Memorandum submitted by Usdaw
1. This submission is based the experience
of Usdaw, the Retail and Distributive Trade Union, and in particular
the experience of Usdaw's Union Learning Reps. The submission
opens with some background information about Usdaw's involvement
with Skills and Learning. It then focuses on some concerns, and
concludes with some suggestions for ways ahead.
BACKGROUND
2. Usdaw has over 500 trained Union Learning
Reps working in wide range of companies (Tesco, Sainsbury's, The
Co-op Group, IKEA, Northern Foods etc) in the retail, distribution
and manufacturing sectors. Usdaw ULRs have encouraged over 20,000
members to return to some form of learning over the last eight
years. This has involved job-related training, career development
and personal development. This experience has given us a lot of
understanding about the needs and barriers involved in the up
skilling, and returning to learning, for shop floor staff who
work in these sectors.
3. Usdaw learners tend to be people who
have had little access to learning as an adult either through
their employer or through the public education system. In one
recent evaluation exercise in a major national company, half of
Usdaw learners had either not engaged in learning since leaving
school, and a similar proportion stated they had not received
training from their employer.
4. It should be noted that many Usdaw members
are the sole or main carer—either for children or elderly
relatives- and so combine work with caring responsibilities. This
makes for busy lives with little time for learning.
5. Usdaw members tend to work in jobs and/or
sector where little training is required to perform the job, or
employers are reluctant to provide off-the-job training. The Governments
White Paper 21st Century Skills—Realising Our Potential
highlighted "Wholesale and Retail" as a sector with
"Low levels of training" and a "workforce poorly
qualified". In addition pay levels tend to be low in relation
to other sectors.
6. In particular, in the retail sector,
about 2/3rds of all retail staff are employed by major multiple
chains (supermarkets, department stores, clothing chains etc).
These retail chains tend to have training systems for their shop
floor staff that rely heavily on on-the-job methods of training,
appraisals and supervision with very little engagement with qualifications,
the NVQ, or National Literacy and Numeracy tests. Their systems
have evolved to suit their circumstances—the nature of the
work, their high turnover of staff (maybe 30-40% per annum—Skillsmart
Retail 2004) etc. and their needs. The picture is of training
which is to a large extent in-grained, and delivered in a mass
and organised fashion. But it is training of a very particular
type largely in-house, company controlled and predominately on-the-job.
7. Our experience has shown us that to re-engage
Usdaw members (shop workers, fork lift truck drivers, shelf fillers,
process workers) learning has to be made accessible (in terms
of its location, the times it takes place and in its style of
tuition) and affordable. Initially Learning needs to be through
short courses, flexibly delivered.
THE CHALLENGE
8. Leitch has highlighted the Skills Challenge
that we have in front of us. But this challenge is increased by
the fact that 70% of the 2020 workforce are already in employment,
and that one in six of those without Level 2, work in retailing.
Unless the kind of people that Usdaw organises can be encouraged
back into accredited training and learning, then as a country,
we are unlikely to reach Leitch's targets.
UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES
9. However, we have concerns that some elements
of the new system, while delivering on some of the aims of the
system, may have unintended consequences of frustrating other
aims of the new system. Crucially these concerns focus on the
role of the employer as gatekeeper to learning subsidised through
Train to Gain, and the consequences of this.
10. Usdaw has encouraged and worked with
a number of employers who have engaged with ETP/Train to Gain.
We know that Train to Gain can work effectively in some situations
with certain employers. However, we are aware that there are other
employers who are not interested in engaging with ETP/Train to
Gain. In fact, our experience and anecdotal evidence suggests
that a clear majority of Usdaw members work for employers who
will not engage with Train to Gain. Because the employer is the
gatekeeper for the learning that is subsidised by Train to Gain,
very large numbers of staff in the retail, distribution and manufacturing
sector will face an insurmountable barrier to benefiting from
this programme.
11. Similarly there are insurmountable barriers
to them benefiting from the subsidised learning available under
the Level 2 pledge. The regulations for the Level 2 pledge specify
a minimum hours of direct contact learning. The level appears
to vary slightly—but we can say it is set at approximately
16 hours per week. This is beyond what is possible for most people
in work, and especially for people who combine work and caring
responsibilities. It may be possible for a few highly motivated
learners—but this regulation will appear as an insurmountable
barrier to most people in work contemplating returning to learning
as an adult. This Level 2 pledge seems to be aimed at those out
of work, rather than those in work in low waged jobs.
12. The combined impact of the role of employers
acting as the gatekeepers for Train to Gain and the regulations
for the Level 2 pledge mean that two of the main vehicles for
subsidised learning will not be available for millions of the
"working poor". In addition, these policies are combined
with a policy of making the fee element greater for provision
for adults outside these two programmes. These policies combine
to have the (unintended) consequence putting returning to learning
further out of reach for many people in work on low wages.
13. Another piece of the jigsaw is Learner
Accounts. Unfortunately there introduction at Level 3 means that
this avenue to subsidised learning for the low paid is also closed.
In the case of Usdaw, the Government's hope that Union Learning
Reps would able to help guide people to use a Learning Account
will not be fulfilled so long as the Accounts remain at Level
3.
14. The unintended consequence of putting
purchasing power in the hands of the employer (through Train to
Gain), is that where the employer doesn't want to use that power
(or only wants to use that power for a minority of say his more
senior or admin staff), the Government's laudable aims of lifting
the skill level of those with skills under Level 2 will be frustrated.
CHECKS AND
BALANCES
15. A further concern is that where subsidised
learning through Train to Gain, the Level 2 pledge or even the
new Accounts, the learner needs to be given the opportunity to
make an informed choice. Currently one college in Manchester is
offering a Retail Level 2 NVQ that, they boast, requires no off-the-job
training and will only take the member of staff off the shop floor
for a limited number of 15 min assessment sessions. It must be
doubtful whether an NVQ of this type is a better way to spend
your "Level 2 entitlement" than doing a number of other
programmes.
16. Without checks and balances, it is inevitable
that the strategy will risk great leakage of resources through
"deadweight" funding (see the Public Accounts Committee
Report on Year 1 of ETP), and individuals will lose valuable learning
opportunities that would suit them as an individual by being mis-sold
something else (This recalls the mis-selling of pensions in the
eighties, and the ILA scandals of the nineties).
17. Usdaw ULRs have worked with providers
and employers to develop innovative ways to make learning accessible
and affordable for shop floor staff. In particular, we have:
— Reached voluntary agreements with
some employers to set up Workplace Learning Funds (managed by
a joint Workplace Learning Committee) which is then used to subsidise
staff career and personal development.
— Tested the use of a Retail Learning
Voucher as a means of supporting career and personal development
for retail workers.
18. Some measures that may improve the situation
would be:
— Where an employer is benefiting from
a publicly funded scheme (ie Train to Gain), there be an obligation
on the employer to consult with trained staff representatives
(for example Union Learning Reps). This should help make sure
the public funding is used in a way that is beneficial for the
company and the staff as a whole.
— That Union Learning Reps are involved
with the new broker service from the first contact that broker
has with that employer. The ULRs would then be able to encourage
the widest engagement with Train to Gain possible.
— That where a sector does not engage
with Train to Gain in a proportionate way, the funding that would
have been used to support the initiative in that sector can be
accessed/used to promote up skilling for workers in that sector
in other ways, for example, a targeted Learning Account/Voucher,
or supporting workplace Learning Funds with a tax incentive for
the employer that contributes to the fund.
January 2007
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