Employment and skills contexts, opportunities, challenges and starting points vary across England. Employment rates vary significantly between geographic areas and demographic groups, as do qualification levels, and opportunities for growth.

All of this means there has been an increasing focus in debate on how to tailor employment and skills support to local conditions and how to embed it in local development and growth strategies.

The Local Government Association’s (LGA) Work Local framework is a key part of its proposed answer to this, arguing for greater devolution of employment and skills programmes tied to agreements showing local areas’ proposed approaches and the improved outcomes they argue would lead from this. The LGA is now refreshing this framework to reflect the changed economic, labour market, and policy circumstances and in the context of the Government’s approach to ‘levelling up’.

To support this work, the LGA commissioned Learning and Work Institute to look at the potential economic, fiscal and social benefits of improving employment and skills outcomes in different types of geographies. The aim is to give a potential ‘size of the prize’ should greater devolution lead to improved outcomes.

This report sets out our approach to doing this and the results. It is clear that there are large potential benefits to people, communities, employers, the economy and the taxpayer from further improving the impact of employment and skills support.