As the economy slowly opens up, entrepreneurs will need access to workers with the right skills to drive the recovery.
To that end, the CBI has released a report on Building a World-Class Innovation and Digital Economy. It measures the UK against the other G7 countries and is packed full of familiar policies that we back. One that stood out, which I’ve not discussed here before, is transforming Job Centres (now Jobcentre Plus) into Jobs and Skills Hubs.
Jobs and Skills Hubs would harness the expertise of colleges, universities, unions, businesses, and Local Enterprise Partnerships to provide the rapid matching of people to new job opportunities and sourcing high quality training in areas of future demand in the local labour market. As furlough is withdrawn, this could be vital for supporting the rising number of unemployed.
This brings to mind a recent article by Jonathan Portes and Tony Wilson, which calls for us to ape successful countries like Denmark in the way we support employment. But as with any reforms like this, the devil is in the implementation. As Heather Rolfe from the think tank Demos argues: “For this to work, the low-grade box-ticking ‘employment skills’ courses where participants repeatedly write CVs, need replacing by real training courses, leading to technical skills and designed and delivered in partnership with local colleges and employers.”
Job Centre reform won't grab as many headlines as a cut to VAT (which is looking increasingly likely), but it would probably be a better use of limited resources. As Ryan Bourne argues in The Telegraph: “the government would get far more “bang for the buck” diverting funds into actively encouraging new hires or at least offering retraining or job-matching services for workers who find their old roles defunct.” (If you're still not convinced about the limited economic benefits of cutting VAT, read Edward Troup's dissection of the idea).
Lunch and learn
On Tuesday, Viscount (Matt) Ridley and Dr Anton Howes will discuss how innovation works. I can’t wait for this one, as I grew up devouring Matt’s brilliant books. I would particularly recommend The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature. He will be discussing some of the ideas in his new book, titled appropriately enough, How Innovation Works.
Anton has started working with us as Head of Innovation Research, but he is first and foremost one of the UK’s experts on Britain's acceleration of innovation that gave rise to the Industrial Revolution. His first book has just been published. Arts and Minds tells the story of Britain's subscription-funded national improvement agency, the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA).
It’s bound to be a fascinating discussion. It’s at 1pm on Tuesday, so you might want to tune in over a spot of lunch. Find out more here.
Level heads
Levelling up investment across the country will require level heads. As Sam Dumitiru writes on our blog, for every success story like Israel’s famous Yozma programme, there are a dozen failed attempts where public money has been wasted with little to show for it. Drawing on the work of Josh Lerner, Sam details the common pitfalls of governments using venture capital to level up and concludes that we should limit interventions to match funding with the private sector. Read it here.
Design for life
The British Design Fund has got in touch about an opportunity to apply for the 2020 global Design Intelligence Awards, hosted by the China Academy of Art. These awards recognise innovation in four categories: cultural innovation, living wisdom, industrial equipment and digital economy, and are designed for both established businesses with products in market and early stage innovators with prototypes capable of being brought to market.
Ben Griffin, Innovation Lead for Design at Innovate UK, is one of the judges. The deadline is 6 July and last year’s winner Open Bionics, which is developing the next generation of bionic limbs, took home 1 million Yuan (around £115,000). Find out more here.
Seeing the wood
Our friends at Enterprise Nation have announced the Amazon Small Business Accelerator, a major support package for 200,000 small businesses across the UK. By joining the programme you can access a bundle of business offers worth over £2,000. Find out more here.
Just the Job