What's happening in your neck of the woods?
It's important to check out the Learning and Skills Council for your county because they are all different, and what is happening in one county may not be going on in another. In particular,

• Check out the Adult Learner pages on your Learning and Skills Council's site; and
• Keep up to date with the news on the home page by visiting it regularly - you'll be in a better position to take responsibility for your career and drive it forward, and take advantage of learning, training and employment opportunities that come your way!

Your local Learning and Skills Council will be working in partnership with other local bodies and groups to make sure that the training you and your employer need access to is available, so that you demands can be met.

Examples of these bodies include Connexions (www.connexions-direct.com, useful if you're a parent with teenagers), Business Links, the TUC, further education colleges and universities, JobCentre+, and Sector Skills Councils. Collectively, they work in partnership with a body called the East Midlands Framework for Regional Learning and Skills Action (FRESA). FRESA seeks to stimulate demand for skills and drive up job quality, and ensure that the skills supply matches the aspirations and needs of employers.

The FRESA has 5 priority themes, namely:

• Raising skills level in the workforce (good news for you). Industries driven by technological change are likely to have the most rapid growth in the next 5 years. Raising your skills levels will mean higher wages and sustained business growth.



• Employability for all - enabling YOU to transfer your skills from one job to another.



• Skills for Enterprise and Innovation - creating a spirit of enterprise and innovation and helping SMEs to recruit and retain graduates and helping the owner-managers of tomorrow develop the confidence and skills to become the building blocks of a higher base economy.



• Management and leadership - such development will lead to increased productivity and job quality through innovative people and processes and businesses



• Knowledge and ICT - to develop the technology based industries and increase the knowledge base of existing industries. To enable everyone in the East Midlands to benefit from the ICT revolution - and that includes YOU!

Find out what's happening in YOUR area to boost YOUR skills and employability!

In June this year, a body called the Employment, Skills and Productivity Partnership will take over from FRESA.

Check out: http://www.esppartnership.org.uk/ - the East Midlands web site that will tell you all about efforts being made through the newly formed Regional Skills Partnership (RSP) to successfully engage with employers in raising productivity, innovation and skills - yours! The Partnership will seek to ensure that all demands for long term skills needs are met.