Issue - meetings

The purpose of this item is to inform the Health & Wellbeing Board of the purpose of the West of the England Industrial Strategy, and outline the points of interest to board members, with a recommendation that the board provides a consultation response for the draft strategy on its release in May 2019.

10.10am – 25 minutes – Duncan Kerr

The Board considered a report which set out the purpose of the West of England Industrial Strategy.  Duncan Kerr, B&NES Business Growth Team Manager, gave a presentation regarding the strategy including the following points:

·  The aim of the (National) Industrial Strategy is to boost productivity by backing businesses to create good jobs and increase the earning power of people throughout the UK with investment in skills, industries and infrastructure.

·  The 5 pillars - consisting of ideas, people, infrastructure, business environment and places.

·  Challenges – such as an aging society

·  The West of England Local Industrial Strategy will help to deliver the region’s ambition to be a driving force for sustainable, inclusive growth.

·  Delivery

·  Creative Collisions

·  Governance

A copy of the presentation slides is attached as Appendix 1 to these minutes.

Cllr Paul May stressed the importance of considering the whole process that was involved to ensure that young people were fully prepared for entering the workforce.  A skills academy was needed in the B&NES area to address the gap between people with different levels of educational attainment.

Cllr Robin Moss was concerned that no mention of the impact of Brexit on business and growth was included in the report.

Bruce Laurence highlighted the importance of considering all types of jobs in the local economy to include the range of people and skills in the wider community.  Local colleges should take this into account.

Cllr Tim Ball felt that it was important to have a clear idea of how any funding would be spent within the local economy and to ensure that the strategy was written in plain language that could be easily understood.

Sarah Shatwell noted the need to consider resilience to ensure that people were supported to avoid issues such as work related stress.

Dr Ian Orpen noted that the workforce was aging and that people now often worked beyond retirement age.  Employers had a responsibility to support these older workers and to enable them to retrain if necessary.

Caroline Holmes welcomed the links to artificial intelligence and robotics.

RESOLVED: To provide a co-ordinated consultation response to the draft strategy on its release in May 2019.