To ensure strong college involvement in the development of skills, AoC:
- meets on a one-to-one basis with key officials at a range of levels
- attends Government forums
- arranges for officials to attend member meetings, AoC workshops and conferences
- nominates college representatives for a number of standing bodies
In the area of skills, AoC works with the following key stakeholders:
- Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) officials, which deals with apprenticeships (including trailblazer work – leading employers picked to create sector-specific apprenticeships), traineeships, programmes for the unemployed and enterprise
- Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) officials who work on Universal Credit, Job Centre Plus (JCP) and Work Programme activity
- Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) at national and regional level
- UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES) officials who are involved with Sector Skills Councils and specific projects such as the ‘LMI for all’ (labour market information) initiative
- Skills Funding Agency (SFA) officials across the full range of funded provision and attendance at the following groups:
- Further Education Technical Advisory Group for funding (FETAG)
- Qualifications Advisory Group (QAG)
- European Social Fund (ESF) Advisory Group
- a range of task and finish sub-groups that deal with specific issues raised by these groups
AoC also works with other representative bodies to ensure a strong voice for skills providers. We work most often with the Association of Employment and Learning providers (AELP). We have partnered with AELP on a number of occasions to bid for funds to support development activity amongst providers.
