LSIPs: the local skills plans more of us should be talking about

In this Espresso Shot episode, David and Mike make the case that England's new wave of Local Skills Improvement Plans might be among the country's most sophisticated skills planning exercises yet. They trace the leap in quality from the 2022 Trailblazer LSIPs through the first England-wide wave in 2023 to a markedly stronger second wave this year, with employer engagement running to hundreds of businesses per catchment and scale analysis of skills needs from job descriptions. The conversation weighs genuine institutional change, such as FE colleges setting out their approaches to LSIP delivery in their annual accountability statements, against a harder question: are LSIPs actually disrupting the supply side of skills, or doubling down on existing routes to delivery? For sector professionals, it's a prompt to treat LSIPs as inspiration for future strategies in other areas of LED and placemaking practice beyond skills.