Memorandum 65
Submission from the UK Commission for
Employment and Skills
1. How do you see
the role of UKCES developing? What can the UK Commission do that
its predecessors could not?
The global economy is continually changing and
facing ever increasing challenges and intensifying competition.
In such a context, skills are becoming a growing source of competitive
advantage and of increasing importance to government, business
and trade unions. Governments across the UK have challenging ambitions
to make the UK a world-class leader in employment and skills.[143]
The ultimate goal they seek to achieve is to raise UK productivity,
economic competitiveness and prosperity, and to improve social
cohesion.
Launched on 1 April 2008, the UK Commission
for Employment and Skills is a key recommendation in Lord Leitch's
2006 review Prosperity for All in the Global Economy: World
Class Skills. The UK Commission for Employment and Skills
is a genuinely employer-led organisation, with Commissioners drawn
from the highest levels of the private, public and voluntary sectors,
supported by trade union leadership.
The UK Commission aims to raise UK prosperity
and opportunity by improving employment and skills. Its ambition
is to benefit individuals, employers, government and society by
providing independent advice to the highest levels of the UK Government
and Devolved Administrations on how improved employment and skills
systems can help the UK become a world-class leader in productivity,
in employment and in having a fair and inclusive society: all
this in the context of a fast-changing global economy. Ultimately,
the benefits of the UK Commission's work will be:
For individuals:
increased employability and good
careers advice;
the transferable and specialist skills
to remain employed;
enabled by employers to utilise and
develop the skills they have, bringing greater job satisfaction;
and
the opportunity to develop further
skills to enter higher paid employment or to retrain for another
career (career progression).
For employers:
an employment and skills system and
qualifications that provide employees with good basic skills plus
entry level expertise appropriate to the company and a willingness
to learn more;
the ability to influence the system
so that it continues to meet their needs;
increased ability to access appropriate
training to upskill their workforce bringing a return on their
investment; and
an evidenced business case for investment
in and utilisation of the skills of their workforce.
For the UK Government and Devolved Administrations:
robust, evidence-based advice on
what works to inform decision-making regarding the skills and
employment system, resulting in more co-ordinated, targeted, efficient
public provision of services;
qualifications and workforce development
led by employer needs; and
the workforce and economy moving
towards government targets for increased employment and upskilling
of the workforce through a better employment and skills system
and increased employer investment.
For society:
Increased prosperity, with employment
opportunity and sustainable careers for all.
Because employers, whether in private business
or the public sector, have prime responsibility for the achievement
of greater productivity, the UK Commission will strengthen the
employer voice, provide greater employer influence over the employment
and skills systems and promote employer investment in people.
As part of this, the UK Commission has been
asked to take direct responsibility for funding and performance-managing;
and advising Ministers on the relicensing of Sector Skills Councils.
It will also have a lead role on the work SSCs and others are
doing to improve our education and training system so that the
available qualifications better reflect the skills employers need.
The UK Commission will assess annually our progress
towards making the UK a world-class leader in employment and skills
by 2020. Recognising differing aims and priorities in the four
UK nations, it will work across all four to support this world-class
ambition, advising the relevant ministers on the strategies and
policies needed to increase employment, skills and productivity.
To meet the challenge, the UK Commission will
be dependent on its reputation and influence, built on its specialist
knowledge and rigorous research and analysis, if it is to effect
the practical change necessary to meet the UK's ambitions. As
an employer-led organisation responsible for championing the development
of a demand-led skills and employment system and encouraging greater
employer investment in people, the UK Commission will:
draw on the expertise and understanding
of employers who are already heavily engaged in building effective
skills arrangements across the UK for each sector of the economy;
develop its reputation as a credible
and relevant voice and influential expert by fostering effective
relationships with employers, the UK Government and Devolved Administrations
and other partners; and
undertake a comprehensive stakeholder
mapping exercise to ensure that UK Commission staff engage effectively
and appropriately with relevant interests to inform work in pursuit
of UK Commission objectives.
In forming its advice to the UK Government and
Devolved Administrations, the UK Commission will:
monitor and challenge the performance
of parts of the national employment and skills systems in creating
sustained employment and career progression;
recommend systematic improvements
in policy and deliveryincluding the better use of skills
at all levelsthrough strategic policy development, evidence-based
analysis and the exchange of good practice; and
suggest further innovations and advise
how employment and skills related services, working together,
can deliver a more effective and integrated service for employers
and individuals.
In conducting its work, the UK Commission will
provide vigorous and independent challenge, advising the UK Government
and Devolved Administrations at the highest levels on employment
and skills strategy, targets and policies. It will take account
of the devolved nature of skills policy in Scotland, Wales and
Northern Ireland and employment in Northern Ireland and negotiate
how it operates in the nations with this political context in
mind. All UK Commission work will consider issues of equality
of access and opportunity for all in building a sustainable economy,
and will be underpinned by a strong evidence-base from research
and analysis of policy and practice to ensure that the advice
and recommendations put to Ministers are robust and of the highest
quality.
The far-reaching agenda of UK Commission, covers
both employment and skills, and crosses the four UK nations. This
allows the UK Commission to take a genuinely strategic, overarching
view and to pool knowledge, and draw from best practice, across
the nations for the benefit of the UK as a whole. It also gives
it the legitimacy to explore and tackle issues that cut across
policy boundaries, and, thus, to shift the centre of policy analysis
beyond skills supply alone to include broader issues such as skills
use, retention and demand and the role of skills in employment
and economic development. For instance, it enables the UK Commission
to tackle important questions, namely: why, when there has been
significant progress on the UK skills front since the 1980s, has
this not been matched by a comparable productivity miracle? The
key to answering this lies in examining and understanding the
complex interplay between the supply of and demand for skills
and the interrelationships between economic development, employment
and skills.
2. What are the key questions that UKCES is
trying to resolve?
In its first year, until the UK Commission develops
its Strategic Plan, which will set out its priorities for the
next five years, the immediate priorities for the UK Commission
have been largely driven by its sponsors. These have been articulated
in detail in the UK Commission Business Plan[144]
and include:
publication of "a state of the
nation" report assessing progress towards making the UK a
world leader in employment and skills by 2020, and monitoring
progress against international competitors in the context of the
aims and priorities of the four nations;
preparatory work towards publication
of the 2010 review of the Employment and Skills System, including
establishment of the terms of reference, in negotiation with the
four nations;
advising the UK Government on how
we might make it simpler for employers and individuals to access
the employment and skills system in England; and
substantial progress on reforming,
re-licensing and empowering Sector Skills Councils (SSCs).The
UK Commission needs to fund and manage SSCs to deliver an effective
network focussed on continuous performance improvement against
the revised SSC remit using the standards set down in the re-licensing
Prospectus.
The UK Commission is currently in the process
of developing its Strategic Plan and this will be published by
the end of 2008-9.
Current emerging themes include:
simplification and claritysystems,
customer interactions/"journeys" and funding, sub-UK
(spatial), and integration with business support;
learning from and developing best
practice/what works;
address the employability of the
UK workforce, and new workforce entrants;
focus on vocational qualifications,
apprenticeships and recognition of non-accredited/workplace/informal/training
not leading to qualifications;
need for development of leadership
and (middle/ people) management skills leading to improved skill
utilisation and HPWP;
employer and individual driven/commitment/participation;
diversity of employers and their
needs;
equality and diversity of individuals;
SSCsmeasures of success and
transparency of performance; and
development of appropriate system
measuresbased on outcomes (not input/output).
3. What progress has been made with the relicensing
of the SSCs? How will this process be organised?
The SSC relicensing programme is organised in
the following key phases:
1. Development, consultation and publication
of the SSC relicensing employer document and technical prospectus.
2. Appointment of independent Third Party
Assessors who will assess SSCs against the assessment framework
set out in the technical prospectus.
3. Submission and review of Expressions
of Interest (EOIs).
4. Assessment of individual SSCs proposals
by Third Party Assessors and reports produced for Commissioners
on their findings.
5. Commissioner meetings with SSCs, SSC
Committee panels and recommendations to Government.
The SSC Technical Prospectus [insert ref] is
the key document for SSCs to use in preparing for relicensing.
It describes the role and remit of SSCs in some detail, highlights
a range of key policy issues, works through each stage of the
relicensing assessment process and provides an assessment framework,
setting out the key tests each SSC will need to meet if they are
to maintain their licence.
The Employer Document, [insert ref] provides
a shorter summary of the role of SSCs, outlines the assessment
process and asks employers to both get involved with their SSC
and, where they are involved, to offer their views on SSC effectiveness.
The UK Commission has established a high level
SSC Committee, chaired by Charlie Mayfield, (Chairman of John
Lewis), to oversee the process and advise the full Commission
on the formal recommendations that should go to Government. A
member of the Committee will visit each SSC as part of the process
and the Commmittee will hold panel sessions with each SSC once
it has received the formal report form the third party assessors
to review the evidence and prepare it's recommendations.
The UK Commission has been working very closely
with DIUS and sponsoring Governments across the UK to agree and
publish these documents. We have also been in close contact with
the TUC and employer organisations to gain their endorsement for
the relicensing strategy and to seek their help in achieving widespread
circulation of the Employer Document. The TUC, CBI, CiPD, FSB,
IoD and BCC have all endorsed the approach to Relicensing.
All key activities of the Project are currently
on track and the following milestones have been achieved:
PHASE 1
The Employer document and SSC Technical
Prospectus were launched at the UKCES Summer Reception on 7 July
2008. They have been well received.
Our stakeholder management and communications
strategy has ensured positive support and endorsement from the
leading representative bodies and across UK Governments.
We are beginning to receive feedback
on SSCs from a range of individual employers and representative
organisations.
PHASE 2
The National Audit Office (NAO) has
been appointed as the independent Third Party Assessor to support
the UK Commission in undertaking SSC relicensing. It was felt
that NAO would bring the experience and credibility to ensure
the process is robust, professional, fair and consistent.
Detailed plans are now being agreed
with the NAO, including a three day training programme for assessors
to take place in September 2008.
PHASE 3
All SSCs submitted their four-page
Expression of Interest (EoI) on time by 15 August 2008.
Each of the EOIs has been assessed,
key issues have been identified and a timeline has been drawn
up for the assessment phase, taking full account of when each
SSC would wish to start the process.
PHASE 4
The assessment of SSCs will start
in October 2008 and will run through to summer 2009. The work
will be organised in five tranches of five SSCs, each of which
will conclude with a SSC Committee panel. The panel will meet
each SSC and make recommendations.
4. Should generic issues such as management
skills be addressed by UKCES, rather than each SSC?
The Government is committed to improving how
the skills system supports employers through Sector Skills Councils
and identifying and responding to sectoral skill needs. There
is a concern however that such a focus may inadequately address
important generic skills needs that cross the economy. To avoid
this potential pitfall, the UK Commission recommends a dual approach
to addressing such issues, involving SSCs and the UK Commission
itself.
The UK Commission needs to take a lead strategic,
advisory role on shaping skills policy on key generic skills such
as management and leadership, where recent policy interventions
have had limited sustained impact. In the case of management and
leadership specifically, we would expect this issue to be one
of the top five priorities for the UK Commission given its importance
in driving productivity improvement, public service effectiveness
and modernisation, and the effective deployment of skills across
the economy. Further work will therefore be required to review
interventions to date and to consider what further action is required
moving forward.
The UK Commission is also looking carefully
at the complex set of issues relating to other generic and cross
cutting skills and will come forward with detailed proposals following
consultation with the SSCs and other sector skills bodies that
currently sit outside the SSC network. The UK Commission will
need to take a firm strategic role in helping to shape delivery
and practice to respond to wider generic skills needs. In this
regard, through its executive function it needs to ensure qualifications
reform work meets the same standards in generic skills areas as
it does in the SSC network.
Our initial analysis has shown that a number
of generic skills relate to occupational areas such as Accounting
and Publishingas these align well with some specific sector
interests, these skills needs have been incorporated, or are in
the process of being incorporated, within specific SSCs. Other
generic skills such as administration and marketing and customer
services are genuinely pan sectoral. It will be important that
the UK Commission works with the lead organisations in each area
to formulate the strategic agenda for skills, to contract with
whomever can best offer occupational standards and qualifications
reform work for each of these occupations outside the SSC network
and to encourage the Alliance of SSCs to actively coordinate the
dissemination and use of generic skills across the SSC network.
5. Should there be an SSC for small businesses?
No. The purpose and remit of SSCs is to bring
together employers from strategically significant sectors of the
economy based on coherent patterns of employment and skills. They
are not structured by occupation or by thematic issue. The relicensing
prospectus does however make it very clear that SSCs are charged
with bringing together a coherent voice on skills which represents
all types of employers in their sector and that to achieve relicensed
status they will need to demonstrate the confidence, support and
influence of employers from each part of their sector, including
smaller and larger organisations and from each part of the UK.
This does not mean, as small organisations themselves, they can
be expected to reach out to every small firm in their "footprint".
But it does mean that they should actively consult small and large
businesses in establishing their strategies, they should involve
small and medium sized employers (SMEs) appropriately in their
governance, they should ensure their work on qualifications is
appropriate for SMEs and they should be building partnerships
to ensure the priority skills needs they identify are picked up
by the wider skills system.
6. How important is the relationship between
UKCES and the further and higher education sectors? How are you
working to develop this?
The FE and HE sectors are fundamental to the
UK achieving its world class skills and employment ambitions,
and thus the relationship between the UK Commission and these
sectors is key.
The FE and HE sectors will play a key role in
future delivery. The qualification reform process is rolling out
concurrently with important reforms in FE and HE, following the
afore-mentioned reviews. The experience and expertise within and
across the FE and HE sectors is a critical resource for the UK
Commission to draw upon to understand whether the intended consequences
of education and qualifications reform can be translated into
effective learning and training experiences, which, ultimately,
enhance the UK's work-class standing. In general the approach
taken to the work of reviewing delivery system processes will
be highly collaborative, drawing directly on the experience of
practitioners. We will establish a number of expert panels to
guide system review work, drawing on experienced professionals
from FE and HE and beyond. There are also two prominent Commissioners
from these sectors. The UK Commission needs to establish relations
with a range of strategic and delivery stakeholders in the FE
and HE to take into account the challenges and opportunities the
sectors face. For instance:
It is important to gauge how the
range of products that are being developed within the Qualification
reform programme can be delivered in different contexts and environments
including regions, sub-regions and localities.
Qualification reform in England covers
both compulsory and post-compulsory learning, delivered through
distinct public programmes, ie 14-19 reform (including Diplomas)
and the Vocational Qualification Reform. The FE sector and, perhaps
to a lesser extent, HE are expected to respond (ie to deliver
these high profile programmes whilst also offering new flexible
approaches (eg "bite sized" training and the achievement
of credits). In some instances these may be competing demands
in terms of provider resources and user expectations. It will
be important to understand how well compulsory and post-compulsory
initiatives are coming together as a balanced and rounded offer.
It is also important that in the desire to achieve world class
ambitions, provision, and associated funding streams, do not become
too "target-driven", leading to distorted and unintended
outcomes, and under-supply in critical skills areas.
Recent mergers and the formation
of partnerships and networks are bringing about changes to the
provider infrastructure, especially within the FE sector, following
the recommendations of the Foster Review. How these emergent `supply
chains' can work with the new qualification offer will be important
if aspirations for increased mobility, better progression and
enhanced skills are to be realised.
The products of qualification reform
include not only new qualification types such as Diplomas and
redesigned VQs but also the strategic documents such as Sector
Skills Agreements, Sector Qualification Strategies and Sector
Compacts, all of which are designed to assist the transition to
a more demand led system of provision. The usefulness of these
strategies to decision makers and the readiness and willingness
of the sectors to use them is a key element in bringing about
this change.
The strong policy emphasis on Apprenticeships,
coupled with changes to the compulsory leaving age potentially
represents a significant change to our understanding of the transition
from compulsory education to working life and further learning.
We would hope to learn more about how this transition is working,
from those in the field and the customers they work with, ie employers
and individuals.
We are also mindful of the increasing
range of activity at sub-regional level, for example attempts
to strengthen sub-regional progression from further to higher
education and highly skilled employment through the Lifelong Learning
Networks. Looking at the rate of growth of higher education delivered
in those FE Colleges who have pursued the `mixed economy' approach
to provision may also be important. Collaboration and, in some
cases, competition between the FE and HE sectors in what may come
to be considered as new terrain may be increasingly important
in drivers of growth of intermediate and higher level skills called
for by Lord Leitch.
In addition there may be specific issues that
the UK Commission needs to specifically monitor in the FE and
HE sectors following recent policy reviews and reforms. For instance:
Commitments to progressive self regulation
for the FE sector are an important post-Foster development and
UK Commission will need to be aware of how this process is impacting
on quality, success and responsiveness to employer and learner
needs.
In a broader context, the role of
the FE system in the progressive integration of employment and
skills services may be significant, as the aspiration for a growth
in the percentage of adults of working age who are active in the
labour market will require provision of specific training and
opportunities for recognising new skills for the returners to
the labour market and those leaving the benefit system. Groups
targeted by recent policy interventions, such as lone parents
and Incapacity Benefit claimants may be new customers of the FE
system. These reforms may also bring new providers into the FE
sector. Therefore, the relationship between a broader and increasingly
self regulating FE sector and an aspiration to integrate the FE
service into the wider employment and skills system could be an
important one. How the advice and guidance provided by the Adult
Advancement and Careers Service links with advice provided "in-house"
among learning providers may be an important aspect of these changes.
Advice and guidance on new qualification offers, progression routes
and the use of credit as the new currency of achievement across
all qualification frameworks will also be significant to learners
and to employers.
The strong policy emphasis on promoting
workforce development amongst adults who have left compulsory
education also raises important challenges for the HE sector and
requires HE institutions to move away from their traditional customer
base. There is a role for the UK Commission to monitor the extent
to which the HE sector can meet employers and employees needs
to access high quality, high level learning, optimising the use
of technology and maximising opportunities to fit learning around
the demands of work, family and community. In this context it
will also be useful to assess the effectiveness of new co-funding
arrangements with employers.
In addition, in a knowledge-driven
economy, it will be important to consider what role HE can and
does play in stimulating on-going innovation, and sufficient levels
of research and development. In this regard, it will be useful
to monitor the links between the HE and business sectors, the
degree of partnership working, levels of sustained investment,
and knowledge transfer.
7. What are the chief problems identified
so far in the simplification project?
The simplification project being led by the
UK Commission has identified six concerns from employers:
difficulties of access for employers
to the systemrelating to the extent to which employers
understand the system, feel competent to seek to engage, succeed
in finding the right organisation and/or service to meet their
requirements, and find the initial contact welcoming and responsive;
complexity of programmes and initiativesthe
extent to which the employers understand, or are confused or even
overwhelmed by, the range of programmes and initiatives on offer,
are able to assess the potential for a particular initiative to
meet their requirements, and be sure that their choice is the
most appropriate of those available;
too restrictive constraints on individual
programmes and initiativesthe extent to which the eligibility
rules and limitations on programmes unduly restrict the ability
of individual employers to participate in a programme, or a sufficiently
wide range of employers from engaging with it;
excessive bureaucracy in administrative
arrangements for programmes or initiativesthe extent to
which the administrative rules and reporting requirements of programmes
are unduly demanding, time consuming or burdensome on employers,
disproportionate to the real accountability requirements;
complexity of structures and organisationthe
extent to which the sheer number and range of skills and training
organisations, and/or the extent to which they seek to engage
directly with employers, confuses or overwhelms employer interest;
and
rapidity of changethe rate
of changes in programmes, initiatives, organisations and procedures
adds a further dimension of confusion for employers, who can find
it extremely difficult to keep up with change and even become
aware of new developments, let alone understand them.
8. What would an ideal system of skills planning
and delivery look like?
The simplification project is about simplification
of the English skills system from the perspective of the employer.
The wider question of what the skills planning and delivery system
should look like has to be much wider than that. It has to be
more than England. It has to be more than simplification of accessto
include simplification and/or improvement of processes, objectives,
governance etc. And it has to be about employmentbecause
a fundamental premise is that there is a need for greater integration
between employment and skills.
It would be premature to answer this question
in detail. This is a subject to which the UK Commission will be
devoting considerable thought and energy in the coming years.
It will develop a picture of how the delivery system should ideally
be structured in the course of preparation of its 2010 review.
But in broad outline, the system of skills planning and delivery
should have the following characteristics:
1. Integrated. To include:
Integrated with economic development.
Recognising that skills are a derived demandthat the reason
we need skills is to support economic activity.
Integrated with employment. This
is much more than just creating an efficient interface between
Jobcentre Plus and the SFA. It's about ensuring that all parts
of the skills system have as a major priority (in many cases the
overriding priority) helping people get and progress in work,
through meeting the needs of employers for skilled staff. So it
is as much about integrating the aims of skills and employment
as it is about integrating employment services with skills services.
Integrated, to some extent, with
the wider social support networkrecognising that the barriers
to obtaining skills and putting them to use in the labour market
are not purely skills barriers but often include issues related
to disability, caring responsibilities, discrimination etc.
2. Simple to understand. Fewer brands that
change less often; less cumbersome processes; etcthe points
covered under simplification above. This also needs to be true
for individuals as well as employers.
3. Driven by outcomes not processes.
A strong focus on articulating goals
that promote the achievement of long term valuable goals.
This may mean doing the necessary
work and taking the necessary risks to set targets that are challenging
to measurefor example:
it is far easier to measure whether
one has hit a target of getting someone into full time employment
(of any kind, with a minimum duration of 13 weeks) than it is
to measure whether one has got a client into a long term, sustainable
job with job satisfaction and good prospects for progression and
pay increases. But the latter is actually what we want. So targeting
the former is probably not the best way to get it;
targets for distinct skills outcomes
and employment outcomes, allocated to different bodies with the
system, are easier to establish but will not drive an integrated
employment and skills system.
It should also mean driving performance
more and more by telling people what to do but not specifying
in detail how to do it.
4. Responsive to the varying challenges
and opportunities offered by different:
8. What progress has been made in identifying
how to measure and encourage the development of employability?
The UK Commission is leading on a project examining
employability skills, seeking to identify best practice in this
area. The concept of employability has been debated for many years
amongst policy makers and researchers, and there are dozens of
different definitions.
In 1989 the CBI published Towards a Skills
Revolution, the report of its Vocational Education and Training
Task Force, which put a clear emphasis on these skills. In the
two decades since, numerous reports have articulated the need
for these skills, and have provided definitions under a range
of different headings, including Core Skills; Key Skills; Essential
Skills; Functional Skills; Skills for life; Employability Skills;
Generic Skills; and Enterprise Skillsto name but some.
Research for the UK Commission identified 135
reports that touched on the nature and value of employability
skills, broadly understood. Little in this material contradicts
the proposition that these skills are of wide value and are in
short supply. However, close scrutiny of these shows that whilst
there is no shared agreement on a definition, and/or measurement,
and the concept has been used with a variety of meanings and in
different contexts, the reality is that 80-90% of the definitions
are common.
There are some definitions that command quite
wide acceptance. The CBI definition and the definition developed
by the Canadian Conference Board and subsequently adopted by the
Skills for Business Network are probably among the most authoritative.
But, although at the level of fine detail there is considerable
diversity, all reputable definitions overlap to a great extent.
There is very clear "clumping" around personal communication
skills, using numbers, words and technology, problem solving,
team working and customer care, for example. Nevertheless different
definitions command a loyalty out of proportion to the their distinctiveness.
Our conclusion from this overview is that the
challenge with employability skills is not to define them, or
to prove that employers want them, or to show how they fit in
with the aspirations of individuals. The challenge is to help
people acquire them. So the question the Commission is focusing
on is not "what are employability skills?", or "why
do we need employability skills?", but "how do people
learn employability skills?"
The UK Commission will produce a detailed document
before the end of 2008 setting out the results of a review of
practice in teaching employability skills in over a hundred FE
colleges, universities, employment providers, non-profit organisations
and businesses. This document also draws on a survey of the existing
academic literature on the subject. The purpose of the document
is to draw together such a consensus as there is on what is good
practice in inculcating employability skills, and to form the
basis for further work necessary:
(a) to develop teaching/training and assessment
approaches where necessary; and
(b) to establish ways of motivating and equipping
the employment and skills system to adopt these approaches.
October 2008
http://www.ukces.org.uk/pdf/080814%20D%200809%20Business%20Plan%20final.pdf
143 As set out in World Class Skills: Implementing
the Leitch Review of Skills in England; Skills for Scotland,
a Lifelong Skills Strategy, Success through Skills
(Northern Ireland) and Skills that Work for Wales. Back
144
As set out in World Class Skills: Implementing the Leitch Review
of Skills in England; Skills for Scotland, a Lifelong Skills
Strategy, Success through Skills (Northern Ireland)
and Skills that Work for Wales. Back
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