Our response

Our response

Against this challenging backdrop, the Scottish skills system must act urgently to ensure it maximises its contribution to generating inclusive growth, driving productivity, building prosperity, achieving a just transition to net zero and tackling social inequality.

Our vision is that: Scotland has an agile, dynamic, and employer-led skills and careers ecosystem which enables all people to develop the skills, adaptive resilience, and personal agency to thrive in a vibrant and inclusive labour market.

This vision is one for Scotland and cannot be achieved by SDS alone. We recommit to working with Scottish Government, agency colleagues, and actors across the whole of the skills and careers ecosystem to generate real change and achieve shared outcomes.

Our corporate goals

For each of our goals we have identified a corresponding customer commitment. These aim to explain how, by achieving our goals, we will be helping Scotland’s people to build the future they want.

Inclusive talent pool

To respond to this we will help all our customers to adapt and thrive in the changing world of work, making sure they have the skills they need to prepare for, plan and manage rewarding careers throughout their lives.

The outcomes we want to achieve

• Young people have improved participation and smoother post-school transitions
• People facing redundancy remain in, or secure alternative, employment
• More working-age people living in Scotland participate in the labour market
• The working-age population in Scotland increases through the attraction and retention of talent
• Scotland’s workforce better reflects the full diversity of the population.

Find out more about our goal - Inclusive talent pool
Quotation from Ernest and Young (2021)

Intelligence-led skills system

To help support an agile, responsive, resilient, and inclusive skills ecosystem that consistently delivers the skills the Scottish economy needs, we will work with our partners across Scotland to make sure the learning they do prepares them for rewarding work.

The outcomes we want to achieve

• Scotland’s employers experience fewer skills gaps and skills shortages
• Reskilling and upskilling opportunities are more flexible and accessible in Scotland
• Partners and stakeholders increasingly use career and labour market intelligence to inform decisions on learning provision and other service delivery
• The ambition of the Shared Outcomes Framework between SDS and the SFC is delivered.

Find out more about our goal - Intelligence-led skills system
Quotation from OECD (2020)