Evaluation of the UK futures programme: Conclusions and guidance

This evaluation report presents the learning from the evaluation of the UK Futures Programme (UKFP). The UKFP ran between April 2014 and June 2016 and was funded by the UK Commission for Employment and Skills’ (UKCES). The UKFP provided an innovative approach to tackling workforce development issues, offering small scale public co-investment to employers and industry, to design and test their own solutions to emerging or long-standing skills and productivity challenges. The UKFP’s four key objectives were to: Support collaborative approaches to workforce development issues amongst employers and, where applicable, wider social partners; Encourage innovative approaches to addressing workforce development issues; Identify ways to address new or persistent market or system failures which act as a brake on UK workforce competitiveness; Identify ‘what works’ when addressing market failures in relation to workforce development, for adoption in policy development and wider business practice.