Learning from 10x Skills
The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has engaged extensively with the departments for the Economy (DfE) and Education (DE) to ensure the Skills Action Plan, published in October 2025, does not “repeat the failures” of the The Skills Strategy for Northern Ireland: Skills for a 10x Economy.
The Report on Developing the skills for Northern Ireland’s future, commissioned by the PAC and published by the Northern Ireland Assembly in May 2025, says the impact of significant spending on the Skills Strategy is not evident.
It says there was “little progress towards achieving the Skills Strategy’s strategic goals”, despite a “broad spectrum of programmes” provided by the Department for the Economy. The report says the strategy’s aims “do not appear to be actively shaping the work of those involved in development and delivery of skills programmes and initiatives”.
Amongst recommendations contained in the report, the PAC requests that the Skills Action Plan contain timebound actions allocated to officers. Each action in the action plan has been allocated to a lead official.
In response to a query from the PAC as to how the action plan would “not repeat the failures” of the Skills Strategy, DfE says a monitoring and evaluation strategy has been developed. DfE also says a progress report on the action plan is to be published in September 2026.
The PAC also called for a strategic assessment of skills programmes to be completed by September 2026. In October 2025, DfE said this would not be done until 30 June 2027.
While DfE and the Department of Education (DE) cite a lack of resources as a challenge, the report asserts that resources could be deployed more effectively. It says both departments have found collaborating challenging, and the PAC asserts that the departments “need to do much better”.
“With job vacancies in areas with skills shortages now five times higher than they were between 2015-2022, the focus needs to be on reducing the number of economically inactive people.”
PAC Chairperson Daniel McCrossan MLA
The report says data technology and use must be improved, and that there must be an increased focus on identifying and removing barriers to education, training, and employment; particularly for those with special educational needs (SEN) and disabilities. The PAC called for an update on how data is being used to enable the achievement of Skills Strategy goals. This was to be provided by September 2026.
Additionally, the PAC called for DfE to establish a data-sharing agreement with DE and the Department of Health (DoH) by March 2026. DfE has not yet committed to a timeframe for reaching a data-sharing agreement.
In December 2025, DfE wrote to the PAC saying: “It is not possible to commit to an exact timeframe or subsequent actions without a thorough analysis of the scale of the work and associated resource commitments.”
The report lauds the Northern Ireland Skills Council, established in 2023, for developing the digital skills policy, publishing the Digital Skills Action Plan 2024-2034, and developing the Green Skills Action Plan. It recommends DfE formally review its impact by March 2026, however, DfE extended the implementation date to September 2026.
It calls for both departments to do more to ensure provision of courses that reduce the skills gap and to incentivise their uptake. The report identifies “a failure to sufficiently progress the development of a coherent approach to 14-19 education training”. Additionally, the report criticises a lack of action to quantify the extent of duplication of provision by schools and further education colleges and to address it.
The PAC recommends that an action plan to identify the root cause of duplication in education provision for the 14-19 age group and to quantify its extent is developed. In a memorandum of reply to the PAC in August 2026, the Department of Finance said that some overlap in provision “will continue to be required”. In October 2025, DfE said the Post-16 Thematic Group “is currently progressing work to quantify duplication in provision”.
Furthermore, the PAC recommends that a revised delivery plan for the 14-19 framework include SMART targets and action owners and be set within clear governance and reporting structures. A progress update requested by the PAC is expected in autumn 2026.
The PAC also recommends that DfE evaluate which components of the business engagement landscape work well and which are unnecessary or duplicative along with where bureaucracy can be reduced. It called for this to completed within 12 months, but the implementation date was moved to May 2027. The PAC said this delay was not appropriate. DfE says the delay is necessary due to the “scale and complexity of the work” involved, but has also set an aim to deliver it ahead of the May 2027 schedule.
The PAC also called for DE to commission the Education and Training Inspectorate (ETI) to review the quality of careers education provided within education settings. In December 2025, DE said the ETI had been commissioned to conduct this review. DE said an update on the emerging findings was to be provided in February 2026. The ETI’s review was published in August 2026.
PAC chairperson Daniel McCrossan MLA says: “With job vacancies in areas with skills shortages now five times higher than they were between 2015-2022, the focus needs to be on reducing the number of economically inactive people. And to help people get jobs, they need to be equipped with the necessary skills.
“We believe the Department for the Economy needs to look at collaborating proactively with other departments, engaging with those people who are facing barriers to employment, and exploring new ways of working with employers.”
