Examination of Witnesses (Questions 560-579)
MS HAZEL MATHIESON, MS KATIE HUTTON MR KEVIN SWEENEY
14 MAY 2008
Q560 Mr Devine: It depends on tonight's result!
Mr Sweeney: It is undoubted that the Govan community is going to change drastically in the next few years, not least because the Regeneration Plan has brought new employers into the area. The BBC headquarters is on our doorstep, the STV headquarters is on our doorstep, Film City is on our doorstep, and then there are the big employers, like Thales Optronics and BAE Systems. I think the way the community will change will be very much dependent on the kind of housing that they actually build because, along with all these employers, they are going to build housing at some point, I suppose. The experience on the north side of the Clyde has been that they have got rows and rows of £1/4 million yuppie flats. Now, if they do that on the south side of the river where we are, then the local community will just be swept away.
Q561 Mr Walker: Where will it relocate to?
Mr Sweeney: It will dissipate, so it will disappear into the schemes in the periphery of Glasgow.
Q562 Mr Walker: You see, I have got some sensitivity to your concerns because I think flats are important, but we need to build communities that house families and I do not think we have been very good at that, and that is not a party-political point. I think we have a passion for flats, but communities are still built around families and generations, so would that be a concern?
Mr Sweeney: That is very much a concern in Govan, but I do think it will be addressed to some extent by the Regeneration Plan that was passed last year. To give you an illustration of the extent of the problem in the area, about 500 yards behind our school building, there is a road called "Homefauld head Drive", a bit of a mouthful. When I first came to Govan, we got 100 children out of that street and today we get none because that street is a pile of rubble and it has been for a couple of years and will be for at least another couple of years, and that is a big problem for the local community and for us as the community school. We are being bled dry in terms of our school roll and it is falling year on year because the population in the community is falling year on year and, until we build family housing, community housing, like you were talking about, Mr Walker, the community is on a downward spiral.
Q563 Mr Walker: Because it is amazing that you can build loads and loads of flats, and we have seen it happen in the east of England, and still be shutting primary schools because all these people in the flats go into the city to work, they come back, they become dormitories and they—
Mr Sweeney: And they do not have children. That is exactly the situation we are in and in fact next year we go from five associated primary schools to two; there are not any kids to fill the schools.
Q564 Chairman: Can you tell us what funding is provided for adult training, particularly adult apprenticeships?
Ms Hutton: Per individual for adult apprenticeships, I think it is £4,500 is paid per apprenticeship for those over 20.
Q565 Chairman: Do you think it is enough or is more needed to develop skills for defence in Scotland's adult population?
Ms Hutton: The amount of money that is paid out for apprenticeships in the engineering sector is the highest level, and that recognises the higher costs spent in delivering engineering training relative to other things, such as customer service, et cetera. We have had very good achievement rates for our engineering apprenticeships in Scotland and we have also got this other requirement given to us from government which is about value for money, so, in terms of increasing that rate, there does not seem to be an argument at the moment in value for money terms. Over about three or four years ago, we did increase the funding support levels for engineering apprenticeships and, in response to concerns, they were raised by about £1,000, but it is the highest level. We do recognise the costs of training and our money, our contribution, is a contribution towards the training costs.
Q566 Chairman: When we took evidence from the representatives of the trade unions, we were told that they expect the Scottish Executive to allocate more resources and more funding for training and apprenticeships. Do you share their view?
Ms Hutton: Being part of Skills Development Scotland now gives us the scope to look at everything that we have done in the past as the legacy organisations of Skills Development Scotland, so again we will be looking at the models for funding as well for our apprenticeships and taking a decision based on the view of whether or not we think that more money should go into it, but, as I said before, we have increased the numbers by 50% over the last two years going into engineering.
Q567 Mr Devine: There are different funding structures now going to Wales. Are you comfortable with that and aware of that because again we got evidence that again there seem to be difficulties in some organisations appreciating those differences?
Ms Hutton: There is a different set-up, but the funding that is given in England and Wales covers everything, so it is about £11,400 and it is £9,000 in Scotland, but also colleges use their SUMs funding to cover engineering apprenticeships as well, so the amount of money, when you add the SUMs funding together with the contribution from Skills Development Scotland, will probably be commensurate.
Q568 Mr Devine: So what do you think is the best system, the English and Welsh one or the Scottish one?
Ms Hutton: Well, we have got better achievement rates, and I do not know how you consider that, but that is certainly one indicator of performance.
Q569 Chairman: I have been in touch with this Future Carrier Programme on the Clyde, so what do you think can be done to make sure that this opportunity is utilised to improve skills among young people?
Ms Mathieson: Well, at the moment we are getting considerable demand from young people and we are working very closely with the further education sector and, I think as Katie has said, we have increased significantly the provision that we have put on in the engineering area, so, as far as we are aware at this stage from employers, we are meeting the demand.
Ms Hutton: The other area that we are investigating just now with SEMTA, the Sector Skills Council for this sector, and with the companies is looking at an accelerated modern apprenticeship, so that is maybe taking more mature candidates who have got experience in the industry and putting them through what is typically at the moment a three-and-a-half-year apprenticeship to something like 18 months to two years and we have looked at different models of doing that and we will be coming to a decision quite soon on that.
Q570 Chairman: Are you concerned that high numbers of highly skilled graduates in countries such as China and India could result in greater competition for some of the non-MoD work currently carried out by defence companies in Scotland?
Ms Mathieson: I do not think I have the answer to that question. I do not think I am qualified to answer that question.
Q571 Chairman: Kevin, can you put some light on it?
Mr Sweeney: I am certainly not qualified to answer that question!
Ms Hutton: I think we would always be concerned about competition from other countries taking skilled work away from us.
Q572 Chairman: But I am thinking of the major competition coming from China and India where there are a lot of graduates, people with skills there whose skills are in competition, and we have to compete for the global companies if we want to move on and we want to make a success.
Ms Mathieson: Again I cannot speak with knowledge and we can find out that information for you, but I think there has been a significant increase in the engineering graduates coming out of the Scottish universities as well, recognising that engineering is still alive and kicking and that there are significant job opportunities, but it is not part of our remit, so we do not have the figures, but we can certainly provide that information for you.
Chairman: Yes, if you could drop a note, that would be helpful.
Q573 Mr Devine: Do you find that young people want careers in the defence industry in Scotland? At my time in school, which was not yesterday, I have to admit, we always got an out-and-out jobs fair in Glasgow at Kelvin Hall which was great and it was basically just a day out for us, a great day out, but I never got the feeling that anybody seriously wanted to sell. There is a lot of controversy at the moment about the Army going into schools and trying to recruit and I do not know if there is an equivalent going on at the moment.
Ms Hutton: I think that maybe it is the wording of "defence", but I know that there are a lot of young people who want to have careers in engineering and I think we can judge that by the fact that I think BAE get a huge amount of applications every year for their apprenticeship programme, so then that gives you an indication that there are young people out there in Scotland who want to follow these kinds of careers.
Ms Mathieson: I think also that there is quite a lot of work to be done. Parents are a huge influence on the choices that youngsters make and I think that for a long time engineering has been seen as a dying industry, not just in Scotland, but in the rest of the UK as well. I know we have had significant redundancies in that sector which have probably levelled off now, but I think it is our job, along with other public sector agencies, to work with schools and to work with parents and the influencers because there are significant opportunities. I think that, if you can get in to speak to youngsters and give youngsters information through the channels that they like because I think we have got to remember that the way that individuals like to get information is through using technology and it is different channels than we got ourselves, so it is recognising that and feeding that information, so I think we have quite a big job to do because there are still significant opportunities in the sector. I think we, as Skills Development Scotland, have to take that responsibility and work with the school sector and the influencers of school pupils.
Q574 Mr Devine: Do you think it works, Kevin? Are you in a unique situation?
Mr Sweeney: I have to take issue a wee bit with something that Hazel said there about parents being an influence on young people's decisions for choosing subjects and for employment. In certain types of areas, yes, that is very true but in the deprived areas it is patently not true because those sorts of parents do not engage with agencies like schools very readily, nor do they have the kind of knowledge or family background even where they can give appropriate advice to their youngsters. The schools in these kinds of areas work to try and plug that gap in parents' knowledge. As to: are young people interested in these kinds of jobs? The answer is yes, and certainly in our school we are now getting hard evidence that the young people aspire to work in these kinds of sectors. Now that we have put engineering on the curriculum and the young people have the opportunity to choose it they are choosing it in large numbers—girls as well as boys.
Q575 Mr Devine: Kevin, you are clearly very innovative and you have the shipyards, basically, on your doorstep. Is that the reason, or is it a different one? Are you unique? If I went to another school in the north of Glasgow—
Mr Sweeney: I do not know about "unique". We are very unusual; I do not think you will find many other schools in Glasgow, or in fact in Scotland, that are in our situation. We are not unusual because we have chosen to be so but because we have to be in order to deal with the context in which our young people live. Young people choose the vocational path when they are given the opportunity to do so. The traditional curriculum will not let you do engineering in school, will not let you do motor vehicle mechanics and will not let you do hairdressing; our curriculum does, and these are the things that the young people choose, and then they find that by doing these subjects they like it, they are good at it and there are employment prospects. Hazel and Kate are right, there are jobs out there, and we certainly tell the kids that; we work a lot together with Careers Scotland to give the young people an educated perspective on the world of employment. They do aspire to do jobs in these sectors—engineering being one very good example.
Ms Mathieson: I think they are well-paid jobs as well.
Q576 Mr Devine: Do you link into the schools?
Ms Mathieson: Yes, we do, through Careers Scotland.
Q577 Mr Devine: One of the presentations we got was from Scottish Engineering, who were very concerned about the Make it in Scotland programme being discontinued, which seemed to be very successful and everybody we met was concerned about this. Do you share others' concerns?
Ms Hutton: When that programme was reviewed it was found it was not that cost-effective and, also—
Q578 Mr Devine: In what way?
Ms Hutton: In terms of the amount of money that was required to run it and, also, the amount of company time that the programme took, and the amount of time it took school children away from doing what they are supposed to be doing in terms of the curriculum—so taking kids out of school. Sometimes we were getting complaints about the amount of time that was taken out. So it was decided that they would try and develop a model that could apply to a whole lot of sectors in Scotland, because it will get to the stage that every industry, shall we say, says: "We have an image problem", so we have to get the kids switched on to whether it is defence, whether it is construction o whether it is the retail sector. Careers Scotland were getting multiple demands placed on them. So what they have been charged with doing is devising a new model which develops new approaches and takes less of the curriculum time. They have done something called The Path is Green, on which I have some details for you. That is an innovative way of using communication techniques that are a bit more applicable to young people.
Q579 Mr Devine: The Path is Green does not go down well in Govan! Has it been tested? How successful is it?
Ms Hutton: It is being tested right now. It was launched on Monday—
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