Leitch review

The Leitch Review of Skills was an independent review by Lord Sandy Leitch, the Chairman of the National Employment Panel, commissioned by the British Government in 2004, 'to identify the UK’s optimal skills mix for 2020 to maximise economic growth, productivity and social justice, set out the balance of responsibility for achieving that skills profile and consider the policy framework required to support it.'

The final report, published at the end of 2006 recommended that UK should urgently and dramatically raise achievements at all levels of skills and recommended that it commit to becoming a world leader in skills by 2020, as benchmarked against the upper quartile of the OECD - effectively a doubling of attainment at most skill levels.

The Leitch Review was launched due to concerns over the ability of UK to compete in the increasingly globalised markets due to poor levels of literacy and numeracy in some sections of the workforce, and due to the UK's relatively poor international position in intermediate level skills and productivity. The Government's 2004 pre-budget document Skills in the global economy identified that this was reflected in the relatively low proportion of young people remaining in education after the age of 16, together with limited skills progression and training to higher levels once in work. As a result of such concerns it was announced in the 2004 Pre-Budget Report that Lord Leitch had been jointly commissioned by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Education Secretary to prepare a report.

After an interim report, Skills in the UK: the long term challenge, published in December 2005, the final Leitch Report was published in December 2006 as Prosperity for all in the global economy – world class skills. It recommends that the UK should aim to be a world leader on skills by 2020, and suggested how that aim should be achieved.

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Wikipedia