Liveries Skills Initiative

From a small working party set up in February to an incredible event hosted on Wednesday 21 April, the Liveries Skills Initiative has proven already to be a force in the drive to support young people. The pandemic has highlighted the need for young people, not just to re-connect with traditional school education, but also to be given additional opportunities to consider their career options, learn new skills, and discover again what will be involved in life at work after lockdown. With hundreds of years of experience, there is no better place to start than with all the Livery Companies, Guilds, City & Guilds, The Livery Committee and The City of London Corporation.

Watch the video of the Skills Survey Event.

An initial survey was sent out to all Liveries and Guilds to gather information on their skills provision, which came back with an impressive 97% response rate. The survey showed the significant contribution the liveries are already making. For example, 76% of liveries spend over £10K per year on skills development with 19% of liveries spending more than £100K per year supporting skills. The estimated value of expenditure on skills development by the liveries is more than £7.9 million annually. The Livery Companies have more than 3,562 strong and regular links with business.

From these findings, a virtual event was hosted with an attendance of 165 attendees from 93 Liveries and Guilds. The Lord Mayor warmly welcomed everyone to the event and focused on utilising challenging moments as a call to action to bolster and coordinate efforts to support skills and opportunities for young people. He highlighted that the role of Liveries and Guilds is crucial. The event went on to focus on the needs and grant possibilities, a breadth of existing options and potential opportunities and recommendations which Liveries and Guilds could take forward. The enthusiasm, desire, and urgency to do more was very clear in the comments and suggestions coming through from all attendees.

What now? The event supported a number of objectives:

  • Need to act with urgency.
  • Establish a joined-up and holistic information exchange able to provide details about training possibilities and maximise access to key influencers particularly in government.
  • Consider how to co-ordinate and optimise ability of members to access increased funding for and employment opportunities.
  • Encourage formation of new industry clusters to reflect post pandemic opportunities.
  • Nurture within all Livery Companies that culture of genuine lifelong learning, with a focus on activity for young people and those currently not in employment.

Documents relating to the Survey and Event –

 

Further links:
Consultation on new flexible apprenticeships

Skip to content