Examination of Witnesses (Questions 480-499)
MS DINAH
CAINE, MS
LINDA FLORANCE
AND MR
BRIAN WISDOM
14 MAY 2007
Q480 Mr Carswell: Why do we need
Sector Skills Councils? Surely, this is just a vast and sprawling
corporist network that uses tax pounds to do something that is
best left to people and companies pursuing their own interests?
Why do you exist?
Ms Caine: I would say that we
exist in terms of adding economies of scale and added value to
the existing huge corporist tax-ridden system that pumps a lot
of public funding into various schemes to support employers and
individuals which is not focused effectively and does not meet
industry's particular needs. My view is that the bit we get makes
the rest of it work more effectively but, importantly, brings
together industries to look at the future.
Q481 Mr Carswell: Do you say that
that could not happen without you?
Ms Caine: I genuinely do not think
it could. If I take my sector, radio, film, TV—you name
it—are siloed. When one looks at the way industry is going
it is about digital platforms and content creation. We are at
the point where all those employers meet; we sit them down and
ask them to look at what they believe they will need in future
and start planning for it now. I believe that is so valuable to
the economy and critical in terms of this nation moving forward.
Q482 Mr Carswell: Is it not basically
a form of planning? I think it was you who talked about the need
to look to the future rather than the present skills. You are
trying to second guess and so it is a form of planning. Would
it not be better to leave it to the invisible hand?
Ms Florance: For my sector there
would be no invisible hand. Small to medium size enterprises just
do not take out the time in their own businesses to do this; they
need a catalyst. We are that catalyst to help them come together
and look at what the future may offer. I do not believe it is
second-guessing; it is based on international and national statistics;
it takes a view of what is happening in technologies and seeing
where this sector may play a part if it has the right skills.
Q483 Mr Pelling: My questions are
to some extent both prejudiced and informed by having sat on an
RDA and LSC. Do you think that the balance should be changed despite
the inability of the private sector to be able to make good judgments
about investment in training away from RDA and LSCs to employers
so skills training is much more demand-led than supply-led?
Mr Wisdom: Absolutely. The example
from my own industry is chefs. Fewer and fewer are being trained
every year where the supply side is dictating the capacity that
is delivered to the industry and yet demand is rising every year.
Last year we recruited more chefs from Jobcentre Plus than from
colleges of further education which cannot be good for a business
sector that is truly competing on a global level. 63% of our employers
now say that they do not have sufficient customer service skills
from their employees. In terms of welcome of international visitors
we rank 17th out of the 35 leading nations, which is not a great
place to be as we move towards 2012.
Q484 Mr Pelling: Perhaps more discretion
should be given to the SSCs rather than the RDAs and LSCs in deciding
where spending on training should take place.
Mr Wisdom: Spending needs to be
more demand-led from two aspects. Clearly, there is the individual.
None of us would deny the need for the individual to have some
choice in where he goes, and to some extent that will be driven
by the opportunities available from the training undertaken. The
second aspect is giving our businesses the best skills available
to enable them to compete in a global market.
Q485 Mr Pelling: How do RDAs and
LSCs compare with SSCs in their ability to reach out to business?
Ms Florance: I believe that the
situation here is very different. There is no doubt that regional
development agencies have strong employers on their boards, but
I come back to the point that it is not the employer who shouts
the loudest but the considered opinion from a representative group
of employers that will determine what is picked up in that marketplace
for skills. In terms of the Learning and Skills Council very often
when one looks at surveys one may say that a lot of people know
about it basically because they are funding skills, whereas Sector
Skills Councils are informing them of what should be funded in
future. Therefore, very often they appear higher up that list
of "knowns" and get more support from them than perhaps
Sector Skills Councils do. But we support the Leitch recommendation
that some further streamlining within the LSC should take place
to turn that role into more of a commissioning and capacity-building
role within the provider network as opposed to a central planning
role. Essentially, the central planning role is a duplication
of what we are doing as Sector Skills Councils.
Ms Caine: We need to provide clarity
for employers. At the moment it is such a cluttered marketplace;
it is incredibly confusing. For them to achieve access to what
should be a simple offer is very cluttered as a result of all
sorts of organisations that are being funded through tax to support
that role. Therefore, as Leitch said there should be clarification
of role. We have the key role to play in terms of that articulation
of the demand-side agenda. Your question on statistics is a good
one. We know that we are measured every which way and have been
since we started. We think that our figures present well. We are
prepared to send them to you afterwards. It would be interesting
to see what the RDAs and LSC do in relation to that kind of measurement
of the level of satisfaction.
Q486 Mr Pelling: Are there some specific
examples of your having changed the skills offered within specific
regions in terms of the influence you have had on RDAs or LSCs?
Ms Caine: Certainly for us and
the answer to that I would like to put on record that higher education
has a key role to play in terms of delivering the skills agenda.
Through a UK-wide approach in recognising and working with a number
of designated Skillset Academies we have had an effect and worked
successfully with regional HEFCE and RDAs in terms of supporting
that initiative, but the approach is global to UK-wide to national
to regional.
Q487 Mr Pelling: Are there specific
examples and evidence of how the change is being made?
Ms Florance: I can give an example
that is to be launched in the North West next month and is being
picked up by two other regions. Our sector has had some difficulties
in recruiting to hard-to-fill vacancies. In the past young people
have been looked at purely as potential recruits. We have been
encouraging employers to look beyond that and at certain groups
that currently are not in work but may be in a cohort of people
who receive benefit. By working in partnership with Jobcentre
Plus and the Learning and Skills Council in those regions, we
have managed to launch a programme called Intro which will offer
some joined-up support for individuals to get back into a working
environment. It will not just stop at the offer given by Jobcentre
Plus, which is to get them through a basic skills agenda and into
work, but roll them into the Train to Gain agenda and help them
sustain their role in employment. We now have employers who are
ready to take those individuals and, hopefully, secure long-term
employment for them. There are some real changes. We have joined
up those bits of the system in such a way that we couch an offer
that our employers believe is useful for them but also matches
part of the social agenda.
Q488 Mr Pelling: If the Government
were to retain this supply-driven rather than demand-led process
what advice would you give to it in terms of making that process
work better so that resources are better aligned to training needs?
Mr Wisdom: The Leitch review has
spent far more time looking at this than I have the resources
to do. Besides, my background is industry; I am not an education
specialist. I believe that the system needs to change because
it has not delivered for UK Plc to date.
Q489 Mr Pelling: The system is not
performing?
Mr Wisdom: Therefore, change is
really no option.
Ms Caine: I would recommend what
Leitch has recommended, which is that there needs to be a much
closer relationship between the supply side and, if you like,
the demand side. I believe that we have a key role to play if
we are given the right authority and resource to help improve
focus and be the glue to make those parts of the system work together
more effectively.
Q490 Mr Pelling: To put a regional
question, as a London Member of Parliament it is already a very
complex system. Is it really sensible to continue to have within
London the responsibility shared between the LDA and the London
LSC and to have the skills board as well? Would it not be better
to give all of that power to the Mayor to be directed in that
way?
Ms Caine: Certainly, that was
what the Mayor wanted and would have liked; and it was certainly
the case that he prosecuted. As you are aware, we have ended up
in a position where the London Skills and Employment Board has
responsibility for the adult skills budget. I have to say that
I think that is working well in terms of a mechanism whereby the
LDA, LSC and ourselves come together and look at strategy and
how that meshes. It leaves some untidy edges. I believe that it
is an interesting experiment and I hope that if it is successful
it may well be one can move forward from to tidy up some of those
edges.
Q491 Mr Marsden: Mr Wisdom, I should
like to begin with you and take up the point just made about a
much closer demand/supply relationship. Assuming we all accept
that that is a good thing, is there not a problem about the level
at which demand and supply come together? You said in your comments
a few moments ago that many of your employers were far more concerned
about what was happening in places like Blackpool or Weston-super-Mare.
The regional issue is much more vague for them. How will we get
demand and supply more closely related when there are different
emphases between the various SSCs on whether or not they want
to deliver things locally or regionally?
Mr Wisdom: I do not believe that
Sector Skills Councils have the clout to deliver things at a local
level. Ultimately, the strategic issues that I see are built up
from a multitude of local environments. I sit on the skills and
training sector for the Royal Borough of Eton and Windsor which
looks at the opportunities of hosting the Olympic rowing regatta
in 2012. What I hear is a microcosm of what our employers have
said at national level. Clearly, there is a feed through and the
issue for Sector Skills Councils is: how are they enabled to have
authority to change things from that strategic level and enable
the system to respond to local needs where they are different
in terms of the volumes required?
Q492 Mr Marsden: Ms Caine, you were
asked previously about transforming roles and, quite rightly in
my view—I speak as a North West MP—focused on the
immense possibilities of media city and everything else. That
is an example of you as an SSC taking a big sectoral initiative
in one particular region. For the sake of argument, if there was
some other major initiative that came up elsewhere in the country
would you have the capacity to do that?
Ms Caine: I gave that example.
I could also point to working with Aardman and looking at the
establishment of an animation academy in the South West. I could
also point to examples where we are working very closely together
in London.
Q493 Mr Marsden: Therefore, you have
the capacity to pursue more than one regional focus at any particular
time?
Ms Caine: We do. In part, that
is because we have investment from our industry. We have always
prioritised working hard within the regions, but it is difficult.
Even with the money we have it pulls us to quite a significant
degree. To go back to what you said about bringing supply and
demand together, I believe that we do it through the Sector Skills
Agreements which are based on research. As Ms Florance said earlier,
each SSC has research for each region. Within that we are able
to analyse where the hot spots are and there are particular areas
of activity or initiative, such as animation or the North West
and the media city. I believe that we then have a key role to
play in terms of bringing our employers together with those public
agencies to ensure that what we all do makes sense.
Q494 Mr Marsden: Ms Florance, within
this session it has already been said that Leitch was curiously
patchy in his final report about sub-regional strategies. Is it
not also the case that the slimming down of the LSCs has also
been curiously patchy? Do you think we have focused enough in
terms of future plans on what we should be doing on a regional
or sub-regional basis as far as delivery is concerned? How do
you see it from the perspective of your Sector Skills Councils?
Ms Florance: I concur that Leitch
was not terribly clear on this area. It was passed on to Lyons
and he did not really get under the skin of that. This is one
of the areas where we have a big job of work to do. It seems to
me that at local and regional level the complexity of the system
insofar as employers are concerned is such that we must be careful
not to add to it. A great opportunity is provided by the establishment
of the Commission for Employment and Skills with a role that oversees
bodies at local level to deliver. In establishing those bodies
I would be less concerned by who they should be and who they should
replace than by what they should deliver and how they should be
accountable for that delivery. Prior to coming here today I looked
at a piece of work done for a workshop held recently that looked
at the very issue of the regions. It is true that one has the
Learning and Skills Council, the RDA, the Regional Skills Partner
and Jobcentre Plus, but in addition there is, with lots of different
boundaries, a list of other organisations that take an interest
in working with employers on skills. One has Fair Cities, City
Strategy Pathfinders, core city skills and employment boards,
adult learning option pilots and local strategic partners.
Q495 Mr Marsden: Stop!
Ms Florance: That is exactly the
point. If you are an employer out there the complexity is immense.
We must tidy up the system.
Q496 Chairman: Perhaps you would
give us that list in case there are few on it we have not heard
about.
Ms Florance: I am sure I can let
you have the list later.[1]
Q497 Chairman: Mr Wisdom is worried that
he does not have enough chefs. When we had all the vet programmes
that were so popular there were so many kids who wanted to do
that. There was enormous pressure to become a vet. If we had a
similar programme perhaps we would have an excess of people wanting
to become chefs. It amazes me.
Mr Wisdom: That is probably one
of the reasons why demand is rising.
Mr Marsden: Clearly, we are all
eating out too much.
Q498 Chairman: Ms Florance, I gained
the impression that we were training so many people in a field
that you wanted manpower planning, which I thought we had left
a long time ago, to provide enough jobs.
Ms Florance: There is a big issue
here about information advice and guidance to young people. One
of the things we like in the Leitch report is the idea of a universal
service for that across England.
Q499 Chairman: If there are not enough
jobs for doctors there is an Opposition Day debate on it, but
when it comes to musicians, actors or any of the creative professions
we turn out 100s at every opportunity. We do not start to ask
about planning for those, do we? You would like the right number
of jobs for actors as the actors who emerge from acting school?
Ms Caine: What we would like to
see and are working on is identifying where best practice is in
terms of delivery within higher education. Once we have identified
it we then partnership it and focus the industry's interests and
resource on providing equipment and work placements.
1 What is out there? A guide to Regional and Local
Bodies and Initiatives. Not printed. Back
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