Adrian Bailey MP - Chair, Business, Innovation and Skills Select Committee

• Outlining the strategic goals for integrated employment and skills provision - creating an efficient labour market, building a 21st Century economy, tackling poverty
• The impact of recession on unemployment and skill provision
• The challenges of recent reform by the new Coalition Government
• What framework can we use to measure success?

Jim Hillage - Director of Research, Institute of Employment Studies

Joel Featherman - Assistant Director, Strategy and Performance, UK Commission for Employment and Skills

• The role of the new Skills Funding Agency - quicker and more efficient funding deployment
• SFA Gateways - National Apprenticeship Service, Employer Skills Services and Learner Skills Services
• The future for Regional Skills Strategies
• The role of Sector Skills Councils
• Skills accounts

Geoff Russell - Chief Executive, Skills Funding Agency

John McNamara - Chief Executive, Alliance of Sector Skills Councils

Oona Muirhead - Group Executive Director, Strategy & Resources, SEEDA

Ron Painter - Chief Executive of the National Association of Workforce Boards America

• What characterises integration of employment and skills at the local level?
• Engaging employers locally to define skills requirements - fully utilising "Train to Gain" and "Local Employer Partnerships"
• Ensuring easy access to and between employment and skills services - interlinking the roles of local authorities, service providers and employers
• Developing the flexibility to respond to diverse individual needs

Carmel Millar - Head of HR and Organisational Development, Surrey C.C

Mandie Stravino - Group Director, Corporate College, Derby

In this session delegates will have an opportunity to take part in an interactive voting session, answering questions submitted by speakers, delegates and relevant organisations. Each participant will get a voting pad and the results will appear in real time.

• How will the integration of employment and skills policy and programmes be developed?
• The Initiatives introduced by the new Coalition Government to tackle unemployment - reassessing claimants work capabilities, increasing work incentives, and payment by results for providers
• Looking beyond Flexible New Deal - What impact on existing contracts and bids and for future cash flows?
• Greater autonomy and lighter regulation for successful providers
• Plans for future skills policy - 'Skills for Sustainable Growth'

Alan Cave – Delivery Director, Department for Work and Pensions

• Employer Engagement – Examples of Successful Local Employer Input

• Improving Adult Basic Skills: What the evidence tells us

• The Role of Online Learning in Building Skills and Employability

• What will the post recession economy look like?
• Taking advantage of this opportunity to adapt and change provision for the future of the British economy
• Focusing on skills needed in likely areas of high economic growth
• Creating a system which encourages aspiration and ambition
• Working under the new welfare to work system of the Coalition Government

John Philpott - Chief Economist, CIPD

Rob Murdoch - Executive Director, A4E