To ensure this Strategic Plan delivers effectively, we have worked closely with our agency partners to develop a shared understanding of the environment in which we operate.

Over the next three years, we will collaborate with the Scottish Funding Council (SFC), Scottish Enterprise (SE), Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) and the new South of Scotland Agency (SoSA) to deliver the actions identified in the Strategic Board’s Strategic Plan and to develop a shared vision for skills in 2035.

This vision will shape our approach to delivering inclusive and sustainable economic growth for Scotland. Each agency will continue to play its distinctive part but with a fresh clarity of direction on the shared ambition and collective actions that will help Scotland, its economy, businesses and people, excel in the present and seize the opportunities of the future.

Identified within the Strategic Plan, SDS has a distinct role to play in:

  • Promoting progressive business models and innovative work practices
  • Implementing the ‘5 stage skills alignment model’
  • Developing and embedding meta-skills in the learning and skills system
  • Developing a single business portal
  • Using our data and digital capability to align agency offers and enhance services to customers.

We will also support Scottish Government to deliver the commitments in the Economic Action Plan to:

  • Accelerate the pace and implementation of the recommendations of the Learner Journey Review – which aims to improve the efficacy of pathways from learning into work
  • Publish a Future Skills Action Plan in 2019 which will address the need for up-skilling and re-skilling support and the establishment of a flexible and sustainable funding model for work-based learning.
"To focus on creating a more successful country with opportunities for all of Scotland to flourish through increased wellbeing, and sustainable and inclusive economic growth."

- The Scottish Government's purpose

In pursuit of this national ambition, the Enterprise and Skills Strategic Board has identified how the enterprise and skills agencies can contribute and collectively help Scotland move towards the top quartile of OECD countries for productivity, equality, sustainability and wellbeing. 

Achieving this would not only bring more spending power for individuals, improved business competitiveness and profits and higher tax revenues to help fund better public services but it would also deliver improvements in equality, wellbeing and sustainability.

Find out more about our agency partners

Read our partner agencies strategic plans for 2019-2022 with the links below.