On Monday 25th March, I had the pleasure of meeting Darren Jones (Labour Member of Parliament for Bristol North West / Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury) at the University of Wolverhampton. We were joined by Richard Parker, the Labour Party Candidate for West Midlands Mayor and Sureena Brackenridge, our Labour parliamentary candidate for Wolverhampton North East.
As well as discussing the very realistic and welcomed prospect of shaping the future of Wolverhampton under a Labour government, we also spoke about something which is close to my heart and a key priority for Wolverhampton Labour Group: education, skills and jobs.
Education, better jobs and better work are key policy priorities for a Labour government and I welcome their plans to deliver a landmark shift in skills provision, support people into work, provide a New Deal for Working People, reform schooling and to give genuine choice in further and higher education.
I am confident that Labour’s long-term plan for education will lead to higher standards in schools and subsequently higher paid jobs through better skills, apprenticeships and training. Every student, if they don’t understand how to complete homework tasks effectively, should have the opportunity to seek help from professionals. In turn, a paper writing service that has received positive reviews for the quality and speed of order completion can assist with writing papers.
The Tories have been a big fail when it comes to education. With eight education secretaries in six years, they have neither had leadership nor direction and they have failed to provide the bedrock of security on which opportunity can flourish.
As a Labour council, we’re ambitious for our city and despite the financial challenges, we will continue to prioritise a good education, good skills and good jobs for all Wulfrunians. This is really important for Wolverhampton.
We have so much to be proud here in Wolverhampton. 91% of our schools are currently Good or Outstanding and we will continue to support them to improve further. Our Wolves at Work programme helped 650 local people into jobs last year and we will continue to provide support to city businesses and spend more of our budget with local employers to benefit our ‘Wolverhampton Pound’.
Our City has a bright future and this Labour council will continue to build, facilitate change and deliver results:
• In June, our new £8.1 million advanced engineering and electric vehicle training centre opens in Bilston.
• We are building our £61 million City Learning Quarter – thanks to the tireless efforts of this Council to secure funding.
• CLQ will help 45,000 learners and 7,500 apprentices over the next decade.
We’re determined to show place leadership on this – developing a ‘whole system’ approach to education, skills and employment. We are clear about our role – it’s enabling, facilitating and co-ordinating and we have developed a strategy to do just that.
In September last year, we endorsed our whole city, whole system Education, Skills and Employment Strategy – a very important document. It sets out how partners will work together and hold each other to account for delivering for local people.
It means everyone ‘stepping-up-to-the-plate’ and overcoming obstacles like data-sharing and joining up services.
I am confident that we can help deliver real transformation in this space – but we need proper funding from the government. Funding for jobs, skills and business support used to come from Europe. This was replaced by the UK Shared Prosperity Fund – significantly less. In the last three years of European funding, the city benefited from £15 million, under UKSPF our local allocation has only been £3.7 million.
We will continue to advocate for fair funding that reflects the needs of local communities. We will also push for more devolution of employment support – a top down ‘one size fits all’ approach doesn’t work in cities like ours. We need tailored and person-centred support so ‘no-one gets left behind’
If we can get all the parts moving together, we will be in even better placed to seize opportunities: more jobs and investment (e.g. 330 high quality new jobs and multi-million-pound investment in our new Green Innovation Corridor).
The people of this city can be assured that this Labour Council will continue to push for long-term, sustainable funding to get people into high quality jobs and training, and to support employers to provide quality jobs for local people.
Councillor Stephen Simkins
Leader of City of Wolverhampton Labour Council / Wolverhampton Labour Group.