Traditionally, skills policies in the UK have focused primarily upon boosting thesupply of skills as a route to improved economic prosperity as well as socialinclusion/mobility. However, some academic commentators have argued that thisapproach is insufficient and that more attention needs to be given to addressingproblems of weak employer demand for, and utilisation of, skills. Recently, some ofthese ideas have begun to be taken up by sections of the policy community. Issuesaround skills demand and utilisation figured prominently in Scotland’s 2007 skillsstrategy, and are now beginning to inform new forms of policy experimentation. TheUK Commission for Employment and Skills has also argued that ‘the futureemployment and skills system will need to invest as much effort on raising employerambition, on stimulating demand, as it does on enhancing skills supply’. In light ofthese developments, the paper examines some of the challenges confronting skillspolicy in England under the new Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalitiongovernment, and considers the prospects for a more integrative and holistic approachto tackling the ‘skills problem’. It argues that the political and ideological space forsuch an approach is limited in England with skills policy likely to focus mainly uponskills supply, albeit with vastly diminished state funding/subsidy.
