Examination of Witnesses (Questions 220
- 230)
MONDAY 9 FEBRUARY 2004
MR MARTYN
SLOMAN AND
MS VICTORIA
GILL
Q220 Jonathan Shaw: There is a major
concern from the DfES about participation and achievement at post-16,
one level who do very well, but we have got one of the lowest
staying-on rates in the OECD, I think that we are 27th out of
30 countries, so we are third from bottom. That is what the Government
view as one of the key challenges, in terms of improving the skills
of the workforce, staying on post-16. Is that something with which
you agree? Does your organisation have a view on it?
Ms Gill: Again, it is not our
particular area of expertise, but I think we would be generally
very supportive of that goal. Again, we are talking about technically-specific
skills, we are talking about the intermediate skills, and that
is where, to a certain extent, there are the big shortages. We
can all talk about the fact that the larger employers are able
to have the Modern Apprenticeship schemes which fit their particular
needs and also, coming up, the Foundation Degree programmes, but
I guess that is where we have to start off, we can take people
forward through those.
Q221 Jonathan Shaw: As you have mentioned
Modern Apprenticeships, I wonder if you have a view on Modern
Apprenticeships, are they assisting the workforce to become more
skilled? Can you give us some examples of where you think it is
working well and examples where you think there needs to be improvement?
Ms Gill: It is the age-old problem,
where they work well they work very well, where they do not, they
do not. Rolls-Royce is an example, they have a famous Modern Apprenticeships
scheme and it works incredibly well for them. The work that they
are doing, they do feel constricted at times by the pressures
which are put on them, the specific units which they have to achieve,
and a lot of organisations find that. The difficulty has been
that, with the Modern Apprenticeships programme, increasingly
a large percentage of it has been done outside the workplace rather
than workplace training, which was what initially it was set out
to be. All I would say, I guess, is it works very well where there
is real employer commitment and where a lot of it is done, granted,
in partnership, with FE or other organisations but it is seated
very firmly within the workplace.
Q222 Jonathan Shaw: At one point
the large construction companies used to have a huge apprenticeship
programme, where they would have their own direct labour force.
That does not happen any more, it is all contract work, so you
are talking about a whole series of sub-contractors and one-man
bands. It is very difficult for that to be work-based, is it not,
for the one-man bands to be able to provide all the necessary
training? Inevitably, it is going to be part college, training
place based, do you not agree?
Ms Gill: Then it is about it being
tailored to that particular circumstance and that particular sector.
Again, both Martyn and I keep saying it has to be sector-specific,
it has to be particular to that circumstance, and that cannot
be said enough really, because that statement, I guess, is often
undervalued.
Q223 Chairman: You are really at
the heart of the problem, in one sense, are you not, that, on
the one hand, you identify that it is these middle managers that
are the weak link, in terms of our comparative performance in
productivity and skills with Germany, France and America, yet
that is your market, is it not, you are supposed to be helping
to educate and train to higher levels? What is it about this middle
management area that you do not seem to be getting to, or anybody
else, to be fair?
Mr Sloman: I think that is a little
bit harsh. One important point, Chair, is that this middle management
issue has got to be seen within the context of best practices,
what we call high-performance working practices, which are the
best HR practices. What we are saying is that it is the middle
managers who will deliver them to the individuals and to get those
middle managers in place, the short answer is that it is a long
struggle and things have improved no end, but we have got a very,
very long way to go. I guess, when you say that we are part of
the problem, we would like you to say we are part of the solution.
If we can get better and more effective and better-trained HR
specialists in place, who are putting in the effective training
programmes, so that our line managers throughout the country know
how to get performance feedback, anyone who has worked in any
situation has been on the receiving end of some appallingly-given
feedback and appraisals, etc, and once you have been through it
you have picked it up and you know the message and you want to
see it done properly. We have got to get into a situation where
that is valued, where those sorts of skills are developed and
valued, and that can happen. We are going to risk going round
in circles like a broken record, but obviously some sectors, some
employers, are much better at this than others, and, frankly,
they either get the message or they do not, and once they have
got the message it sticks. The great hope is that the next generation
of people coming through the workforce will pick this up at a
very early stage and when they go through the management process
they will be reinforcing those sorts of sensible values which
develop those effective middle managers. That is the battle we
have got to fight and it is a long haul. If there were silver
bullets they would have been fired a long time ago. There has
been a raft of efforts, some successful, some unsuccessful, but
that is the battle we have got to fight.
Q224 Jeff Ennis: Going back to the
issue of the variety of government initiatives which have been
looked at to try to reduce the skills gap, in mainstream education
they have brought in a specialist schools programme and, coming
from the type of deprived constituency I represent, one of the
main problems in achieving Special School status has been to raise
the £50,000 from local employers to make the bid. The one
exception to that has been Ridgewood High School, in Scawsby,
Doncaster, in my constituency, which was one of the first five
engineering specialist schools in the country, primarily because
of the history of heavy engineering in Doncaster, ie the rail
works, etc, and mining engineering, and what have you. They raised
£70,000-odd overnight from, I think, nearly 100 different
companies in Doncaster. Does this not underline the importance
of this type of initiative, having to resonate with the local
employers to achieve success, rather than picking an abstract
specialism, shall we say?
Mr Sloman: Obviously, I do not
know the circumstances, Mr Ennis, but it sounds exactly that.
It has caught the right niche market, it makes sense to people
and it is using the language and vocabulary which the community
understand.
Q225 Jeff Ennis: Is it for the educationalists
in that particular circumstance to try to draw out the demand
from industry, or should industry be going to schools or colleges
and actually banging on the tables (the Chairman usually says)
to try to get what they want?
Ms Gill: There is evidence that
people are doing that, that there is growing collaboration. Again,
our most recent survey shows, out of all the agencies, Investors
in People, the LSCs, the proliferation of organisations which
are out there, actually the contact with the FE and the HE sectors
was the greatest and the satisfaction levels in the contact they
were getting also were pretty high up there. That is increasing.
Employers are recognising, particularly those that are operating
in regional circumstances, that the closer links they can have
with the particular local organisations then, as you say, they
can have a direct impact upon the skills and the people who are
coming into their workforce.
Q226 Chairman: Can you share the
results of that survey with the Committee?
Ms Gill: I cannot, as yet, because
it will not be published until April, but we can then.
Q227 Chairman: Can we have a look
at it privately and promise not to publish it until April?[1]
Ms Gill: Yes.
Mr Sloman: Yes.
Q228 Mr Pollard: Forty-five years
ago there were 750,000 people working in the mines, underground,
now there are about 10,000. I was a chemical engineer for donkey's
years and 250,000 people worked in the companies I worked for,
now it is down again, and you could go on and on and on, with
our great industries shutting down. Does it not mean, therefore,
that the Government is obliged to put in a massive amount of training,
otherwise it will not be done, and that is probably managing the
change from great industries to SMEs, and we have not managed
that change very well?
Mr Sloman: To some extent, we
are showing increasing signs of managing that transition well.
Employment levels are much better, as you are well aware. I guess
what I would say to you is, the challenge of that is that those
sorts of adjustments are inevitable, and I was one of the 750,000
people at the Coal Board so I am well aware of that. What you
have got to get is people who are confident that they can acquire
the skills to make those sorts of adjustment, and that opportunity
is out there and it is transmitted clearly, that by acquiring
those skills that will increase their employability. That is what
the ECDL has done, there is no doubt about that, and, in a sense,
that is what our qualification has done. Government has to be,
obviously, a positive agent in that process but ultimately it
is all about individuals being prepared to acquire for themselves
the new skills to compete in the modern workforce.
Q229 Chairman: This has been a very
good session, Victoria and Martyn. Do you have a last couple of
thoughts you would like to give us? Victoria, I am looking at
you, because you have got a formed base of research in this area,
and I see you worked in the Open University publishing sector
at one stage, as well as the Basic Skills Agency. I do not want
you to say there are two things that ought to be in this report.
What do you think we should have mind to in a report like this,
where we are trying to get under the skin of what is going on,
in terms of the skill deficiencies in our country, what sort of
flavour would you like to see coming out of our report?
Ms Gill: I guess I would go back
to the comment I made at the start of this afternoon's session,
that, at the end of the day, we are faced with quite a stark choice,
we can either find out what employers want and provide it, or
Government can provide what they want to provide and persuade
people to take it up. I do think that is quite a fundamental shift
and, as I said before, there are huge amounts of things associated
with trying to get employers to articulate exactly what they need
and, exactly the points I made about the SSCs, the role they have
to play. I guess, to me, that is a fundamental shift. We talk
a lot about the shift from a supply side system to a demand side
system, but that just gets to the heart of it.
Q230 Chairman: Thank you for that.
Martyn, you have got more experience than most people in this
area?
Mr Sloman: I think we need to
understand that activity in organisations, whether public, private
or voluntary sector, is going to be concentrated inevitably on
the business objectives. Time is always going to be a scarce resource,
and it would be wrong to assume that there is hostility to investing
in people, training, etc, but I think we have got to make sure
that our policies actually work with that grain, and a recognition
of that. This is why there has been so much emphasis from Vicky
and myself on looking at the sector as a sector, rather than adopting
the blanket solutions.
Chairman: This has been a very useful
session. Please remain in contact with the Committee, and when
you are travelling home to Norfolk, or wherever it is Victoria
is going, if you think of something that you should have said
to the Committee and did not, please e-mail us or contact us in
some way. Thank you.
1 Training and Development Survey 2004, CIPD,
18 April 2004. Back
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