Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1020
- 1039)
MONDAY 10 MAY 2004
MR BRENDAN
BARBER, MR
IAIN MURRAY
AND MS
CAROLINE SMITH
Q1020 Chairman: Can we welcome all
three of you to our deliberations? It is very good to have you
here. One of the things you may have picked up on in that last
session is that we are very interested in looking at the whole
skills sector. This Committee has been away from skills for quite
some years. With the 14-19 inquiry and the White Paper on skills,
this is something that we have really turned our minds to and
we are doing a very thorough inquiry starting with 14-19. Brendan,
I know of your long interest in skills. When I was a shadow minister
in employment and skills many years ago, we worked together on
one or two things. That was one of your first jobs in the TUC,
I think, on skills. Today's session is to find out about some
important questions about where the TUC and the individual trade
unions stand on the training needs of our country. Brendan, would
you like to say something to get us kicked off?
Mr Barber: Thank you for the opportunity
to come along and give evidence to the Committee. The issue of
training policy, learning and skills has very much been high up
the TUC's agenda. It was on the agenda of our first congress in
1868 and I think ever since. It is important and has been recognised
for two key reasons. One, because of its importance to our economic
performance. I was listening with interest to Martin talking there
at the end of his session on high performance workplaces. High
performance workplaces certainly are those in which there is a
high, sustained investment in skills. They are also workplaces,
by and large, where the workforce is represented by a union and
there is an active dialogue and consultation culture as well.
It is very important in terms of our economic performance
and very much recognised as such in the work we did jointly with
the CBI a year or two back, looking at our productivity performance
against our major competitors. It is also vitally important too
because of the impact it has on people's life chances, on their
employability, on their opportunities to progress, on the discretions
that are available to them in the labour market. Skills empower
people and are enormously important for that reason too. It is
an area though where our performance has tended to lag behind
our major industrial competitors. This has been very well documented.
We have a major problem in terms of basic skills. There are around
in the workplace 3.5 million people with basic literacy and numeracy
problems. We have a major problem too at the level of intermediate
skills, with somewhere between seven and eight million people
still not trained and competent up to NVQ level two standard.
There is a major challenge in terms of the arrangements we make
for young people coming into work. There is a long term problem
of the difference in esteem that we accord academic routes for
learning compared to vocational routes. We welcome the relaunch
today of the apprenticeships programme as one element of the strategy
to try to begin to turn that around. We have had a lot of debate
in recent months over the 50% target of young people we want to
see going through higher education. We have to make sure there
is not a forgotten 50%, the other 50%. They need investment in
their opportunities too. We have supported broadly the new skills
strategy that the Government articulated in the White Paper. Important
elements of that include the Employer Training pilots, though
we would very much like to see those moved to become a fully national
programme, with a clear entitlement for individuals to access
opportunities to deliver at least up to level two. An important
element of the strategy of course is the emphasis on work at sectoral
level and the establishment of the new Sector Skills Councils
and the intention to establish agreements, sector by sector, to
really try to harness employer commitment in that form. This is
not the first time that we have looked to win that kind of commitment
from the employer community. As you said, I go back quite a way.
I worked for an industrial training board before I joined the
TUC.
Q1021 Chairman: Ceramics, was it
not?
Mr Barber: It was indeed. Those
were the mechanisms of that time back in the 1970s that were an
attempt to bring employers together and really build a commitment.
The new Sector Skills Councils are a very important part of the
new arrangements. Whether they succeed or fail will be critical
to the overall success of the strategy that the White Paper articulated.
We looked with interest at the recent, very major survey that
was conducted by the Learning and Skills Council, which came up
with an estimate of something like £4.5 billion employer
spend on direct training costs, but with some very worrying figures
too about the extent to which employers simply do not invest.
That survey showed something like 40% of employers offering no
training of any sort to their workforce and we have long had this
problem that training is very unevenly made available. The level
of investment in people at the top of organisations in their continued
learning is very much greater than the level of investment available
for people at the bottom who start with little or no qualifications
base. Arguably, the order ought to be precisely the reverse of
that. This is an area of work in which the trade union movement
in recent years has really begun to develop its own work in rather
exciting ways. We very much welcome the support that has been
available from the Union Learning Fund, to support union initiatives.
There have been something like 400-plus projects now that have
been supported by the fund. Those projects have involved activities
in over 3,000 workplaces, with almost 40,000 people completing
courses of learning as a result just of those specific projects
and something like 180 new workplace learning centres being established
as a result of those projects. What all that experience has demonstrated
very powerfully is that the union role can really make a rather
unique contribution in helping to build that bridge between people
and the learning system, particularly if you look at that issue
of basic skills. Not exclusively, but many of these projects have
involved work in the basic skills area. If the invitation is extended
for people to come back into learning from their employer or simply
from the local learning institution, their response will very
often be rather apprehensive. Their experience of education may
not have been too positive and it can look pretty daunting. When
that invitation comes from a work mate, somebody who they trust
in a rather different kind of way, the response can be very much
more positive. This is an area of work where I hope, over the
next period, to see us really expanding very significantly. There
are something like 7,000 people now playing this new role of union
learning representative. We expect to see that number increasing
rapidly. We are looking very actively at whether there are
some new institutional arrangements that could maximise the impact
of the work that is being done right across the trade union movement
and could communicate to members and potential members in a more
powerful way the routes back into learning that the trade union
movement can help to facilitate. It is a very lively, practical
agenda for trade union work as well as our engagement in the broader
policy aspects to the debate as well.
Q1022 Chairman: In terms of where
the union participation can really work, when we did our inquiry
into individual learning accounts, we did find that where the
unions were mediating individual learning accounts there was a
very much higher success rate all round because people were confident
in the courses they took and were supported. We noted that in
that report. When you do it, it seems to me very successful, but
there is a bit of a feeling around, is there not, that you are
rather late converts? Here are jobs haemorrhaging abroad because
people say that other competitive countries are better trained
than our workforce so the TUC and trade unions are getting more
interested in training. Some people would say perhaps you have
not campaigned and put your head above the parapet enough for
driving up skills in our country. Has the TUC at any time said
it is wrong for a child at 16 to go into the workplace with no
education and training? Is that something you would feel passionately
about?
Mr Barber: I think this is an
area where our record has been pretty creditable. I would strongly
assert that. It is difficult always to get the level of public
interest, attention and media interest and so on in some other
areas which seem to be more conducive to producing headlines.
As ever, there is a grain of truth in your question. Of course
there is more potentially that we could do but the work of the
last four or five years in particular, the identification of this
new, practical role in the workplace of union learning representative,
is a very exciting development that has been well recognised right
across the trade union movement. One of the positive byproducts
of this work is the extent to which it has brought new people
into taking on an active workplace role on behalf of their fellow
workers. The profile of union learning representatives shows that
many more women have come forward to take on that role than take
on the traditional workplace shop steward role. There are lots
of positive aspects to this work that I think have been strongly
recognised round the trade union movement. It is an area that
has very, very solid trade union commitment.
Q1023 Chairman: Does the TUC or you
personally have a view on 16-year-olds going into work with no
training and education, possibly for the rest of their lives?
Mr Barber: We do not think they
should. We have very strongly campaigned for the idea that everybody
ought to have learning opportunities. People should not come into
a workplace and be written off before they have even started their
working life with no training opportunities available to them.
Q1024 Chairman: What about modern
apprenticeships? I know you welcome the relaunch in a famous departmental
store this morning. Are you content with modern apprenticeships
which have such a high drop out rate and do not actually give
you a qualification along the road, so if you drop out half way
you have nothing?
Mr Barber: We are not uncritical
by any means. We have strong concerns about the drop out rate
and whether the quality is high enough and consistent enough.
We have strong concerns about the failure so far to break out
of gender stereotyping, an issue that the EOC highlighted in a
report within the last week or two. There are very important aspects
of the new apprenticeships that we have concerns over, but they
do represent in our judgment a serious attempt to try to tackle
this longstanding problem of a lack of regard and esteem being
attached to vocational learning routes and they do represent another
serious attempt to engage the employer community in developing
active learning strategies in their workplaces. The objectives
are very much supported. Experience will demonstrate whether or
not they deliver as much as we all would like to see.
Q1025 Chairman: Some people have
argued that embedded in OFR—it kicks off in terms of the
review in June and then will very much make a most important contribution
to the way companies account for themselves and their operations—is
a real opportunity for trade unions to stimulate a much higher
profile for training and what happens to individuals as they become
employees and have a working life. Do you see that as an opportunity
and what are you going to do about it?
Mr Barber: We do see it as an
opportunity. We have strongly urged that the new Operating and
Financial Reviews ought to automatically include appropriate reference
to the employment strategies of organisations and their strategies
for investing in skills. This is an issue that we have not found
common cause with the Government on who have still left it that
it is for directors themselves to determine what are the material
factors on which they need to report. We would have thought strategies
for people ought to automatically be recognised as issues central
to the potential success of the organisation.
Q1026 Chairman: The Kingsmill bit
of accounting for people speaks directly to your—?
Mr Barber: It does and we welcome
the work that was done through the Kingsmill review to put a sharp
focus on this area. As you say, it provides new opportunities
for the trade union movement to look at companies, to access fuller
information about the strategic thinking at the heart of company
strategies and new opportunities therefore to try and influence
those.
Q1027 Chairman: I was a bit astonished
when we were pushing the Engineering Employers' Federation
about how often they met with the unions at a high level to discuss
training needs over time. I do not know if they know but they
were reluctant to tell us whether they met regularly at a high
enough level. In terms of this new opportunity, will you be meeting
employers at the highest level to make common cause?
Mr Barber: I certainly hope so.
As part of the new arrangements since the White Paper was published,
there is the new structures at national level that have been established,
the Skills Alliance in which I take part. Digby Jones, on behalf
of the CBI, takes part. I have hopes that the new sector skills
bodies will provide a real a high level dialogue on a sustained
basis between the leaders of major players within each sector
and the relevant unions, because it is critical that it begins
to deliver change at that practical level where strategies for
each sector are going to be established.
Q1028 Jonathan Shaw: You mentioned
the Sector Skills Councils. A lot rides on those to ensure that
we are successful in delivering a skills programme that is going
to equip us to tackle all the issues about productivity etc.,
as well as provide opportunities for individuals. Do you have
any concerns about the format of the Sector Skills Council? What
are the Government getting right with the Sector Skills Councils?
What have you said to them?
Mr Barber: It is very, very early
days of course. The first four have been charged with looking
to establish the first four sector agreements, so these are very
much beginning to trial the new arrangements, in a sense. We have
looked to ensure that there is an active trade union engagement
with the new bodies and that has been coming along as the membership
of the governing bodies has been established. Trade union involvement
is being secured. We will want to ensure that that is not just
token representation but that there is a very active dialogue
with the relevant unions on the agreements that are going to be
established in each sector.
Mr Murray: We are undertaking
a practical initiative around that at the moment. We are working
with the Sector Skills Development Agency on a joint event in
June which is going to be for the key trade union members of the
four Sector Skills Councils taking forward the agreements with
the key employers. The idea of that event is to get the key employers
and key trade unionists round the table and to try to facilitate
negotiation of the agreements and to try and get both sides engaged
in that, away from the Sector Skills Councils themselves. Such
an event is trying to promote the partnership between employers
and trade unionists on these four key Sector Skills Councils.
Q1029 Jonathan Shaw: How well does
the TUC see the 14-19-year-old agenda that we are talking about
here linking with the skills strategy?
Mr Murray: One of the key issues
is about how, for example, modern apprenticeships work. The Sector
Skills Councils have been given the remit for developing frameworks
and that is going to be a key element on the government strategy
for increasing the number of young people. There has to be a close
tie in between the Sector Skills Councils and the 14-19 agenda.
There are institutional arrangements where people from these different
bodies are meeting, for example, on Regional Skills Partnerships.
There are members of the Sector Skills Development Agency in these
partnerships with people from the local LSCs etc.
Ms Smith: One of the key issues
that the skills strategy was looking at trying to address was
gaps in the economy with skills and a couple of things that are
seen as big problems are the basic skills gaps and literacy and
numeracy; also, intermediate level skills. Looking at literacy,
language, numeracy and computer skills, there are issues that
need to be addressed for adults and there is a big issue with
the existing workforce, but the 14-19 system needs to be set up
in a way so that those issues are certainly addressed. The same
certainly applies with intermediate skills gaps as well. Apprenticeships
are a key vehicle for that. Positive steps are being taken with
the 14-19 curriculum reform and also the review of financial support
arrangements for young people.
Q1030 Jonathan Shaw: What do you
think about the idea of young people, 14-year-olds, not being
at school for a couple of days a week? Do we separate sheep and
goats here?
Ms Smith: The TUC has supported
the young apprenticeship model that has been introduced. This
particular approach is being taken initially with 1,000 young
people in three sectors: engineering, media and creative arts,
I think, and these are very well-funded programmes. I hope there
will be very careful monitoring of this particular programme.
We would also comment that it is very important that these young
people continue to get a broad education as well and are particularly
able to receive education about their rights as workers.
Q1031 Jonathan Shaw: And future union
members.
Ms Smith: These are an opportunity
to challenge stereotyping on the basis of gender or ethnicity.
That is something that ought to be actively built into these particular
programmes.
Q1032 Jonathan Shaw: Do you think
the Government should be getting involved in work-based learning?
In America, we would not see this occur. Productivity is better
in America. In much of the rest of Europe, people may be required
to have training levies or to be members of the Chamber of Commerce
and we are a hybrid, somewhere in between the two. Do you think
that is our problem: that we cannot make up our minds?
Mr Barber: In some ways it is
our problem. Essentially, we have been stuck with a voluntarist
approach over a lot of years. We have not established the ready
acceptance with the employer community that this is an area where
part of the deal ought to be a sustained investment in the skills
of their workforce. That is the cultural challenge that we have
to try to overcome.
Q1033 Jonathan Shaw: When you are
talking to Patricia Hewitt, do you say, "We ought to have
a training levy"?
Mr Barber: We have argued for
a long period that there ought to be clear obligations on employers.
At sector level, potentially, a levy system could be the mechanism
for looking to bind that in but simply relying on voluntary recognition
of their self-interest is not delivering. I remember when the
National Education and Training Targets were established in 1991
on the initiative of the CBI. At that time, there was an acceptance
on the CBI's part that if those targets were not met by relying
on exhortation and people realising the long term, economic case
for making a step change in this area, some new mechanism, some
new statutory framework, would be needed. We are still a long
way from meeting those targets.
Mr Murray: At the sector level,
the TUC's policy is we are very willing to give the new sector
skills agreements a good run for their money. We are doing all
the work in engaging unions on carrying forward the sector skills
agreements, but at the end of the day if in certain sectors they
do not establish sector skills agreements of high enough quality
or if they do set them up and establish targets that are not subsequently
met, we are saying to the Government that if sector skills agreements
are not set up in a sector, they should look at some kind of compulsory
approach. We have heard the term "last chance saloon"
a number of times over the last 20 years. If the sector skills
agreements are not made to work, that poses some key questions
about how you approach skills at the sector level.
Q1034 Jonathan Shaw: You said at
the beginning that it dated back to 1868 when you have been talking
about skills. The Chancellor would say that this is the best growth
for 200 years. We have had sustained growth in the economy. Perhaps
the fact that we are a hybrid means that we are not doing badly.
Mr Barber: Our productivity performance
continues to lag behind our major competitors. One of the Chancellor's
other central thrusts in terms of our economic wellbeing is we
need to improve our productivity performance. We support that
objective. We would suggest very strongly that the evidence is
that you deliver the highest performance workplaces where there
is sustained investment in skills. There are other dimensions
to high performance workplaces as well but one of them is a clear,
sustained commitment to skills.
Q1035 Jonathan Shaw: Things could
be even better?
Mr Barber: Things could certainly
be even better. It sounds like a song.
Q1036 Chairman: Could I press you
a little on 14-19 and Tomlinson? Were you disappointed when Digby
Jones and the CBI came out, almost immediately the Tomlinson interim
report came out, expressing severe reservations about change?
Were you disappointed by the CBI's attitude?
Mr Barber: Yes. We broadly supported
the Tomlinson agenda. You asked a question earlier which I did
not directly respond to about the level of contact and debate
between the trade union movement and the major employer groups.
The CBI recognises the importance of skills but they baulk on
this central question that Jonathan was pursuing about the extent
to which there ought to be some real levers that require employers
to deliver. The CBI find themselves in a position of speaking
up on behalf of the people who represent the worst practice, who
put in the least investment, rather than positioning themselves
in the argument as champions for the organisations that they also
represent, some of whom match up to best practice anywhere in
the world.
Q1037 Chairman: Trade associations
were ever thus and you were always looking for the lowest common
denominator because all their members pay the membership fee.
Are we right about this? Is there not a Danish model that we might
learn from? When we went to Denmark, we saw a voluntary levy paid
by employers. I have heard on the grapevine that one of the new
Sector Skills Councils already had over 70% of their members paying
a levy. They are now going to Patricia Hewitt saying, "Can
you make this mandatory for us?" That is an interesting alternative,
is it not? If we can do that through Sector Skills Councils whereby
who votes for it wants it and will deliver it, that is a lot healthier
than some bureaucrat in Whitehall saying, "Thou shalt do
it."
Mr Barber: It is, but it depends
how conditional it is and exactly what level of employer support
has to be demonstrated before the Government will be prepared
to act. It seems to me that there are some sectors where there
clearly is significant employer support for some collective funding
mechanism to sustain the training arrangements, but if the Government
requires it to be 75 or 80 or 90% speaking up you are not going
to get that kind of move. The levy arrangements have continued
in construction for all these years, with broad based employer
support, notwithstanding the demise of the ITBs generally.
Q1038 Chairman: You and I go back
to the days of ITBs when there were a lot of Industrial Training
Boards that saw their job as going round companies, showing them
their accounts and how to pay the least amount towards training
and to be eligible for the levy. That was the truth, was it not?
A lot of ITBs were professional consultants on how to avoid or
minimise your responsibilities. We do not want to get back in
that ball game, do we?
Mr Barber: The history of the
ITBs has been written by the critics of the ITBs, conspicuously
amongst them the Conservative politicians who ultimately gonged
out the ITBs. While I do not think they were perfect, they put
training on the agenda of a lot of companies who had not taken
any serious interest in the issue. The levy grant mechanism
and subsequently exemption mechanisms were rather crude and simple,
I would say. I am not sure the ITBs always played their cards
as well as they could have done. It could sometimes become a rather
crude relationship: this is how you get your money back. I think
some of those criticisms are valid, but they did get companies
thinking. They did get a lot of small companies together in group
training arrangements that, without the spur of an ITB there to
gee people up, would never have engaged in any activity. The absence
of any financial lever on influencing employer behaviour has resulted
in the fact that we have still not made the kind of headway that
we need to make.
Q1039 Valerie Davey: You have reiterated
again your general support for the Tomlinson Report and we have
been told that this is a really radical change. It is going to
provide the diploma encompassing all the qualifications which
young people are acquiring at the moment. Do you think, first
of all, that these are better skills which the employers will
in fact welcome and, secondly, if they are, should we not be going
rather faster down this route? It seems to be a radical move that
we are evolving, rather than a radical move where there is some
revolutionary action going on.
Ms Smith: One of the key principles
about Tomlinson is for there to be inclusive frameworks which
will develop the potential of all young people. We have been very
supportive of that principle and it can only be a positive thing
for all involved. As part of that as well there is a strong shift
towards boosting the status of the vocational route. That is a
positive thing which will be welcomed. The current system is in
many ways very good so it is not necessary that that needs to
be thrown out tomorrow.
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