Our vision – our WHY – is of a highly skilled, enterprising and resilient workforce.

We have a vision of a highly skilled workforce because employment forecasts for West Lothian tell us that there is a greater demand for higher level skills than exists in the working age population.

To have a highly skilled workforce needs people to be skilled at all levels, including entry and intermediate level, so that more are able to gain higher level skills.

We have a vision of an enterprising workforce. West Lothian has a smaller proportion of small businesses and self-employed people than other local authority areas. A healthy economy needs a balance of small, medium and large companies who, in turn, need enterprising employees able to adapt to ongoing change.

West Lothian also needs more people with the ambition, confidence and skills to create their own employment and business.

We have a vision of a resilient workforce because employees need to be able to cope and be productive in an increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world in which digital has an ever-increasing influence.

Four strategic goals – our WHAT – help us achieve our vision:

• Inspiring and enabling success for all means providing opportunities for education and training that help people take the next step towards their ambition
• Supporting economic recovery and growth is about how we help employers and employees survive the current crisis and come out of it able to take advantage of new opportunities
• Strengthening our communities involves working with others to ensure local people benefit from education, training and jobs to improve their lives and wellbeing
• Leading with vision and empathy is about how we innovate, grow and learn, and how we care for our students, colleagues and partners

Three values – our HOW – underpin our approaches to all that we do:

• Being welcoming to all means we embrace equality, diversity and inclusion
• Students at the centre of everything we do means exactly that
• Always striving for better sums up our commitment to continuous improvement

Living our values means that we exhibit the following behaviours:

Welcoming to all

• We are respectful and inclusive, and treat everyone as an individual
• We listen actively, and communicate in an open and supportive way
• We are positive role models, engaging with purpose and enthusiasm

Students at the centre of everything we do

• We work together and support each other as part of a team
• We are flexible and accommodating, and act on feedback to make changes
• We are understanding and responsive, focusing on individual needs

Always striving for better

• We evaluate and reflect on our practice to improve and succeed
• We are open to new ways of working, look outwards and learn from others
• We are proactive and forward looking, preparing for what may come next

If you would like to work with us to achieve our vision and goals please contact me at jgalbraith@west-lothian.ac.uk.