House of Commons - Education and Skills

Select Committee on Education and Skills Minutes of Evidence

Memorandum submitted by the Trades Union Congress (TUC)

INTRODUCTION

2.1 The Trades Union Congress (TUC) is the national centre for trade unions representing 6.5 million workers in 65 affiliated trade unions. The TUC welcomes the opportunity to contribute to the Select Committee's inquiry into post-16 skills training in England and believes that this is an opportune time to review this issue. The inquiry will provide an opportunity for a range of stakeholders to provide a critique of the recommendations of the Leitch Review of Skills and also to consider what should be prioritised during the forthcoming implementation phase.

2.2 The TUC submitted a detailed response to the initial consultation undertaken by the Leitch Review in 2005. It also published a separate report (2020 Vision for Skills) in autumn 2006 setting out five key priorities. The five priorities were as follows: (i) increasing investment in skills by employers and government and introducing policy reforms to achieve this end; (ii) strengthening the social partnership approach on skills, especially at the sectoral level, rather than continuing to prioritise an employer-led approach; (iii) introducing a right to paid time off to train; (iv) tackling the significant skills discrimination faced by certain groups; and, (v) giving unions greater rights to bargain on skills and also strengthening the capacity of union learning reps. In addition, the TUC set out its initial reaction to the final report of the Leitch Review in a briefing published in December 2006. These three publications are available on the TUC website. [1]

2.3 The structure of this submission addresses the main issues that were highlighted in the Select Committee's press notice. However, the submission is also very much focused on highlighting the main points of the TUC's initial reaction to the recommendations in the final report of the Leitch Review of Skills.

MAIN POINTS

2.4 The TUC has welcomed the scale of ambition set out in the final report of the Leitch Review of Skills and is in complete agreement that urgent action is necessary if we are to achieve a world-class skills base by 2020. There are strong grounds for agreeing with Lord Leitch's analysis in his final report that "skills is the most important lever within our control to create wealth and to reduce social deprivation" and that there is a pressing need for "parity of esteem for the vocational route".

2.5 It is also welcome that the review links the achievement of a world-class skills base by 2020 with clear targets linked to accredited qualifications. If these targets are met, low skills would be virtually eradicated and the UK would be a world leader on intermediate and higher level skills. And the review is also quite rightly specific about the necessary levels of investment required to move the UK up the international skills league (eg it specifies that "additional investment in skills up to Level 3 will need to rise to £1.5-2 billion by 2020".)

2.6 The TUC has also welcomed the move towards greater regulation of employer responsibilities when it comes to releasing employees for training to enable them to achieve the equivalent of a school leaving qualification. The commitment to introduce a new right to workplace training for employees without a Level 2 qualification if employers fail to take up a voluntary pledge to upskill such employees by 2010 is a significant measure. In its press release the TUC said that "this means that the clock is ticking for the one in three employers who fail to train [and] those employers are now on notice to clean up their act by 2010". In addition, the press release also said that "Lord Leitch's call on employers to publicly pledge their commitment to increase skills sends a strong message to those employers who short change staff, and the UK economy, by refusing to train." [2]

2.7 It was also welcome that the Chancellor supported the main recommendations in the final report in his Pre-Budget Report speech and that he highlighted the importance of the new statutory right to workplace training advocated by Lord Leitch. The TUC has emphasised that it will "be lobbying Government over the coming months to ensure that this new legal right to workplace training is framed in such a way that it will be automatically invoked in 2010 if employers fail to deliver [and that it] should also give employees a clear entitlement to paid time off to train within working time to achieve the relevant qualification".[3]

2.8 The TUC has also welcomed the recommendation to establish compulsory education and training up to age 18 once the new Specialist Diplomas are properly established and also to double the number of apprenticeships by 2020. These reforms, in tandem with other measures, will do much to tackle the low status attributed to the vocational route for young people.

2.9 However, the TUC has also expressed some concerns about particular recommendations in the final report of the Leitch Review. In particular, the recommendation in the report that the employer-led approach on skills should be further strengthened rather than building a wider social partnership approach. The TUC sees little evidence that employers will increase their investment and involvement in skills, nor do we believe that employers are necessarily always the best judges of the longer-term skill needs of their workforce. The TUC has highlighted that it will "be calling on Government to set out a framework to give employees and trade unions a significant voice in the new institutional skills framework that will be established as a result of Lord Leitch's recommendations [and that] in particular, unions will need to have a significant stake in the new Commission for Employment and Skills and also increased representation on the relaunched Sector Skills Councils." [4]

2.10 The TUC's other main concern is that whilst the review quite rightly concludes that employers must significantly increase their investment in skills, there is a questionable presumption that this will occur as a direct consequence of making the skills system more "employer friendly". And welcome as they are, the Employer Pledge and the potential new right to access workplace training will not oblige employers to make a major financial investment as this training will generally be paid for and delivered by the Government's Train to Gain programme.

2.11 One of the underpinning principles of the vision in the final report is that there must be a new concept of shared responsibility, involving employers boosting investment in intermediate and higher level skills while Government takes on responsibility for ensuring all adults achieve a basic platform of skills (ie a first full Level 2 qualification). However, there are few specific policy instruments that will oblige employers to invest more in skills at these levels beyond the aspiration that greater employer engagement at the sectoral level could result in agreement on more collective action.

2.12 The TUC is also continuing to press the Government to increase support for the role of union learning representatives by introducing measures to build their collective capacity at the workplace level. The final report of the Leitch Review agreed that initiatives such as Learning Agreements and Workplace Learning Committees were helpful in this respect, but the TUC believes that the Government needs to go further and to provide some form of statutory underpinning for these workplace arrangements. Collective Learning Funds is another initiative that unionlearn is currently trialling with the support of the DfES and it is anticipated that this will be scaled up in the future in order to further build the union contribution to learning in individual workplaces.

2.13 Unionlearn was established as an organisation within the TUC to provide a stronger and more coherent framework for union-led activity on learning, including union learning in the workplace and also trade union education programmes. In particular, it aims to achieve a step-change in the capacity of unions, particularly through the role of union learning reps, to directly support learning and skills in workplaces. It is also heavily involved in supporting the union contribution to the work of Sector Skills Councils, in particular through the development and implementation of Sector Skills Agreements.

CONTEXT

Leitch Review—skills challenges and demographic trends

2.14 The TUC supported the thrust of the analysis in the interim report of the Leitch Review on the key "skills challenges" facing the nation and also the related impact of demographic trends. In its 2020 Vision for Skills report the TUC highlighted the important finding in the interim report of the Leitch Review that 70% of the 2020 workforce has already left compulsory education and that fewer younger people will be flowing into the labour market over the coming 15 years. On this basis the TUC agreed with the thrust of the analysis of the Leitch Review team that there needs to be a much greater focus on upskilling the existing workforce in the coming years.

2.15 The TUC also welcomed the fact that the analysis highlighted that those with the lowest skill levels are least likely to receive any work-based training. For example, the Labour Force Survey shows that when asked, over two fifths of graduate employees say they have received training in the past three months compared to just over a fifth of employees without a Level 2 qualification and just over a tenth of employees without any qualification. The final recommendations by Lord Leitch do much to address the analysis in the interim report, in particular the aim of virtually eradicating low skills among the workforce by 2020.

2.16 The interim report also effectively highlighted the particular "skills challenges" facing other groups in the labour market, in particular black and minority ethnic people, women, disabled people and older people. While the final report does make a number of recommendations on providing additional skills support for these groups, this is largely confined to support for them when they are outside the labour market and (with some exceptions) there is less attention paid to addressing skills discrimination faced by these groups when they are actually in work. In addition, the final report makes little mention of migrant workers and how the state should be supporting their skill needs (eg the TUC is currently concerned about the Government's proposal to abolish fee remission for migrant workers accessing ESOL courses).

2.17 In the 2020 Vision for Skills report the TUC highlighted that the Government should develop new concrete proposals to tackle skills discrimination faced by all these particular groups along with further development of ongoing initiatives aimed at women being taken forward as a result of the recommendations of Women and Work Commission. The TUC has argued that one means of achieving this aim would be significantly to strengthen the equality and diversity remit of Sector Skills Agreements so that Sector Skills Councils are required to come up with concrete initiatives for improving training opportunities for all these groups of employees, with clearly prescribed targets and outcomes. It is also important to recognise that union learning reps have proved to be highly effective at engaging and supporting employees with few or no formal qualifications and also the range of other groups that face skills discrimination.

Measures to assess progress on skills

2.18 Measuring and assessing the success of the Government's skills strategy has been facilitated by the establishment of the annual National Employers' Skills Survey (NESS), which provides detailed trends on skills gaps and shortages and also the incidence and coverage of work-based training. This authoritative survey (based on a sample of over 70,000 employers in England) has been influential in highlighting that over one third of employers provided no training at all and that nearly two fifths of employees received no training over the latest 12-month period. Used in conjunction with data from the Labour Force Survey, this means that there is now much more information available on employee skill levels and the barriers to accessing workplace training.

2.19 Importantly, the NESS statistics are broken down by the footprint of each of the Sector Skills Councils and this provides them with data to track their progress in improving skills in their particular sector. However, one drawback with this relatively recently established statistical series is that it only covers England and this is not helpful, particularly in the case of Sector Skills Councils which have a UK-wide remit for skills in their particular sector. It is therefore recommended that the new Commission for Employment and Skills addresses this issue and widens the coverage of this survey to the whole of the UK. There is also a strong case for the Commission taking a lead on developing more sophisticated statistical analyses of the impact of skills on the wider productivity agenda and also how skills interact with other important factors, in particular workplace organisation trends and industrial strategies at the national and regional levels.

NATIONAL POLICIES AND ISSUES

Government priorities

2.20 In general, the TUC agrees with the analysis in the final report of the Leitch Review that "Government investment in skills should be focused on ensuring everyone has the opportunity to build a basic platform of skills, tackling market failure and targeting help where it is needed most". In effect this supports the current approach by Government but with the important caveat that there must be greater levels of investment in skills by Government, employers and individuals to enable more people to improve their skill levels.

2.21 The new stretching targets in Lord Leitch's report on improving achievement at Skills for Life and Level 2 are welcomed by the TUC. There is both a strong economic and social case for Lord Leitch's aim to virtually eradicate low skills among the working age population by 2020. But undoubtedly this will put even more pressure on colleges and providers to deliver on this agenda and the TUC is acutely aware of the impact to date on college provision that is not covered by Skills for Life and Level 2 PSA targets. The TUC addressed this issue in its response to the FE White Paper in 2006 when it welcomed the new vision for FE colleges but also supported the need to ensure that colleges were adequately funded to continue to deliver on the wider learning agenda.

2.22 In this submission the TUC said that the decision in the White Paper "to establish a clear mission for further education, focusing on the employability and progression of learners to deliver the skills and qualifications that individuals, employers and the economy need, is welcome. This development sets the FE sector at the heart of the Government's skills strategies as well as making an important contribution to 14-19 reform. The TUC is also pleased that the White Paper notes that this mission does not mean narrow vocationalism, and that the sector will maintain stepping-stones provision and education and training for personal fulfilment and community development. While this commitment to maintain the social role of colleges is welcome, it is clear that tough choices will remain for colleges in determining provision within tight funding arrangements." [5]

2.23 The Government's commitment to develop a Foundation Learning Tier for qualifications below Level 2 should tackle some of the barriers to provision and progression that may have been inadvertently generated by the Skills for Life and Level 2 PSA targets. In its response to the FE White Paper the TUC stated that "this approach will help people reach Level 2 qualifications through manageable steps, and is therefore an important contribution to helping people achieve employability skills".

2.24 Concern about the impact of the Government's PSA targets on education and skills are of course not limited to the impact of the Skills for Life and Level 2 targets. The 50% higher education target aimed at 18-30-year-olds has also been questioned on the grounds that it is part of a policy framework that promotes the academic route and also sends a coded message to young people, parents and teachers that the vocational route is second-best. In addition, other critics question the rationale behind the target itself, arguing that we do not need more achievement at Level 4 and above and that the aim should be to encourage more young people to pursue vocational qualifications at intermediate level.

2.25 On this second point, the TUC agrees with Lord Leitch's position that we cannot simply prioritise a boost to either intermediate or higher level skills. All the academic analyses clearly demonstrate that improvements to UK productivity and social cohesion will require much greater ambition on skills, entailing a significant boost to both intermediate and higher level skills, and this recommendation is quite rightly at the heart of the final report of the Leitch Review. However, within this context, the TUC does have some sympathy with the point that the high profile given to the 50% higher education target has perpetuated a degree of negativity towards the vocational route as opposed to the academic route. In the 2020 Vision for Skills report the TUC noted that it had "previously welcomed the 50% target for participation in higher education and there is a strong case for Government considering matching this with an equivalent target for vocational training in order to build towards parity of esteem between the academic and vocational routes".

2.26 Lord Leitch also raised a number of other concerns about the 50% target that the TUC concurs with, including: the sole focus on young people which has gone against the grain of the lifelong learning agenda, the resulting limited engagement of the HE sector with the workforce and employers; and, the focus on participation in HE as opposed to achievement at Level 4 and above. It is therefore welcome that Lord Leitch has proposed that more than 40% of the working age population should achieve Level 4 or above by 2020 (compared to 29% now) and that a key plank of this strategy should be to ensure that HE provision "meets the high skill needs of employers and their staff".

2.27 Union Learning Reps would welcome the opportunity to engage more employees in workplace learning that could ultimately lead to them achieving higher level skills and unionlearn it is at present developing a "Climbing Frame" online tool to facilitate progression of this order. Unionlearn has also brokered a new agreement with the Open University which entitles union learners to a 10% discount on fees for first year undergraduate courses.

Government departments—joined up working arrangements

2.28 The TUC has welcomed the general thrust of the proposals in the final report of the Leitch Review to bring greater coherence on skills and employment policies and also to ensure that delivery arrangements at the local level are reformed to achieve this end. The review makes a number of recommendations in this area, including establishing a "new single objective of sustainable employment and progression opportunities" among all the relevant agencies and especially between DWP/Jobcentre Plus and DfES/LSC. For example, the focus of Jobcentre Plus has always been on job placement achievements and there has been some criticism that this has been to the detriment of longer-term skills acquisition and sustainable employment.

2.29 The proposal to establish a new adult careers service in England will do much to support this new approach, as will related proposals such as the development of a new programme to help claimants requiring Skills for Life support. However, the TUC would be concerned if improved skills assistance for claimants was accompanied by more punitive benefit sanctions, as many economically inactive individuals will need a highly supportive approach to enable them to meet the challenges of acquiring the skills required to achieve sustainable employment.

2.30 The other major recommendation by the Leitch Review in this area is to establish a network of employer-led Employment and Skills Boards to give employers a central role in recommending improvements to the delivery of both skills and welfare to work initiatives at local level, mirroring the national role of the Commission for Employment and Skills. This proposal is referred to later in this submission in the sections looking at demand- and supply-side issues.

Investment in Skills—the principle of shared responsibility

2.31 As highlighted in the introductory section of this submission the TUC supports aspects of the concept of shared responsibility on the respective contributions to skills investment that Lord Leitch has set out in his final report. In essence, this states that employers, individuals and Government must increase action and investment, with the guiding principles being that "employers and individuals should contribute most where they derive the greatest private returns" (ie intermediate and higher level skills) and Government should address market failure (ie by providing full funding for individuals to achieve a first full Level 2 qualification but with much more limited and targeted funding at higher levels, with investment generally tapering off as the qualification level rises).

2.32 In respect of employers, the TUC is concerned that, with the exception of the potential new right to workplace training, there are few policy levers proposed by the Leitch Review which will tackle the long tail of UK employers that either do not provide any training at all or only provide the basic minimum required for the job in hand. This particular issue is covered in detail in the section of this submission looking at how employers should be further incentivised to take up training. However, it should be stressed that the TUC believes that the limited obligations placed on employers to fulfil their part of this new shared responsibility compact is perhaps the central challenge for the skills vision that Lord Leitch has set out.

2.33 However, the TUC has welcomed the fact that Lord Leitch has been specific about the necessary increases in the levels of investment required to achieve a world-class skills base by 2020. For example, his final report states that "additional investment in skills up to Level 3 will need to rise to £1.5-2 billion by 2020" and that this would have to come from increased contributions by employers, individuals and Government. The initial contribution by Government to supporting any increased investment in skills will be set out in the forthcoming Comprehensive Spending Review. The TUC is currently drawing up a submission to CSR 2007 and this will address the fact that skills funding for adult employees compares poorly with other parts of the education and skill sector. There is also a case for the Government to continue to develop public procurement policies in a proactive manner to drive up skills investment by employers working on public sector contracts.

2.34 As to the individual contribution to raising skill levels outside the Government's priorities, the TUC is concerned about the degree to which there is an emphasis on individuals having to take on increasing levels of debt to fund intermediate and higher level skills. The TUC has strong reservations about the prospect of the lifting of the cap on variable fees above £3,000 and the proposed expansion of Career Development Loans needs to be kept under close review. However, the proposal by Lord Leitch to improve financial support systems for FE students studying up to Level 2 is welcome and the new Learner Accounts have the potential to empower more individuals to access training, especially with the support of union learning reps. The TUC has also welcomed the new entitlement to free tuition for a first full Level 3 qualification for 19-25-year-olds.

SUPPLY SIDE ISSUES

Funding structures and contestability

2.35 One of the major proposals in the final report of the Leitch Review is to make the skills funding system wholly demand-led by routing all funding for adult vocational skills in England (apart from community learning and provision for disabled adults) through Train to Gain and Learner Accounts by 2010. This compares with the much more modest aim in the FE White Paper to shift the demand led share of adult learning from below 20% in 2006-07 to 40% by 2010-11. Lord Leitch also argues that the aim of this approach is to give providers "a real incentive to deliver the skills that employers and individuals need, flexibly and responsively" and if they do not deliver on this aim the report is explicit that "they will not receive public funding."

2.36 In essence this suggests a greater commitment to the introduction of contestability for learning and skills providers than was set out in the FE White Paper. In its response to the FE White Paper the TUC said: "The White Paper sets out a number of instances where competitions will be introduced. This is the area of the White Paper about which the TUC has a great deal of concern and where the DfES was lobbied hard not to introduce a much wider version of contestability. It clearly has the potential to have a destabilising effect on the FE system and the TUC would like this area of policy to be reviewed."

2.37 Concerns along these lines are now even greater as a result of the accelerated introduction of demand-led funding proposed by the Leitch Review and there is clearly much greater potential for destabilisation in the FE sector on this basis than was anticipated from the more limited proposals in the FE White Paper. While the TUC supports the concept of a more demand-led skills system, the key point in this debate is that there are major question marks over the concept of demand-led funding in a skills system that will be even more employer-led than at present. While the new Learner Accounts are designed to represent individual demand in the new funding system, the reality is that pilots of the accounts are only going to be launched this autumn and it is difficult to see how they will have the capacity to drive individual demand by 2010.

2.38 The other issue is that FE colleges currently play a major role in reaching out to marginalized and disadvantaged groups in society and encouraging them, in many instances, to re-engage in learning for the first time since leaving school. It is questionable whether Learner Accounts will be the best vehicle for engaging these kind of learners and that the limitations on ring-fenced community learning will not be an adequate resource to fulfil this function of FE colleges. In brief, these recommendations will clearly make it more difficult for colleges to maintain provision for these particular groups of students and the Government should consider strategies to ensure that the new funding arrangements do not inadvertently produce this negative outcome.

2.39 The Government also needs to consider how demand-led funding for work-based skills delivered via Train to Gain provision can better incorporate employee demand, for example, by looking at building the collective role of union learning representatives so that they can better articulate this demand.

Institutional reform of supply-side agencies

2.40 The Leitch Review has recommended a number of institutional reforms in support of the new vision for skills that it has set out in its final report. Our view on a major aspect of these reforms—the development of a new Commission for Employment and Skills and local Employment and Skills Boards—is covered in the section of this submission looking at the demand side. This section of the submission focuses on the proposed institutional reforms relating to the supply side and in particular the role of the LSC.

2.41 As regards the LSC, the final report of the Leitch Review states that "the switch to demand-led funding and end to the supply-side planning of adult skills provision fundamentally changes the role of planning bodies, such as the LSC, which will require a further significant streamlining." Putting aside for now considerations about the demand-led model that is actually being proposed, the TUC has concerns about the impact on the planning and delivery of adult skills if the LSC is stripped of its planning function and restructured yet again. There are also longer-term questions about the exact definition of the "planning" function in the skills arena and to what extent it is possible to divorce planning from funding or to reduce the LSC to a virtual funding body considering the range of other activities that it currently undertakes.

2.42 The future role of the Regional Skills Partnerships is very much dependent on how the Government takes forward the proposal to develop the proposed Employment and Skills Boards and also its response to the proposal to further reform the LSC. When the role of the Regional Skills Partnerships was originally announced in the 2003 Skills White Paper, the TUC did question whether their structure and membership really did lend itself to delivering on the needs of demand-side partners. This has remained a concern, in particular as the role of Sector Skills Councils has grown in importance and it has sometimes proved difficult to align sectoral and regional skills priorities. However, major reform of the regional supply-side infrastructure is something that should wait until the new Commission has been established and the new national strategic approach has been finalised.

DEMAND-SIDE ISSUES

What should a "demand-led" system really look like?

The main points at the beginning of this submission highlight two key concerns relating to the vision of the new demand-side approach set out in the final report of the Leitch Review of Skills. These two concerns are as follows:

- simply strengthening the employer-led approach on skills will not lead to a true reflection of the demand side which needs to represent the demand for skills by both employers and individuals, especially employees. Trade unions represent the legitimate voice of employees and as such need to have a strengthened role to articulate individual demand for skills both at the institutional and workplace levels; and

— the presumption expressed in the review that employers will increase investment in employee skills once the system is made more employer-friendly is highly questionable. Employer demand for skills cannot be left entirely to market forces, as this misplaced belief is one of the reasons why the UK has inherited a much greater skills deficit than many of our international competitors.

2.43 These two points were at the heart of the 2020 Vision for Skills report published by the TUC last autumn, which called for the development of a post-voluntary skills framework underpinned by a number of principles, including a social partnership approach along the lines of many European countries that have a much better skills profile than the UK.

The new institutional framework

2.44 The new institutional framework advocated by the Leitch Review in order to develop an improved demand-side approach is very much based on giving employers an even bigger say than at present. The institutional reforms for achieving this change would be through the establishment of the new national Commission for Employment and Skills (and potentially the local Employment and Skills Boards). And also by giving the Sector Skills Councils a greater remit in articulating demand and ensuring that government skills provision meets this demand. In some respects, this recommendation mirrors what the TUC was calling for in the 2020 Vision for Skills report, in particular the idea of strengthening the remit of the Sector Skills Councils. However, the TUC's proposal called for more far-reaching reforms of Sector Skills Councils so that they would address the wider demand agenda, as highlighted in the following excerpt from the report:

"The TUC has continued to highlight that one of the factors contributing to the UK's skills deficit is the lack of a robust social partnership approach to skills, something that underpins arrangements in many of the European countries that continue to lead us on skills. The Leitch Review must address this central issue if it is going to achieve a new consensus on a building a post-voluntary skills framework. This will require a change of approach in the formulation and delivery of skills provision at the national, regional, and sectoral levels, giving trade unions a much stronger voice than at present.

The sectoral approach in particular has the potential to deliver some of the key elements of a post-voluntary skills framework, but this would need to be accompanied by a much more robust form of social partnership than simply obliging Sector Skills Councils to have at least one union Board member. A recent report by the Sector Skills Development Agency (Lessons from Abroad, SSDA, 2006) highlights the benefits of sectoral approaches in other countries entailing more regulatory levers/fiscal incentives than in the UK but also stronger employee voice to ensure `that both the wider public functions of qualifications and the sector-specific needs of employees are met'."

2.45 At present Sector Skills Councils are only obliged to have one union member on their Board. Although the more progressive Sector Skills Councils have offered more seats to the trade unions in particular sectors, the majority have refrained from adopting this approach. It is therefore essential that these bodies reflect the wider employment needs of their sector if they are going to have the capacity to deliver on the new challenges and the Government should underpin this approach by prescribing that their make-up and governance arrangements reflect this by having adequate union representation.

2.46 The new national Commission for Employment and Skills will be charged with achieving a huge step change in the level of demand for skills articulated by employers and employees. It is welcome that Lord Leitch has specified that the TUC General Secretary will be offered a seat on this new body (and that there must also be some form of union representation on the local Employment and Skills Boards). However, this would not constitute adequate union input at the national level and would be out of line with similar national partnership arrangements on key policy issues. A model to potentially build on would be the Low Pay Commission, which has three trade union commissioners out of a total of eight commissioners and the Chair of the Commission.

2.47 In any case it is crucial that the Commission does not dilute the existing level of union representation on the Skills Alliance Social and Economic Partnership, with its ratio of two seats for employer bodies and one seat for the TUC. As it is anticipated that the new Commission will include many more employer representatives than this, it would only be equitable to increase the TUC/union representation proportionately. Limiting union representation on the Commission to one seat would seriously undermine its status across the trade union movement and substantially undermine its role to effectively represent employee and national interests.

Incentivising employers to take up training

2.48 The TUC had called on the Leitch Review carefully to consider the need for a range of policy levers to address the reluctance of many employers to provide even a minimum level of training to their staff. By and large the review team decided against this option with one notable exception, ie, the commitment to introduce a statutory right to workplace training by 2010 for employees without a Level 2 qualification if employers fail to use a voluntary pledge in the intervening period to show that they are serious about tackling this particular skills deficit. As highlighted earlier in this submission, the TUC is determined to ensure that this new legal right to workplace training is framed in such a way that it will be automatically invoked in 2010 if employers fail to deliver. It should also give employees a clear entitlement to paid time off to train within working time to achieve the relevant qualification.

2.49 There are a number of question marks around the framing of this entitlement in the final report of the Leitch Review, in particular as regards the role of the Commission for Employment and Skills. It would appear to play a key role in triggering the establishment of this new right, eg, the review says that "if, in the light of inadequate progress towards world class, the Commission and Government judge it as necessary [our emphasis] the new entitlement would ensure that the UK meets its 2020 ambition" (paragraph 5.52). While it is recognised that the Commission will play a role in monitoring progress towards the new Level 2 target, it is imperative that ultimate accountability for invoking the new right lies with Government and that a clear statistical benchmark that cannot be disputed is set as an automatic trigger. Otherwise, there will be widespread suspicions that the majority of employers on the new Commission would simply move the goalposts in the run-up to 2010 if it appeared that the voluntary approach on training had once again failed to deliver.

2.50 In effect, if such a right was implemented it would constitute a legal right (in England) for employees without a Level 2 qualification to access Train to Gain provision to achieve such a qualification. However, very significantly, the review does also state that the right could be used to trigger paid time off at work to achieve a relevant qualification via other means than Train to Gain provision. It says that "with the agreement of the employer, employees should also be able to access this entitlement through paid time off if more convenient." However, the legal framing of the new entitlement will clearly be of great importance in this and other respects and the TUC is calling on the Government to consult on the underpinning principles of this framework as early as possible. It is welcome that the review emphasises that trade unions will have an important role to play in the formulation of the new statutory right.

2.51 The TUC was disappointed that the Leitch Review did not recommend that other policy levers, such as Licence to Practice arrangements and sectoral levies, be given greater statutory backing than at present. Use of such interventions are clearly to be left to the discretion of the Sector Skills Councils and this is one additional important reason for ensuring that these bodies are not completely dominated by employers. If these bodies do genuinely reflect the interests of their whole sector, it is more likely that they will take the difficult decisions to introduce such measures as and when necessary. It is hardly coincidental that one of the existing Sector Skills Councils that actually does promote a social partnership approach—namely Skillset—has achieved consensus in its sector on delivering a compulsory training levy for the film industry.

THE UNION ROLE IN THE WORKPLACE

2.52 As noted above, the TUC's initial comments on the launch of the final report expressed some concerns about the proposed balance of power between employers and trade unions in the new institutional skills framework and the lost opportunity to develop more of a social partnership model. On the workplace front, Lord Leitch disappointingly did not support the TUC's recommendation to make training a collective bargaining issue in the statutory union recognition procedure. But this was not too surprising considering that the Government had already rejected this policy reform when the DTI reported earlier this year on its review of collective bargaining.

2.53 However, the TUC had also been lobbying the Leitch Review to recommend that the Government should examine options to enable trade unions to negotiate on a collective basis on behalf of union learning reps via collective arrangements such as Learning Agreements and Workplace Learning Committees. The TUC also recommended that the Collective Learning Funds initiative proposed by the TUC, which is to be trialled in collaboration with the DfES over the coming year, should be scaled up as soon as feasible. On these inter-related issues, the review comments as follows:

"Employers could also go further, setting out plans to move their workforce to even higher skill levels and publicising their progress towards fulfilling their pledge. Collective Learning Funds, currently being developed by the DfES and the TUC, would encourage joint employer-union initiatives to increase the scope of training and development opportunities for their workforce and to commit new investment to this. In addition, these funds could encourage employers to co-invest their time along with the employer in a wider range of non job-specific training and development. Together with Workplace Learning Committees and Learning Agreements, where appropriate, these could also form a key part of any employer commitment to the pledge. They have been particularly emphasised as effective routes to improve training by employer organisations such as the Engineering Employers Federation and the CIPD" (paragraph 5.40).

2.54 While this certainly does not meet the TUC's recommendation to provide a statutory underpinning for Learning Agreements and Workplace Learning Committees, it does nevertheless strongly endorse these collective arrangements for union learning reps and the potential for expanding the Collective Learning Funds model in the future. In addition, the review highlights that "trade unions are increasingly involved in the skills agenda and are playing a key role in engaging both adults and employers, especially in workplaces where learning opportunities may have been limited in the past" and that the recent launch of unionlearn will help drive forward the union role on skills.

2.55 However, as highlighted in the 2020 Vision for Skills report, there is a feeling that the Government is missing a trick by not considering further policy levers to maximise the collective role of union learning representatives in workplaces. The strength of this approach has been acknowledged by CIPD in its guide to how HR professionals should work in partnership with union learning representatives:

2.56 Building the collective role of union learning reps would also go some way to addressing the need to tie skills initiatives in the workplace with other aspects of working life, in particular productive employment relations. Research by a number of influential academics, including Ewart Keep, has highlighted the inter-relationship between skills deficiencies and organisational deficiencies and that strategies to tackle the former cannot be undertaken in isolation from the latter. In addition, the TUC believes that the Government's skills strategy needs to be linked to an active national industrial strategy that supports and directs the work undertaken by Regional Development Agencies. The importance of these relationships for ensuring that any improvement in skills has a significant impact on productivity in the coming years is persuasively set out in the most recent analysis by Ewart Keep and colleagues, who argue that "this gap in public policy is liable to prove costly, and to minimize the productive impact that publicly funded upskilling initiatives can have." [7]

LEARNERS AND QUALIFICATIONS

2.57 The TUC has welcomed the broad thrust of the proposals in the final report of the Leitch Review designed to provide a "new offer to adults to help increase a culture of learning across the country, ensuring everyone gets the help they need to get on in life." In particular, the proposal to develop a new universal careers service and a free "Skills Health Check" for adults in England should go some way to tackling the current barriers in the system that prevent individuals from getting a quality assessment of their skill needs. Union learning representatives will be able to support individual employees to take advantage of this new system and also to help ensure that it is contextualised to the needs of the workplace.

Learner Accounts

2.58 The TUC welcomed the announcement in the FE White Paper that a new system of learner accounts for adult learners would be introduced. It was also welcome that the White Paper acknowledged the important role that union learning representatives will play in engaging and supporting employees to access the new accounts. Individuals will require impartial advice in terms of accessing appropriate provision and assessing the financial implications for them personally. The proposal by Lord Leitch to significantly extend the remit of these accounts means that they will become the primary means of drawing down funding for individual participation in the learning and skills sector in the future. It is therefore imperative that they are directly linked to the new funding support systems that are being proposed for individuals who do not have a Level 2 qualification.

2.59 Unions will also be able to play a key role in promoting the introduction of learner accounts in the workplace through their negotiating role with employers, including levering in money from employers where this is possible. However, the TUC is concerned to ensure that deadweight is avoided and that the costs of job-specific training that must be the employer's responsibility is not transferred from the employer to the individual through inappropriate use of the accounts. Mindful of the previous problems with Individual Learning Accounts, the TUC strongly endorses the DfES view that it will be important to ensure that there is strong quality assurance of providers.

Qualifications

2.60 The TUC has supported the Government's reform programme (Framework for Achievement) designed to make vocational qualifications for adults fit for purpose in the modern labour market. These proposals include dividing more qualifications into units and developing a national credit framework for adults with units of qualifications being assigned credit using a standard system. Acquiring bite-sized learning units incrementally is a process that particularly helps individuals who are coming back to learning for the first time since leaving school and union learning representatives will be able to use this new system to help many more employees acquire qualifications at a pace that suits their needs.

2.61 In recent years Sector Skills Councils have been playing an increasingly important role in the design and development of vocational qualifications in support of the Government's aim to make these qualifications more receptive to the needs of employers and the workforce in each sector. And Lord Leitch has recommended an intensification of this approach by giving Sector Skills Councils even greater control over the design and approval of vocational qualifications on the basis that this will give employers a much greater incentive to engage with these bodies. While the TUC supports the principle of giving the world of work a greater say in the design of qualification, the current make-up of Sector Skills Councils means that this function will largely meet the requirements of employers. It is therefore particularly important that the workforce, through increased trade union representation, is able to influence the new powers that Sector Skills Councils are to be given in this particular area.

APPRENTICESHIPS

2.62 The TUC has welcomed the proposal by Lord Leitch to double the number of apprenticeships to half a million by 2020 and also to extend this provision to more adult employees who are largely excluded from accessing this form of training. The Government is currently testing out adult apprenticeships but only on a very limited scale in spite of strong demand from both employers and employees. The increase in apprenticeships proposed by Lord Leitch will be a key element of the overall strategy to deliver more than a doubling of attainment at Level 3 by adults by 2020.

2.63 However, before embarking on this expansion of apprenticeships to increase work-based training opportunities for young people and adults, the TUC believes that it is imperative that a number of issues are addressed to ensure that the programme is fit for purpose. While many employers support high quality apprenticeships, this is currently not the universal experience for all participants on this training programme, with some apprentices receiving extremely low pay and inadequate training with a resulting detrimental impact upon completion rates. The TUC is recommending that there must be an increase in efforts to ensure that all apprenticeships are high quality and lead to good jobs and that the planned expansion is not fuelled by a significant increase in programme-led approaches involving individuals not having employed status.

2.64 It is also crucial that tackling equality and diversity is at the heart of the planned expansion in order to address the range of current barriers faced by women, black and minority ethnic people and other particular groups. This has many different facets, including under-representation in apprenticeships as a whole as well as in high status popular apprenticeships, a greater gender pay gap than in the workforce at large, lower employment outcomes on completion, and significant levels of stereotyping and occupational segregation. Many of these issues have also been highlighted by the Equal Opportunities Commission's General Formal Investigation into Occupational Segregation and Apprenticeships. In addition, the TUC has highlighted that there is a need for more support to be given to apprentices during their training from workplace mentors and that union learning representatives are often ideally placed to fulfil this role in unionised workplaces.

2.65 The TUC has recently made a detailed submission on apprenticeships to the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee Inquiry into Employment and Training Opportunities for Low-Skilled Young People. This made a number of practical recommendations to tackle the issues highlighted above and a copy of this submission has also been made available to the members of the Education and Skills Select Committee. [8]

CONCLUSION

2.66 There is much to welcome in the final report of the Leitch Review, in particular the scale of ambition that has been set out and the recognition that this has to be mapped against specific targets linked to accredited qualifications. The review also quite rightly recognises that there is a need to be specific about the necessary increase in investment in skills required of all parties in order to gauge what the respective contributions should be.

2.67 The review has also partly grasped the nettle on the regulation front by recognising that we cannot continue to bear the economic and social costs of the scourge of low skills in the UK. The commitment to introduce a statutory right to access workplace training is a significant measure, which if framed and implemented properly, will empower many employees to gain paid time off work in order to gain a Level 2 qualification. It will also incentivise all employers to train all their workers up to this skill level.

2.68 In relation to young people, the commitment to move to compulsory education and training up to the age of 18 and to expand Apprenticeships will do much to tackle the UK's dismal failure when it comes to post-16 staying on rates. There are also many other welcome recommendations in the report, such as the need to establish a new careers service for adults and to improve the financial support system for adults who are independently pursuing vocational qualifications.

2.69 However, the TUC also has some significant concerns, in particular relating to the emphasis on moving to a largely voluntary employer-led skills system which risks marginalizing the needs and aspirations of the workforce. The TUC will continue to argue for building a more inclusive approach underpinned by social partnership arrangements. Finally, there remains the major danger that the presumption in the review that employers will dramatically increase investment in employee skills once the system is made more employer-friendly may ultimately not materialise.

January 2007