People

Skills

RDAs play a key role in driving up demand and investment in skills through our business support and innovation programmes. RDAs work closely with a range of stakeholders including employer affiliated organisations such as UKCES, HEFCE, SFA, Jobcentre Plus and Sector Skills Councils, to achieve these goals.

Economic Inclusion

For regional economies to thrive, levels of economic participation must be as high as possible. Exclusion not only has a significant adverse economic impact, but also negative social effects with unemployment directly linked to increased poverty, poor health and low educational standards. Concentrations of economic inactivity occur throughout the UK and have become one of the major causes of regional disparities.

Each RDA works to overcome the barriers to economic inclusion, whether through increasing access to jobs, providing learning opportunities for basic as well as higher level skills and through projects targeted at encouraging enterprise among disadvantaged groups.