In this new ‘From ambition to action’ blog series, key South London stakeholders respond to the South London BIG Ambition Growth Statement.

A few days ago, the leadership team at South Thames Colleges Group took a collective deep breath and scanned the vast landscape of all the growth plans, strategies and ambitions we’ve been lucky enough to read just lately.

It is remarkable, to say the least, to be swept up in the energy and aspiration of this moment, with such drive and focus evident from our many wonderful partners. It’s a privilege to know that we in the College sector have a part to play and an opportunity to shine. It’s more than clear that skills training will be central to the delivery of this mission; there’s plenty to think about the ways in which we can respond.

But our first question is about how we bind all these fantastic ideas and opportunities together to make a coherent, single plan for an organisation like ours.

The challenge for us is how we develop the right resources and staffing to train people ready for life in the sectors most in need of new talent, so we have to get this right and choose the critical parts of the economy to target. And there are real differences between the national Industrial Strategy, the Growth Plan for London and our very own Growth Ambitions Statement for South London. Here in South London, we don’t, for example, have much to offer the nation’s defence industry, a big priority for Government. We have to ask ourselves how we respond to that call, if at all.

And yet we do have, as our Growth Ambitions Statement highlights so well, amazing visitor attractions, a Hospitality sector hungry for new workforce and a Health and Care sector crying out for development.

So, our job is to sift the various plans and priorities and invest in the ones that make best sense for us all in South London. We can’t do it all.

We’re a College: our role is to help thousands of people find, shape or switch a career every year. We have to understand their needs, the requirements of the work they want to do and match those things to the right qualification or training programme, backed by the right staff and resources.

This all means we have to focus hard on the things we can do that we believe will make the biggest, fastest difference to our region’s wealth and wellbeing. And those choices are made so much easier by the BIG South London Growth Ambitions Statement and the South London Local Skills Improvement Plan. They set out the things that matter and point our strategic thinking in exactly the directions where we can really have an impact.

A great example is the Construction sector. We have a long history, more than hundred years, of training people to work in the key industry in South London. We train perhaps eight hundred Construction workers every year, making sure they carry the right certification and skills with them into the region’s building sites. It’s a major priority for the nation and it’s a major priority for both London and our sub-region. All the layers fit together beautifully from a strategic point of view and drive us to put some big effort into adding new capacity, growing the provision and building new relationships with employers across the whole city.

It makes perfect sense then for us to bid for one of the country’s new Technical Excellence Colleges, one for each region with the first wave being for the Construction sector. The trouble is, every College in London wants the accolade, so we’re all jostling eagerly for the honour to land with us. We’ll know the outcome soon and a new, co-ordinated approach to developing this critical sector and channelling more people into its workforce will emerge.

Beyond that growing coherence, a practical and direct read-through from big national plans, including 1.5 million new homes, there is an equally impressive drill-down to sub-sectors that highlight specifics within the breadth of skills needed in the Construction sector.

If you pick up your copy of the BIG South London Growth Ambitions Statement and turn to page 22 (or follow the helpful link just here) you’ll see a shining example of this thinking: the Net Zero and Green Skills training agenda. Simply put, who’s going to fit all the heat pumps, solar panels and insulation we need to roll out at pace? We’ve seen enormous effort from the team at South London Partnership to co-ordinate and integrate the work of our local Colleges, Universities and employers to get things done: new facilities, new qualifications, new staffing all in place and the demand for these skills is starting to grow.

And there’s more besides: none of this will work if we don’t find ways to ensure this complex system of opportunities and investment isn’t available to the poorest in our community. It could never be right for all this advantage to go to the advantaged.

So much of the effort put into designing these dynamics has concentrated on the less well-off, those furthest from the workplace. There is a second, equally profound mission for us to deliver, making sure that the cohorts of people with most to gain and least to start with are included in our thinking. We’re also building pathways for people with learning difficulties and disabilities to begin to find relevant careers and non-native English speakers to build up their language skills rapidly and with a workplace context.

It’s a tribute to the thinking in London and here in our sub-region that this is a very active part of the plan. Where else would you find an Inclusive Talent Strategy in draft, shortly to be finalised?

We’re passionate about inclusion and proud to advocate for the overlooked and under-employed people in South London; they too have a place in all of this. And the heart of this ambition is to bring all of this together to inspire public services, businesses and the people of South London to come together and shine even more brightly.

Read the South London BIG Ambition growth strategy