Last month, we joined Yorkshire Sport Foundation in Leeds as we co-hosted ‘Future Focus: The Evolution of West Yorkshire’s Sport and Physical Activity Workforce’.
Taking place in the city centre, the event brought together key local stakeholders to address workforce challenges and explore future opportunities to shape a skilled workforce that is future-proof.
The event introduced West Yorkshire to our local skills project, and the role that it can play with scoping industry needs on a local level. CIMSPA’s Workforce Development Manager for West Yorkshire, Cherelle Mitchell, discussed the introduction:
“I’ve been working really closely with employers across West Yorkshire to understand the skill gaps in this area.
“Through our skills diagnostic surveys, we have raw data for our industry in this area, which can help us get started on finding areas to focus on, in order to enhance the workforce. This data has been shared with education partners, local authorities and other relevant organisations to really understand what the workforce needs are for the local sector.
“Today’s event has been very much around how we can work together as a sector, and take proactive steps towards making our workforce thrive for our communities.”
What are skills diagnostic surveys?
A CIMSPA Skills Diagnostic Survey is a short survey conducted by our team of Workforce Development Managers, with the aim of capturing workforce data from a given area in order to create a true picture of workforce needs.
The survey audits the current skills within a workforce and identifies gaps that need to be filled based upon the demand in that area, using the knowledge and skills criteria of each CIMSPA professional standard.
The data helps to inform decisions made by the area’s sport and physical activity Local Skills Accountability Board (LSAB), who will be making suggestions for what provision is needed in that locality.
Future Focus provided an insight into where West Yorkshire is regarding local skills work, and what the future could look like for the sport and physical activity sector.
Nigel Harrison, Chief Executive of Yorkshire Sport Foundation discussed the importance of events like this:
“It’s really important that we have a workforce that is promoting people to be active, and that they’re embedded in local communities.
“For this to happen, we need to develop support for our workforce in order to help them do their jobs effectively.”
Nigel went on to discuss how working at different levels can influence the sport and physical activity sector:
“At community level, there has to be the opportunity for people to learn. People in our communities also need to know where they’re able to get these learning opportunities from, and then they need to be able to access local jobs. There are vacancies out there, but we need to be able to match that up at a local level.
“At a district level, there is lots of skills planning taking place. In West Yorkshire, there are five metropolitan districts (Bradford, Leeds, Calderdale, Kirklees and Wakefield) – we need to tap into the more general skills work, and make sure that our sector is central to that, as well as helping people understand where sport and physical activity fits into that so we’re able to access more opportunities.
“And then at West Yorkshire level, because of devolution and devolved skills and health programmes, we know that sport and physical activity has a bigger role to play there, too.”
Devolution – what is happening in West Yorkshire?
In March 2020, West Yorkshire agreed a devolution deal with the Government, which resulted in the creation of the Mayor of West Yorkshire.
The deal set out new powers, funding and responsibilities for West Yorkshire, which have been transferred from central Government. The five councils and the Mayoral Combined Authority can now make more decisions on issues that affect local communities, such as adult education, skills and jobs, transport, housing, and the region’s economic recovery.
Fast-forward to 2024, the government have released the English Devolution White Paper, with the intention to further distribute pollical, social and economic powers to more of England’s regions.
The White Paper also includes a pledge to make skills and employment support provision more aligned with the local economy and jobs, building on what has been said in regards to Skills England and the Get Britain Working White Paper. Read more about it from our Chief Strategy Officer, Spencer Moore.
Overcoming workforce challenges
During the day, tables discussed current workforce challenges that are being experienced in the sport and physical activity sector, and how we can try to overcome these and create opportunities.
Natalie Sampson, Recruitment, Training and Development Manager for Kirklees Active Leisure, discussed how they are improving their processes to combat their recruitment and retention challenges:
“It was always a challenge coming out of Covid-19; there was a lot of vacancies and gaps. Alongside that we’ve had a new facility, so it was quite a challenge.
“We’ve overcome it by taking on recruitment events, getting more people involved. We’re trying to et people in the door, seeing what our facilities are like and hopefully they can see themselves working somewhere like that.
“We’ve got a wide range of roles for anyone, whether you have leisure experience or not. You can come into the industry and start as a customer advisor for instance, and then we can upskill them into a specialist role with training that we can provide.
“We run a lot of lifeguard courses. This is great to get people qualified, but we’re also finding that over half of the people attending these courses end up working for us in the future. So it’s giving local communities opportunities to find training, but also helping us with recruitment as well for future roles.”
The future of local skills in West Yorkshire
Future Focus set the the stage for the introduction of our local skills project in West Yorkshire.
The Sport England-funded project brings together employers, education providers, and employability-focused organisations to create a local skills plan for the area, aiming to efficiently manage supply and demand in our sector, and to make sure that our workforce receives the right training for both their role, and the area’s needs.
Across the UK, local skills accountability boards (LSABs) have been created to build and implement this plan, with a West Yorkshire Board in the pipeline, ready to be set up. Cherelle Mitchelle will be the Workforce Development Manager for the Board:
“For West Yorkshire, key sector stakeholders now have a chance to come together to make sure we’ve got a thriving workforce, so that healthcare providers can really trust our sector to work with them to help manage their workload.
“It’s been a really good day to have everybody in the room and showcase that enthusiasm towards creating a strong workforce for our sector.
“It’s very exciting, and hopefully this can make some great steps towards that local skills plan for West Yorkshire.”
Find out more about our Sport England-funded local skills project below.
