The Strategy and Performance Directorate of the UK Commission has a remit covering every part of the employment and skills system (and the system as a whole) in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. It brings a distinctive perspective and set of capabilities to this remit. Strategy and performance are not two separate activities, but different aspects to the question “how can this organisation / system work better”. Strategy is the longer term, more principles-based approach to designing robust route maps to fundamental change and improvement; performance is more a matter of designing specific processes and outputs changes which improve the outcomes for the users of the employment & skills.      

The Directorate’s mission is to ask, and answer, the fundamental questions, challenge outmoded ways of doing things and bring about plans for change in ways that help the employment and skills system work better to promote long term productivity growth and social cohesion.

The distinctive perspective of the Directorate is that of the practitioner, user and strategic change manager. It brings together individuals who have:

• management of change expertise;
• experience of developing change and performance improvement strategies;
• detailed practical knowledge of different parts of the employment, skills and workforce development systems;
• experience of the system as users (or as frustrated non-users); and
• expertise in other systems and programmes from which lessons can be drawn.

The standing Directorate team will comprise a Director, three Associate Directors (one each with expertise in Employment, Further and Higher Education, and Workforce Development), a team of 6-8 Associates with expertise in varying fields such as project management, systems and processes, business process re-engineering, and other specialist subjects, supported by additional short-term project staff as the evolving work programme requires.

The Directorate’s work is project based. The subject of a project might be, for example, an organisation, sub-system, strategy, or process within the employment and skills system, or the system as a whole from the point of view of a particular user group. The purpose is to challenge existing practice and to recommend strategic, system and organisational changes to achieve fundamental improvement in the performance of the employment and skills system and its impact on UK productivity.

Project teams are usually led by an Associate Director and staffed by Associates, external secondees, and sometimes other Associate Directors. They will also draw on the expertise of the UK Commission’s Research and Policy Directorate and will manage partnership arrangements and contracts with consultancies and research organisations. Most staff will belong to more than one project team at any given time. Staff will work closely with UK Commissioners, policy-makers, public sector partners, practitioners and employers to ensure excellence and acceptance of recommendations.

Priorities for the Directorate in 2008-10 include:

• Recommending measures for radical simplification and improvement of the UK employment and skills system;
• Advising, by 2010, on whether further institutional change is needed to better integrate employment and skills services for employers and individuals;
• Assessing ways to improve progression for individuals (including disadvantaged people) through the employment and skills system and continued career advancement;
• Identifying ways to increase effective collaboration and inter-working between sectoral clusters and agencies working at the spatial level to support sub-national  economic development;
• Recommending measures to increase employer engagement and investment in workforce development.