Briefing paper: Learning and skills for economic recovery, social cohesion and a more equal Britain (The Blunkett Report)

This paper analyses Lord Blunkett’s report for the Labour Party, Learning and skills for economic recovery, social cohesion and a more equal Britain and particularly focuses on the vision that it sets out for the career development system. While the Blunkett Report has no formal power it provides a very strong indication of the direction that the Labour Party is likely to travel on education and skills
as it develops its manifesto and seeks to become the government.

The Report argues that ‘skills are the currency with which future opportunity will be bought by British companies’ (p.8). An overhaul of the skills system is therefore viewed as central to Labour’s economic policy which seeks to accelerate growth, improve the quality of jobs and the functioning of the labour market and manage the social and economic changes created by net-zero and the wider
transformation in the nature of work.

Blunkett’s Report contains a substantial section on career guidance and proposes a number of broader reforms that would create a fertile environment for career guidance. Despite this, there are six areas of constructive criticism that we would hope that the Labour Party would engage with as it
takes this report forward.