This week The Voice is running a four part series from the Centre for Cities, a think tank that works on analysis and policy to boost city economies. They launched their ‘Cities Manifesto’ at the Bournemouth Lib Dem Conference and this series looks in more detail at its main planks. You can also find out more at http://www.citiesmanifesto.org.

UK business leaders have become so fed-up with our skills system that they’re now refusing even to discuss it. Asked what the priorities for skills reform should be over the next five years at one of the recent party conferences, one prominent business leader rolled his eyes and replied with a sigh, ‘I’m not interested in talking about that, it’s boring. What’s the point?’

How depressing. After ten years of investment, reform and constant debate, the government’s lofty goal of ‘making our nation a world class leader in skills by 2020’ seems further away than ever.

And it’s not just the business leaders who have been disappointed with progress. In private, government ministers also recognise that not enough’s been achieved. In truth, they could hardly claim otherwise. The latest data shows that in places like Birmingham, Liverpool, Hull and Blackburn one in five of the workforce doesn’t have any qualification whatsoever. In Stoke, the figure rises to one in four. Nor can it be claimed that the lack of progress is due to the resources available – £12bn is spent on adult skills each year.

The skills system clearly isn’t delivering what we want from it. How can we fix it?

First, as we set out in our Cities Manifesto, we need to devolve more power to our cities. If the skills system is going to meet the needs of our communities then decisions need to be taken by local leaders operating across an area that matches how our economies operate. Warren Bradley, Leader of Liverpool, says all this spending hasn’t had the impact that the city’s economy needs – it needs to be brought to local level. That means genuine devolution to cities or ‘metro areas’ like Greater Manchester.

Second, we need to complement this devolution by getting rid of or shrinking many of the skills quangos that have grown up over the past 10 years. These bodies are expensive, unaccountable and too remote from the communities and local economies that they’re supposed to serve. Vince Cable has said that he’d cut the Train to Gain and skills council budgets by £990m per year. We agree that there’s plenty of money to save here. And replacing the Learning and Skills Council with three new quangos, as the current government plans, would be a step in the wrong direction.

Thirdly, we think incentives can be used more effectively to improve the responsiveness of the skills system. If the key objective of the FE sector is to prepare people for work, then it makes sense to reward those colleges that achieve more success in getting their students into employment.

Skills reform is tough, but the stakes are far too high to give up. The future of the economy depends on it. The fiscal crisis represents a great opportunity to introduce some genuinely radical reforms. Both Labour and the Conservatives seem put off by the complexity of the problems and are underplaying the issue’s importance. The Lib Dems should step into the vacuum and inject some momentum into rethinking and renewing the skills quagmire.

Chris Webber, Analyst, Centre for Cities