Examination of Witnesses (Quesitons 160-179)
MR HARRY DONALDSON, MR KENNY JORDAN, MR KEVIN MCALONAN, AND MR SATNAM NER
4 MARCH 2008
Q160 Mr Walker: I would like to follow up on that because I imagine these are fairly highly paid jobs—I could be wrong, but they sound like fairly high paying jobs. For that reason, why are we struggling to attract youngsters into the profession?
Mr McAlonan: Part of it is the lack of certainty. Again it comes back to the point we were making earlier that, unless you can give some certainty of employment, why would you make a decision to go into an organisation that is downsizing? It has downsized two or three times already in the last ten years and it is going through another downsizing. They do want people with skills, they are going through a major change programme, but going into other areas may give more security of employment. If you look at the trends within the defence sector, it peaks around about 2009 through to 2014 and then starts to decline again, so a young person has a choice: Do they go in there and do a lot of the training, pick up the skills and then seek to move their careers on—not necessarily in defence, not necessarily in Scotland—or do they go into somewhere where they are going to have more security of employment from an early age? That issue about security of employment is very important. Most of the defence sector expenditure projections do start to reduce down quite severely roundabout 2015-16.
Q161 Mr Walker: But the skill sets are portable, is the point you are making.
Mr Donaldson: Yes, but the whole issue is in that portability and transferability. As Kenny touched on there, the biggest challenge is the continuity of work. If you are a young person going into an industry, you want to have some security or longer-term sustainability of that industry if that is where you see your career is going to develop. There are other competing projects in the UK which would pull people further down south, such as the Olympics, Thames Link, Heathrow Terminal 6, the new runway, Crossrail. There are all these competing interests south of the border which could pull skills down there if there is a lack of continuity at work.
Q162 Mr Walker: They are all time-limited as well, in a sense.
Mr Donaldson: They are.
Q163 Mr Walker: Why would a person from Scotland feel they have a better chance of getting a job after, say, Terminal 5 or Crossrail has finished, as opposed to, say, in ten years time when there are no ship orders or a reduction in ship orders?
Mr Donaldson: We would assume the issue there would be from most employers looking for people who have skill sets that have been used in different sectors of the economy and on different projects and who have developed the ability to be flexible in terms of the industries they have worked in. That is a good portfolio for an individual to have. If you do not have continuity, you will be pushed and pulled towards either money projects or increasing your opportunity to become employable on the basis of that concept.
Mr Jordan: There has been a great deal of a historical Catch-22 position: the industry has not given the foresight and the investment into nurturing skills and that is why we have been left with a shortage of skills. I think it is a necessity for all industry to examine its responsibility to maintain that skill level, going forward.
Q164 Chairman: If these skills, the apprenticeships and others, can be transferred to other industries, can you give us examples of which ones?
Mr Donaldson: In particular, we are looking at the renewables—which is a huge development in terms of the opportunities it presents in Scotland. Again, there are transferable and portable skills that can naturally migrate across into projects. That would probably take us back to what Ian and you have said about the 10% in the private contracts because of the reliance, the heavy reliance, on MoD work. The Scottish shipyards in particular are geared to MoD and military work and not commercial contracts and I think that is the reality of the situation. The UK itself purchases most of its equipment from abroad, from most other countries, and that includes strike aircraft from the States, missiles and ambulances from France. We only have to look very recently at the reaction of the US Congressmen to the announcements of the Airbus situation there, where we could see that that had a major impact—even given that most of that assembly work will actually take place in the States. The whole issue there is that these skill sets are vital to the future of the Scottish economy, as indeed is MoD placement.
Q165 Chairman: You are saying that these flexible and transferable skills are crucial for the industry in Scotland.
Mr Donaldson: Absolutely.
Q166 Chairman: Will the Scottish Executive's failure to invest in apprenticeships in Scotland have any impact on the industry in the future?
Mr Donaldson: It would have a huge impact in the future. If you do not develop the skills and the talent for tomorrow within the Scottish economy, you will then be faced with a shortfall. How do you then compete in the market-place when you do not have the skill sets, these portable, transferable key skills in the economy to attract the ability to secure contracts with other major global players?
Q167 Chairman: Your advice to the Scottish Executive, if you could give one piece of advice, would be that they should invest in apprenticeships and they should invest in the future of Scotland.
Mr Donaldson: I will have a meeting over the next two weeks to talk about skills development in Scotland, as has the STUC, with the Scottish Government.
Q168 Mr Davidson: I have read with interest the GMB paper where you talk, amongst other things, about supporting the Government's world-class apprenticeship scheme, based on the Leitch Report and so on. I am not clear about whether or not the Scottish situation is as good as the English situation now that the Government has introduced all of the new proposals on apprenticeships or whether or not it is lagging.
Mr Donaldson: Our concern just now is that it tends to be lagging. The pressure we want to put in is to bring it up to an equitable standard. We believe currently it is below that.
Q169 Mr Davidson: It would be helpful if you were able to give us, either yourselves or directly with the STUC, some sort of indication of where you think the financial support in Scotland for the apprenticeship programme is falling down and what the scale of that difficulty is. We were discussing earlier on about how important the defence industry is to Scotland, but if there is a shortfall in the money that is being provided to companies and unions for training in Scotland we would want to be aware of that, because that is crucial in the context of report. I was touching there on apprentices, by which we generally mean young people, but, in terms of mature apprentices, I see that the GMB and Unite are pretty strongly in favour of that—I am not quite sure of the Prospect position. Is funding sufficient for the needs of industry and the needs of those individuals who would want to become mature apprentices at the moment? Or is Scotland lagging behind the provision in England?
Mr Donaldson: Again it is a key area for us. We see the mature apprenticeships, equally, as vital in terms of people either moving into new areas or redeveloping skills sets and moving into these areas. There was a concern for a period of time. We can provide a written statement to the question you have asked because I do not have all the facts and figures with me just now. We certainly will do that, but, in terms of mature apprenticeships, there still seems to be an issue of concern that there is more money being geared towards the younger apprentices as opposed to any money being directed to people at the mature end. I have seen the difference that makes to people. It is quite phenomenal in terms of people wanting to move into a new direction and make a major contribution and lifestyle change in terms of mature apprenticeships.
Q170 Mr Davidson: Mature apprentices are getting less money than the younger apprentices, but there is not even enough money for the younger apprentices in Scotland. That is a dangerous position.
Mr Donaldson: That is our concern at present. Obviously I will get you facts and figures. If I am wrong, then clearly I will indicate that, but I have the view just now that that tends to be the case.
Q171 Chairman: It will be helpful for us when we compile our report if we can have written submissions on this issue.
Mr Jordan: Unite will do a similar analysis and forward the findings to you.
Q172 Mr Davidson: Or through the STUC. You can see where we are going with this: if the industry is vital but sufficient money is not being provided for training, then there are going to be shortfalls in the future and we would want to have that spelt out as much as possible. I am very concerned that in my area there are lots of youngsters who would want to get into these jobs and they are not necessarily being given the opportunity. Migrant workers, pre-trained, as it were, are coming in and taking those opportunities that otherwise kids in my area would get.
Mr Donaldson: To take your point, Ian: Kenny and I will both direct through the STUC and contact Stephen Boyd and Graham Smith. We will coordinate our approach and feedback to you on that.
Q173 Mr Davidson: The next question I have to ask—you see, we do not think of these questions ourselves, we get them written down for us, just in case you thought we did—the next point we have been invited to cover is on apprentices in the defence industry and wanting to clarify the extent to which many of them already have skills and whether or not there are openings for those with lower levels of skills. In the yards, for example, are there still the opportunities for the totally unskilled that there were in years past or are we saying that the entire defence industry is really now only for people with qualifications?
Mr Jordan: As far as Unite is concerned, we are encouraging all employers in all industries to upscale their workforce as much as possible. Where we can lend assistance to that, we are prepared to do that. I do believe that it is under the overall agenda of lifelong learning. When an industry realises that its best asset is its workforce and upgrading that workforce, it is obviously going to attract the benefits of the future.
Mr Donaldson: We would tend to agree. There seems to be an issue there that we need to ensure there are opportunities for those less advantaged in terms of some of the qualifications that they do not have just now, to go into the industry and be developed and trained through SVQ 1 and up to level 3. We know that people have the capability; they need the investment. Again, a lot of that has to be about through the social responsibility of some of these major employers in terms of the areas in Scotland in which they already live.
Q174 Mr Davidson: Who should fund that? Is that the responsibility of the companies or the Scottish Executive through Scottish Enterprise Glasgow? Who is meant to be funding that?
Mr Donaldson: I think it could be a combination of all of these things. We certainly see that employers themselves have to step up to the plate and start to invest and start to provide some of the wealth creation that they are getting through the MoD, on the basis of reinvesting in training and paying for the training and the development of their skilled workforce. We see levies as being a key important factor in that whole process to these employers.
Q175 Mr Davidson: Presumably everybody is already educated in Prospect!
Mr McAlonan: I would not go quite that far, but it is not far wrong.
Q176 David Mundell: Just expanding on that issue: as alluded to in the Unite submission, is there not a fundamental problem that, where there are opportunities to come forward even for apprenticeships or for vacancies, there are not really the people with the requisite skills, life skills at that point to come forward. That seemed to be one of the things that other evidence was suggesting, that, regardless of what investment might be there to be available for individuals once they came forward, in Scotland at the moment there were not enough individuals, whether young or mature, to come forward for these opportunities.
Mr Jordan: I think it needs to be determined whether there is an ability or a willingness to come forward to those positions. I think this lends itself back to what Kevin was saying, that if we have an industry that does not project a long-term future then you will not get young people to lend themselves or to be willing to become part of that. I think there is a whole scenario of comfort that has to be given throughout the industry of being able to take care of people from school age right way through to when they retire.
Mr Donaldson: It is an interesting concept, the life skills that are required. I remember back in the days when I applied for a job that you were hired for your skills and dismissed for your behaviour. Now it is completely the opposite position: you are hired for your behaviours and attitudes and then we will train hard skills in. It is quite a change. Again, when you are looking at life skills you are looking at the investment, which is a longer-term project, to be very honest, in Scotland. It is about early years intervention and then the development through the schooling, and then the issue that manufacturing is quite a good place to work. There is a concept there that manufacturing is dirty, that people do not want to get employed there, and there are other competing sectors. There is the whole issue in this life skills element which has to be about tracking it back. The fundamental problem there is that you are talking about a generational issue, but there is a lot that can be done with that group of people to prepare them to move into employment with the correct life skills and behaviour and attitudes, to move in where the longer-term investment by the employer can be a very good proposition.
Q177 David Mundell: I was previously in the Scottish Parliament, and on a visit we did to the John Wheatley College at Easterhouse I was very struck by talking to the young men there about their perception of employment. The perception of employment for them was still physical/manual work. There was a serious issue in getting them moving forward to effectively take on skills because they saw their work role as a physical/manual one. It is difficult because there is that contradiction in the projection of this as now a skilled industry so you should come into it. Do you see the point I am trying to get over.
Mr Donaldson: I can see the correlation there. That is why I said you need to backfill the intervention that takes place, whether that is through community initiatives or other areas there in terms of giving these people the life skills so that employers will want to employ them. When people go for interviews there is quite a lot there in terms of: "Is this someone in whom I would wish to invest?" If people come to the table with the concept you have, then skills seem a world away from them: "That's not for me." Again it is about giving people self-esteem and self-confidence, but that is something over a longer-time period of time that we need to backfill and reinvest in, giving people that self-esteem and self belief that they can achieve more. That is not to say that the manual jobs or, as Jim has said, the jobs in McDonald's are to be put on the back-burner. These jobs are vital for the economy, but there are a lot of vocational skills that people could do in terms of development as opposed to moving into university. We need to promote the vocational route more, in terms of saying that there are alternatives for people rather than the academic route if they do not want to go in that direction. But there is a huge gap, as you say, between those who possess that and those in some communities, such as Easterhouse, who do not have much hope. Again, that is about a cultural shift and investment.
Mr Jordan: One of the strategies that may help in this situation is a closer link between industry and the education system, where we can streamline people into the industry.
Q178 David Mundell: What part are the trade unions generally playing in promoting science and engineering as a career with transferable skills to youngsters? One thing that has often fed back is the point you are making Kenny, that in school, whilst it may not be explicit, they are being pushed in other directions.
Mr Jordan: As far as Unite is concerned, the overall policy is that we cherish and want to encourage manufacturing and give much as much support to manufacturing as possible. That streams down into ensuring that we do have the ability to invest in skills, to invest in training, with the encouragement of that type of industry being a vocation rather than just a job. We can only promote these policies, but I think it takes everyone within the industry to have the will to promote the industry.
Q179 Mr Devine: Seeing as Ian Davidson has given away our secret, I will not read the question out now! I am wondering what the trade unions are doing individually and collectively to improve the skills and knowledge of our members.
Mr Jordan: We have a very proactive lifelong learning agenda. As far as Unite is concerned we have officers solely dealing with that and linking up with colleges and with employers to promote that, to promote the up-skilling and the lifelong learning agenda in the workplace amongst our members.
Mr Donaldson: We have similar types of approaches, in terms of developing our group of union learning reps across workplaces to help deliver and drive that. Indeed, we got an interesting concept the other day where one of the partner organisations that we work with has just got funding, funded through Scottish Enterprise, to be able to go into businesses and do training needs analysis. I have just put out to all the offices in GMB Scotland that we should be approaching every employer within the remit to say, "Look, this is a free service that we can actually bring to you," in terms of the trade union having the ability to say, "We can provide something of quality for you to promote training needs analysis within the company." We have also looked at how we develop and get people to take in this whole concept of people moving through suites of different levels of learning, up to graduate level if they so wish to do so, to give people resource skills development within the workplace which lots of employers tell us is so vital to them: cognitive skills and presentation/communication skills. We are significantly involved in delivering those whole areas and leadership skills also. I get a bit exercised sometimes over the fact that the knowledge economy can only be associated—with no disrespect—to graduates, and I see everybody as a knowledge worker because people do have knowledge and we need to develop that. Certainly, we as a trade union are very focused in Scotland just now across all the sectors in which we are involved in developing these areas.
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