialises in delivering training and skills for higher level technical occupations as well as using its strong relationships with business to recruit students into higher paid and higher skilled jobs. As part of this commitment, the College is passionate about lifetime skills and workforce development by attracting funding and providing responsive training solutions. Following inspection in February 2024, the College was rated as a ‘Good’ education provider by Ofsted.

The College is driven by a strong sense of civic leadership and responsibility. Its strategic plan for 2021 – 2025 sets out five main goals and enabling priorities:

• Strategic Goal – World-class Skills for Business: Operating as the ‘College for Business’, with a focus on current need and industry innovations and supporting the post-pandemic recovery and economic growth across the City Region.
• Strategic Goal – Delivering an Outstanding Student Experience: Tailoring our approach to the needs of leaners, our city, and our communities as part of a dynamic partnership with all three.
• Strategic Goal – Developing Talent for Sustainable Employment: Upskilling and generating the talent of the future through a focus on careers not courses.
• Strategic Enabler – Turing Disadvantage into Advantage: Recognising our student cohort and delivering an experience tailored to their needs, taking a student-centred approach.
• Strategic Enabler – Systems thinking by critical thinkers: Changing culture across the College from top to bottom to realise an impact that goes beyond individual actions as a crucial part of the City Region’s education and skills system.

Within this framework, the College has sought to develop its approach to employer engagement in terms of the processes it uses to ensure technical training meets industry need, and so that the talent it develops is ready for work. In achieving this, the college has established a range of interventions for its accountability plan that will support the implementation of its own strategic priorities, as well as those of the City Region’s Combined Authority and the Local Skills Improvement Plan (LSIP).

2. Context and Place

The College is recognised as an important anchor institution for training and skills provision across Liverpool and the wider City Region. It provides education and training for over 10,000 learners across 5 campuses covering the arts and creative industries, construction and engineering, academic studies, sport sciences and public services, digital technologies, hospitality, and health. As the region’s largest FE College, it provides a substantial talent pool for the City Region’s industries via its wide-ranging training programmes for 16 – 18 year old learners, adults, apprentices, and those from hard-to-reach backgrounds.

While the College is mainly focussed on education and training delivery for the residents of Liverpool City, its range of facilities, teaching expertise and city centre location helps it attract learners from across all six local authority areas of the City Region – comprising Sefton, Liverpool, St Helens, Knowsley, Wirral, and Halton.

The College makes a significant contribution to the region’s social and economic wellbeing and has developed strategic partnership with the likes of Liverpool City Council, NHS Trusts, Liverpool Chamber of Commerce, Liverpool City Region Combined Authority (LCRCA) and the Liverpool Business Improvement District. Such integration allows direct input into the region’s strategic plans including the LCRCA economic and industrial plans and the Local Skills Improvement Plan, as well as being the strategic lead for the City Region’s Local Skills Improvement Fund programmes.

Business and Economic Profile – Liverpool City Region has a combined population of approximately c.1.6 million, c.1m of whom are of working age.

• Overall the Liverpool City Region produces £33bn of GVA annually (2% of national GVA) with an unemployment rate of 3.9% of its total working population.
• Liverpool is the largest economic centre of the City Region, contributing 39% of jobs and 40% of GVA. It is the commercial, cultural and transport hub of the region, with a strong public sector, thriving visitor economy, and growing ICT and professional sectors.
• There are approximately 40,000 businesses operating in the City Region providing nearly 741,000 jobs.
• Per head of population, the City Region’s economy produces around £21,500 of GVA, which compares to around £30,000 nationally. This represents a 29% shortfall and reflects the lower levels of prosperity across the area.
• Based on 2019 ONS data, 88% of businesses operating in the City Region are classed as micro (0-9employees), 10% are small (10-49 employees) and 2% are medium sized (49 – 250 employees). There are 185 businesses operating in the City Region that have over 250 employees.
• The City Region’s overall productivity is 92% of the national rate.

Current employment is focussed on Health, Manufacturing (predominantly automotive and chemicals), Financial Services, Visitor Economy, Creative and Digital/Technology Industries, Construction and Port & Logistics. Emerging clusters include Health Innovation and Life Science, Advanced Manufacturing and the significant opportunities for business growth and inward investment resulting from the City Region’s Free Port designation.

Social and Education Profiles – Liverpool and the wider City Region faces deep rooted and structural challenges associated with social deprivation and mobility. Some of the key considerations are: –

• Residents are still more likely to be economically inactive (24%), and less likely to be in employment(73%), compared to the rest of the country, with national rates standing at 21% and 76% respectively. These gaps are longstanding and driven by a range of complex factors including poor health and wellbeing, poor skills, and a high prevalence of deprivation.
• There is a high proportion of residents with no qualifications, 9% compared to 6% nationally, and a low proportion of residents with at least degree level qualifications, 38% compared to 43% nationally.
  Image 1: Map showing The City of Liverpool College’s 5 campus locations.
  Image 2: Map showing Liverpool City Region and the College’s main recruitment areas in Red and wider recruitment areas in Blue.
• Education levels are lower than national averages with 39.4% educated to NVQ Level 4 or higher compared to the national average of 43.6%.
• The educational performance of people joining the college continues to be a concern with:
  • 68.4% of all learners across all study programmes not having either English or Maths at Level 2.
  • 74.1% of school leavers (aged 16) not having either English or Maths at Level 2.
  • The proportion of pupils at Key Stage 4 achieving Grade 5+ (Inc English & Maths) is 5% lower inthe City Region than across England.
  • Those with low or no qualifications are more likely to be economically inactive, with 6% of 16-and 17-year-olds classified at Not in Education or Employment (NEET).

Hyperlinks to all evidence and reference documents can found in Section 6.

3. Approach to Developing the Accountability Statement

Fit with Regional Priorities

The College’s strategic plan (2021 – 2025) is framed by the LCRCA Plan for Prosperity’s strategic priorities for building an inclusive economy, one that is alive to the climate emergency and is well placed to attract inward investment. Its goals focus on delivering world class skills for business that support the growth and competitiveness of the region’s economy as well as improving workforce productivity and enhancing social mobility. In facilitating this, it places equal emphasis on tailoring training provision to the needs of learners so that it is relevant to careers and opportunities for progression, helping the area differentiate itself as a place to live, work and learn.

The College’s training provision encompasses the City Region’s seven key priority growth sectors with wide ranging technical and vocational training being delivered at levels 2 and 3. This is supplemented by work ready training for those furthest from education as well as the specialised and industry specific training at level 4 and 5 to support progression into management and higher technical occupations.

In developing the Accountability Plan, the College has sought to establish a range of priorities and outcomes that link directly to its longer-term strategic ambition, while enabling a tailored programme of measurable interventions to be delivered over the coming academic year (2024/25). The approach also acknowledges the importance of clean growth and digitalisation in transforming the region into a sustainable, inclusive, and high performing economy. The College’s plans therefore recognise the significant influence these innovations will have in determining training provision for entry level jobs, those seeking career change or progression, and reskilling of the region’s existing workforce.

Consultation & Engagement

The College adopts a comprehensive approach to consultation through its existing relationships with over 1000 employers, the use of industry insight (accessed through its regional strategic partnerships and employer surveys) and intelligence gathered through its employer led Industry Panels. The process is effective in aligning industry specific relationships with the relevant school/faculty as well as informing wide ranging interventions including curriculum design; careers, information, advice & guidance (CIAG); student enrichment and the design of the College’s T-Level and apprenticeship programmes. The College is also using the insight and consultation framework to deliver and develop a range of industry specific Skills Bootcamp training initiatives in conjunction with the LCRCA, as well as higher level technical training through its lead role in delivering the region’s Local Skills Improvement Fund (LSIF) programme.

At regional level, the College’s Industry Panels are run in conjunction with Liverpool Chamber of Commerce and feed directly into the LSIP priorities. The panels combine national/regional industry bodies/institutes, with a representative mix of employers and our academic leads to ensure the expertise exists to inform occupational skills needs. The impact of these engagements is measured against a range of factors including curriculum development, investment secured to enhance the College’s facilities and teaching, learning and assessment.

Establishing Our Priorities

Along with the findings of the region’s LSIP, the College has used its continual process of consultation and engagement to establish a rich evidence base from which to determine its priorities for the Accountability Plan (see section 4). The key considerations for which are as follows:

• The increased emphasis employers are placing on FE to develop their talent pipelines as an alternative to graduate recruitment – specifically attainment of functional qualifications at level 2 (English & Maths)by all College learners as a pathway to higher level vocational training and progression into higher paid technical occupations.
• The strategic growth of Level 3+ qualifications to fill higher technical occupations experiencing skills shortages and high levels of replacement demand within national priority sectors – engineering, construction, health & social care, logistics and manufacturing. Combined with the range of employer-facing training programmes the College offers (T-Levels, Apprenticeships, Bootcamps etc), there is an opportunity to establish a stronger relationship with industry to ensure a seamless access to talent.
• Broadening the profile and understanding of the range of funded training programmes available to employers for recruitment and ongoing workforce development. These include:
  • Raising awareness of the breadth of the College’s apprenticeship offer and positioning advanced and higher-level apprenticeships as an effective approach for CPD.
  • Positioning T-Levels with employers as a progression route to higher technical occupations and training across the City Region’s industrial sectors.
  • Evolving the College’s approach for co-designing industry Bootcamps with employers through modular and flexible delivery programmes – specifically in developing pre-employment skills and upskilling/reskilling of their existing workforce.
  • Strengthening the design of AEB funded programmes to be more reactive to short term employer training needs and able to support progression into higher qualifications and employment opportunities.
• Enhancing the employability and ‘work readiness’ of our younger learners through (and not limited to)training in customer care, computer literacy, interpersonal skills, communication, and entrepreneurship as a supplement to their technical training.
• Ensuring all learners are equipped with the core digital skills required across all industries to enhance the region’s economic competitiveness and productivity. As well as providing the pathway for specialisation in digitally intensive industries including the region’s Advanced Manufacturing, Data, Science and Technology, Medical and Creative clusters.
• Building training facilities and innovation across green technologies to help meet the region’s Net Zero targets through clean and renewable sources of energy. This will also include working alongside traditional industries including manufacturing and haulage to support their own decarbonisation plans. Specific opportunities will include new forms of renewable energy including hydrogen power, energy storage and efficiency, and local energy networks.
• Working alongside the region’s emerging industries and transformation initiatives including LCR Freeport (Port, Transport & Logistics) and LCR Connect (Full Fibre Telecommunications) to deliver modular and industry specific training for entry level and technical occupations.
• Further strengthening our evidence base through the smarter use of the College’s sources of labour market intelligence to identify industry specific occupational shortages and priorities.
• Strengthening linkages to the City Region’s Universities and structuring pathways into HE and professional qualifications the College is unable to deliver.

Key Stakeholders

The City of Liverpool College works in a highly collaborative manner with its network of partners for the benefit of our communities and stakeholders. This has remained a core strength of the College in formulating its strategic plan and the broader engagement work it undertakes to inform its annual curriculum and wider training provision. The College will continue to work closely with a range of key stakeholders to achieve its strategic objectives. These include:

• Liverpool City Council
• Liverpool City Region Combined Authority/Growth Company
• Liverpool Chamber of Commerce
• Liverpool Business Improvement District
• Anchor Employers within each of the City Region’s Industrial Sectors
• Business Representative Groups, Networks, and Industry Specific Institutes
• Elected Stakeholders.

Engagement with other providers in the area

The College works closely with the other five FE Colleges in the City Region to support the LCRCA shape skills policy, prioritise the delivery of specialised training according to local need and the delivery of joint funding programmes.

Through the Association of Liverpool City Region Colleges (AoLCRC), The City of Liverpool College was part of a proactive collaboration to deliver the Strategic Development Fund (SDF) project that attracted c.£340,000 for capital investment in green technologies. As a group of colleges, the development of facilities, resources and the teaching across the project were centrally planned, maximising efficiency by collaborating to avoid the duplication of provision.

Other key areas of collaboration included £4.5m of Local Skills Improvement Funding secured by the College to advance a range of key priorities included in the LSIP. To date, successes have included new curriculum to support training in low carbon technologies, new and innovative employer partnerships, the creation of a cross-college talent bank and a strategy for the region’s Freeport Skills Academy.

The College has a dedicated Schools Liaison team and whilst the Region has a high number of school sixth forms, the College has good relationships with the secondary schools in the area, providing advice and guidance on further education options to over 1000 leaners across the City Region in 2023/2024. Over the same period, the College supported over 150 learners aged 14-16 years, providing transitional support and vocational taster sessions for young people struggling to engage with mainstream education.

The College has excellent links with universities in the City Region, including Liverpool John Moore’s University, The University of Liverpool, and Liverpool Hope University. Students on Access to HE and HE courses participate in lectures delivered by university staff, as well as projects set by the Universities. The Universities support with curriculum and programme design, as well as ensuring learners are appropriately prepared for higher education.

The City of Liverpool College is also working strategically with several independent training providers to ensure that where gaps exist in its own training and skills provision (specifically around HGV, logistics and health) there are practical alternatives capable of meeting employer need. These collaborations are also supporting knowledge transfer back into the College with the intention of improving teaching provision, making the delivery of training more flexible and expanding the College’s employer networks.

5. Corporation Statement

On behalf of the City of Liverpool College, it is hereby confirmed that the plan set out above reflects an agreed statement of purpose, aims and objectives as approved by the Board of Governors at their meeting on 18 May 2024.

The plan will be published on the College’s website within three months of the start of the new academic year and can be accessed from the following link:

6. Further Information & Supporting Documentation

Links to:

• LCR Plan for Prosperity & Evidence Base
• LCR Skills Strategy
• LCR Local Skills Improvement Plan
• City of Liverpool College Strategic Plan
• City of Liverpool College Financial Statement
• City of Liverpool College Ofsted Report