Examination of Witnesses (Questions 172-179)
CHRIS HUMPHRIES,
TERESA SAYERS,
TOM BEWICK
AND FRANK
LORD
25 JUNE 2008
Q172 Chairman: May I welcome our first
panel of witnesses to our inquiry entitled "After Leitch:
Implementing skills and training policies". We have Chris
Humphries, the Chief Executive of UKCES, Teresa Sayers, the Chief
Executive of the Financial Services Skills Council, Tom Bewick,
the Chief Executive of Creative and Cultural Skills, and last
but by no means least, Frank Lord, the Chair of the Alliance Employment
and Skills Board. Welcome to you all and thank you very much indeed
for giving evidence to us this morning. The whole of the Leitch
report is peppered with a theme about demand-led education and
training. What does that mean to you? What is your understanding
of that, Chris?
Chris Humphries: To me demand-led
refers to the need to ensure our employment and skills system
understands and is responsive to employment needs. To me that
comes from an understanding of what we think the likely direction
of travel for sectors and employers is, where the priority skills
requirements are going to be in the future and aligning that to
the capabilities, needs, skills and requirements of an economic
area and the people who live in it. It is about creating a system
that is responsive on a number of dimensions. It can never be
as simple as saying, "Let us meet employer demand".
It has to bring together employer demand, local and regional priorities
and individual capability and opportunity and create a system
that is more responsive to all those priorities. For me it focuses
around the area of employment. My remit as an employment and skills
organisation is to focus on the extent to which the system meets
the needs for economic competitiveness and increased employment.
Q173 Chairman: The previous systems
have been demand-led. Unless somebody applies for the training
then it does not happen. What is the difference?
Chris Humphries: There is a difference
here between whether or not the individual is able to enter a
course they think they want and whether or not the outcomes at
the end of that programme both for the employer who hires them
and the individual who wants it are what they were expecting and
hoping for. There is significant evidence to show that many of
our learning programmes are out of touch with modern industry
developments, that education and training is finding it hard to
keep pace with the pace of change in many industries, not just
in the technology-based industries, and that it is too easy for
our learning programmes to lose their currency and their fitness
for purpose in a world in which change through globalisation,
as we all know, is dramatic and rapid. That is why almost every
country in the OECD is undertaking a review programme at the moment,
to try and understand how to ensure that their education and training
system keeps pace with the rate of industry change in order to
ensure their competitiveness. That is what people are concerned
about, the extent to which the system in its design and approach
has fit for purpose training programmes available within it, ones
that meet the requirements of employers as they are changing over
time and are responsive to tomorrow's industry needs as well as
today's.
Q174 Chairman: In Lord Leitch's report
the demand-led system equates to employers who actually create
the demand when in reality what is actually happening is it is
the government rather than employers that is deciding which areas
you can train in and where they will get the funding from. This
is really the government being the demand-led rather than the
employers.
Teresa Sayers: I think the creation
of sector skills councils and allowing sectors to have a vehicle
through which to channel the needs of their individual sectors
has been a significant improvement over the past years. With all
sectors there is an element of what is called generic or employability
skills that employers are looking for and inevitably there is
an element of sector specific skills that employers are looking
for. I truly believe that employers now have a better opportunity
to shape the delivery and the content so it is more tailored to
meet both the generic needs and the sector requirements as well.
Q175 Chairman: I would expect you
to say that as you represent a sector skills council. Is that
what employers are actually telling you, that the packaging of
the training programmes is in fact what they want because we are
getting evidence which is to the contrary?
Teresa Sayers: Certainly the evidence
from our consultation with the employers and our research to date
is saying that many employers are, and continue to be, dissatisfied
with the quality of new recruits into the market and they are
looking for the educational system to fix what is wrong because
they feel slightly disappointed that they have to do that when
young people come into the marketplace. Certainly in the sector
that I represent the vast majority of employers are very reliant
upon professional qualifications and they have been for well over
100 years. I think they feel that through that mechanism they
have a greater opportunity to shape the content and the quality
of that.
Q176 Chairman: We have a huge amount
of national, sectoral, regional, subregional, occupational-led
targets and initiatives. This smacks of a control system rather
than a demand-led system. How can you have a purely demand-led
system when you have so many organisations with a finger in the
pie organising it for everybody?
Frank Lord: It is extremely confusing
for the business community. We could learn lessons from large
organisations like Toyota who have a global strategic plan that
will go on for decades. That is probably why they are so successful
as an organisation worldwide. With employment and skills within
the business sector there have been so many changes that have
happened, from TECs to LSCs, to the Skills Funding Agency and
the changes with the National Apprenticeship Service, that it
is very, very difficult for the employer to understand, particularly
the small employer.
Q177 Chairman: But they are in charge
of all this.
Frank Lord: Most small employers
still go to their accountants as the first port of call for assistance.
The latest survey of the Small Business Federation showed that
over 50% still go to their accountants. Most employers are micro
or small businesses and providers normally chase the targets of
the larger organisations. If we are going to get to the Leitch
targets, which are very, very stretching, we will really have
to make sure at a subregional level the business voice is heard.
That is my main concern with employment and skills boards and
education business link organisations, that with the new changes
in the framework to local authority and unitary services the business
voice is being diluted and not heard.
Q178 Chairman: We will come back
to some of those issues in a second. Tom, at what point do you
think the state should plan the skills agenda? Should it be at
Level 1 or 2 or should it be at Level 3 or 4? Where is the point
at which the state should plan that because it is a common good
and where should employers take over?
Tom Bewick: Perhaps I could answer
that by referring back to the question about demand-led because
I think therein lies the answer. In answering that question I
think we need to ask the question "Whose demand are we talking
about?". I would argue that we have a demand-led system.
It is a system that is led in part by Government, but the vast
majority is led by parents and by students. For example, in the
creative and cultural industries we have as many people right
now on 180,000 courses as we do in the workforce, that is approximately
half a million in the further and higher education system. You
could argue that is a demand-led system. Students are very attracted
to the creative industries and that is probably driven by Saturday
night shows like The X Factor, but nevertheless they demand
a place.
Ian Stewart: What is that?
Q179 Chairman: They do not have it
in Scotland!
Tom Bewick: In terms of this issue
about state planning, the state has a role in setting the strategic
framework for skills, for economic performance and in particular
for productivity. In a sense why the sector skills councils are
such an important innovation since 2001 is that what they provide
is that reality check on whether or not the state's strategic
aims and objectives are really in tune with both the short- and
long-term economic needs of the country. That is why all sector
skills councils have at their heart, as industry-led and industry
owned organisations, credible and senior employers who can provide
that reality check on government policy.
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