“Education, Education and Education”. This was the clarion call from former Prime Minister Tony Blair at the 1996 Labour Party conference. 

He said that they were his three top priorities on coming into office. 

Over 25 years later, I would suggest my own mantra-very similar to Mr Blair’s. That is: “Skills, Skills and Skills.” 

I felt energised by the challenge of skills when I attended a meeting in London to celebrate and look forward with the government’s Local Skills Improvement programme or LSIPs as they are called.  

This is a big nationwide project and our Business West team is currently delivering the LSIPs on behalf of government for the West of England, Gloucestershire, Swindon and Wiltshire. 

At the heart of these LSIPs is the requirement to really get to grips with what help companies need to deliver their workforce skills. 

And skills, my Oxford dictionary says are the ability to do something well, are, in my view, a vital key to growth. 

It was good to see the enthusiasm of Robert Halfon, Minister for Skills, Apprenticeships and Higher Education at the Westminster event last week. 

He recognised there had been a lot of progress in transforming technical and vocational education but there was still lots to do to marry it up with academic education for equal prestige. 

Following a chat before the event with Sarah-Jane Watkins, Principal of SGS College in Stroud, I asked the Minister about her difficulties in recruiting business expertise into teaching without sufficient funding to attract them. 

The big question for me now is what are the government’s plans to take the LSIPs forward to make use of all the information gleaned from business to drive skills. 

I was very impressed by the talk by Sir Michael Barber who is a government adviser on skills reform implementation. He is recognised as a world leader on the efficiency of government. 

Sir Michael talked about skills maps-quoting key companies and sectors steeped in skills in the South West. 

It brought home to me how many great companies we have whose heritage is driven by skills and just how important the encouragement of skills development is for our economic growth.