Examinatino of Witnesses (Questions 1-37)
MR SIMON
RETALLACK, MS
JENNIFER BIRD
AND MS
KAYTE LAWTON
16 JUNE 2009
Q1 Chairman: Good morning. I am sorry
you had to wait a bit but we had rather more private business
than usual to deal with this morning. Welcome to the Committee.
We are very glad that you have come in. This is the first of our
evidence sessions on this inquiry on green jobs. We have read
with interest the memorandum that you sent in. You set out requirements
for offshore wind as to how that might be developed and promoted.
Do you think that approach that you identify goes wider? Is that
general approach also applicable to the whole broader issue of
where green jobs can be created?
Mr Retallack: It is a good question
to start with because I wanted to establish the limits and scope
of our ability to contribute to your hearing today. Both my colleagues
to the left and right of me have contributed to the wider project
that we are halfway through which is looking at green jobs potential
in the UK as a whole across different sectors, especially energy
efficiency and renewable heat, with my colleague, Kayte Lawton,
specialising particularly in issues around the welfare system
skills and the employment, specific nature of jobs issues, and
my colleague, Jennifer Bird on my right, specialising particularly
in the offshore wind sector. If you have got specific questions
it is probably best that they answer those, but on the whole our
view is that each sector has to be taken on its own merits.
When it comes to offshore wind we identified,
as you will know from our brief, specific barriers that need to
be overcome. It is likely, we think from our research so far,
that we will encounter similar barriers that need to be addressed
but not necessarily in every case. We identified three major areas
of concern with offshore wind-firstly, the need to establish sufficient
domestic demand in the first place with adequate targets and frameworks;
secondly, the need to establish incentives for companies to invest
and set up in the UK so that UK jobs can be created as opposed
to simply importing the technology from overseas; and, thirdly,
the need to establish a sufficient skills base in this country
for particular aspects of the offshore wind business. Skills are
not an issue for every aspect, that is important to underline,
and it is also important to underline, with regard to other potential
job growth areas when it comes to green jobs, that skills may
not be a problem, for example, with energy efficiency.
Q2 Chairman: We will certainly want
to pursue both wind and skills in more detail presently, but just
on this question, as you have mentioned offshore wind, the Budget
obviously improved the incentives for a limited period to encourage
some investment in offshore wind farms, but that does not in any
way guarantee any jobs, or very few jobs, within Britain, so it
is that sort of gap we are concerned about. Specifically, there
has been already renewed investment interest in offshore wind
as a result of the budget change, as I understand it, so the measures
you are calling for are in addition to the incentive. Could you
enlarge on that, what you think we should be doing, perhaps coupled
with the extra incentive to invest in a wind farm?
Ms Bird: We published our report[17]
before the Budget so the recommendations were made before those
announcements came out. In terms of the investment side, one of
the things that we were keen to recommend in our report was that
there is already a large number of programmes that provide support
to the offshore wind and other renewable energy industries, and
one of the things that people were telling us who work in the
industry was that it is spread too thinly at the moment across
too wide a number of programmes and so the recommendation was
that they should be consolidated into a fund that is more clearly
directed at areas like offshore wind and that would help to attract
investment.
Q3 Chairman: Has the Government reacted
to your report? Have they responded to you at all?
Mr Retallack: Not officially.
Q4 Chairman: Is there a difficulty
about the responsibility between central and regional government
or is that not a problem?
Mr Retallack: There is an aspect
here that is absolutely relevant, you are right. We identify clearly
a big role for national government to set the right frameworks
and put the right incentives in place, but we need to be careful
to engage beyond the regional level to the local level to ensure
that the relevant players are involved, and also to identify where
the specific local needs and barriers are that need to be overcome.
Clearly, and Kayte can talk more to this, unemployment is a greater
problem in certain parts of the country than in others and it
would be sensible to develop a strategy around green jobs that
recognises that and tries to ensure that employment opportunities
can be created in these sectors in areas which need it, and that
does require co-operation and engagement at the local level but
at regional level too.
Q5 Mark Lazarowicz: The term "green
jobs" is one that is used pretty widely at the moment. How
useful is it to have such a term or should we be more precise
in what we mean by a "green job" and draw from that
the appropriate conclusions for policy and initiatives?
Mr Retallack: The term "green
jobs" used to be used to define environmental industries
such as pollution control, water management, waste management,
et cetera, and clearly in recent times it has been expanded to
include activities associated with the low carbon economy but
it is very difficult to define exactly where the definition should
start and end. Should it, for example, be extended to people that
make and run buses or tube trains? Our approach has been one that
says that it is impossible to define this term precisely and adequately.
What we should be doing and what the Government should be doing
with its Low Carbon Industrial Strategy is coming up with a strategy
that ensures that every job is green. Ultimately, any job that
is not green in the future should not be and probably will not
be sustainable, and that means looking beyond the need to create
new jobs in the low carbon sector to greening existing jobs in
areas like the car sector where there is certainly the skills
base and the knowledge to produce low carbon vehicles, and assisting
existing sectors and industries that are likely to decline as
a result of low carbon policies to make that transition in a fair
way.
Q6 Mark Lazarowicz: How well do you
think it is recognised that many old jobs will have to go if we
are going to move to a low carbon economy? My suspicion is that
it is not recognised at all widely. How widely is it recognised
within industry, for example, or even in government?
Mr Retallack: That is a good question.
I suspect that it is understood but whether it is readily publicly
acknowledged is another question. There are obvious sectors that
are probably more vulnerable than others, offshore oil and gas
being a notable example, which is obviously going to decline for
other reasons as well to do with supply in the North Sea. I think
there is a valid point here, which is that there should be a greater
focus on the need to help vulnerable sectors to make a just transition,
I suppose, to a low carbon economy.
Q7 Mark Lazarowicz: I realise it
is very difficult to put any figures on this but what kind of
balance are we talking about? If the right decisions are taken
how many of the greener new jobs can be expected to be created
and how many of the older, less green ones are we likely to see
going? I know this is all very general, but at the end of the
day if we are to hold a public debate these are the kinds of things
we have to decide what to do about.
Ms Bird: We have not done any
kind of analysis that would put numbers like that on it.
Q8 Mark Lazarowicz: Has anybody,
that you are aware of?
Ms Bird: The report that the Committee
on Climate Change published in late 2008 does contain a section
at the end which identifies industries which may be at risk due
to carbon pricing and sets out that a policy will need to be developed
to ensure that those industries are able to continue to operate.
That is one example that I am aware of, but in terms of actual
numbers I have not seen anything.
Q9 Mark Lazarowicz: What kinds of
industries, can you remind us, did the Committee on Climate Change
identify as being particularly at risk?
Ms Bird: The ones that were at
risk due to carbon pricing in particular were iron and steel,
aluminium, cement and lime at the top end because they are energy-intensive
industries.
Mr Retallack: Can I just add to
that answer? Our general sense, if you are interested in weighing
up the likely job creation versus job loss scale, is that whilst
there are those sectors that are vulnerable, as Jenny mentioned,
and they will affect individuals, the jobs in those sectors are
relatively small. It does not mean we should not worry about them
and identify strategies to help in those circumstances because
they will affect very specific geographical communities, steel
in South Wales, for example, but on the whole our sense is that
there will be far greater numbers of jobs created by making this
transition than jobs lost.
Q10 Dr Turner: The Government has
set out a vision for a Low Carbon Industrial Strategy but it has
not spelt out any nuts and bolts as to how we get from a vision
to an actuality, so what do you think the Government needs to
do to turn this vision into a real Low Carbon Industrial Strategy
on the ground?
Ms Bird: To pick up on what Simon
was saying earlier, we think that the Low Carbon Industrial Strategy
needs to take a broader look, so not just focusing on where new
jobs might be created but also thinking about existing jobs to
ensure that they are protected and that we do not lose jobs in
sectors that might be at risk. The strategy will need to contain
elements setting out how the Government will support those industries
in making the transition to become low carbon industries themselves,
so we think that is an important element of the strategy.
Mr Retallack: When it comes to
creating new jobs, I suppose, in particular, we will be looking
for more detail, hopefully, in the summer from the Government's
Low Carbon Industrial Strategy on instilling greater confidence
amongst the companies, which we would like to establish themselves
here in the UK, that there will be sufficient demand, and part
of that will mean, for example, ensuring that the Renewables Obligation
and the changes with the banding which the Government have committed
themselves to actually work, so monitoring that closely and, if
they do not, as you will know, that further credits are being
given to offshore wind than previously.
Q11 Dr Turner: Are you suggesting
that the Government should be looking to more, shall we say, investment
incentives to help the generation of new jobs and, if so, what?
Mr Retallack: Yes, we are saying
that there should be greater incentives. There are different levels
of this and some may be tax incentives. It is interesting to learn
from the example of other countries when it comes to the use of
incentives. Spain has managed to create a very successful wind
industry, amongst other things, by putting in place local content
requirements, in other words, requiring companies that want to
sell into the Spanish market to actually employ local people.
There are question marks over the consistency of that sort of
approach with European Union legislation and indeed potentially
with World Trade Organisation rules and requirements, but it is
an area which we would certainly urge you to consider. There are
other incentives beyond the fiscal and the regulatory, such as
the need for adequate infrastructure. There has been a problem
in this country with the port infrastructure that will be necessary,
the grid infrastructure and connections, and all of those will
need attention.
Q12 Dr Turner: What do you think
of the performance of organisations, both private and public,
in improving their environmental performance? Are they doing it
and, if not, why not?
Mr Retallack: That is a question
that goes beyond our ability, I suspect, to comment. We have not
looked at that in the context of the research we have been undertaking
on green jobs.
Q13 Mark Lazarowicz: There is obviously
a potential tension between providing green jobs for environmental
reasons ultimately, which is a process which may take some time,
and meeting the immediate needs in a recession. Having accepted
all the qualifications about what is a `green job', how can we
try to make sure that a green jobs programme actually brings benefits
to those particularly vulnerable in a recession to unemployment,
as is obviously the case at the moment?
Ms Lawton: One of the things that
we are particularly keen to look at is making sure that these
jobs are created at different levels so that there are opportunities
for people perhaps who have lower skills or poorer work records,
people who have been out of work even in the kind of economic
boom that we have had, so we are very keen on looking at sectors
like energy efficiency because we think that there are a lot of
opportunities there for people perhaps who lack these very high
skills which are sometimes associated with green sectors, so that
is certainly one thing we are keen on, I think, and we have got
some examples from America where that has worked quite well in
deprived communities. I think there is also a role for the kind
of employment and skills system which is working towards greater
integration in trying to identify those people who perhaps have
lost work during the recession and who may have the kind of skills
that could be picked up and transferred into new green jobs, so
I think there is quite a role there for making sure that the welfare
and skills systems are working quite closely together to identify
those people, so those are two things that could start to make
an impact now, we think.
Q14 Mark Lazarowicz: And are there
signs that this is happening?
Ms Lawton: Yes, I think that in
terms of bringing together the welfare and skills systems, that
is something that the Government has been very much behind and
there are various pilots to bring budgets together and to get
people working together, so I think that needs to go forward.
I think there is a role for people working in those systems to
have more information about local vacancies and about local employer
demands so that they can pick out the people who may have relevant
skills and direct them towards where there is local demand; there
is probably more work that could be done there, and certainly
it is why we are very keen to try and find ways of developing
the energy efficiency sector, in particular, so that we can provide
jobs, for example, for people who have lost their jobs in the
construction industry, trying to pick those people and move them
back into work as quickly as possible.
Q15 Mark Lazarowicz: Aside from the
energy efficiency sector, are there any other sectors you would
identify as being particularly relevant in terms of bringing jobs
to people who have become unemployed and/or people with low skills
quickly? Are there any other sectors you would identify, besides
energy efficiency because everyone comes out with energy efficiency,
but everyone cannot be doing that surely, so what else is there?
Ms Lawton: I think there may be
some scope in manufacturing because the analysis that we have
done shows that in the kinds of manufacturing jobs that might
be created there will be some opportunities at lower and intermediate
levels, so there may be opportunities there. There are things
like the wholesale and retail sector as well which is not really
associated with green jobs, but some of the analysis that we have
seen shows that there will be some job growth there which may
provide some opportunities, although in terms of numbers it will
not be as significant.
Q16 Mark Lazarowicz: Let me take
the example where I represent a constituency where a lot of people
work in the financial services sector, which does not actually
appear to have been as badly affected as was suggested it might
be as yet by changes in that sector, but how are people who are
unemployed in that sector, but at the lower end of the scale,
not at the top end, how are they going to be able to find green
jobs in the changing financial world? Is there a role there and
what can they do?
Ms Lawton: I think that possibly
one sector that does get overlooked, but which, from the analysis
we have seen though, has quite a potential for growth is in what
we call `business services' and which those kinds of people may
find a home in, so things like legal services. There is obviously
low carbon finance and management consultancy work, accountancy,
all those kinds of services that green sectors will rely on, so
I think there is a role there. Again, those jobs do tend to be
at the higher end, so we may need to put in place some training
programmes and some kinds of transition programmes to help people
move across, but that might be one kind of angle.
Q17 Joan Walley: You have referred
to the Low Carbon Industrial Strategy which was published earlier
this year, and presumably there will be indicators as to how that
is going to be implemented later on in the summer, but how do
you see that vision linked to the current economic recession and
the imperative that there is for the Government to look at finding
jobs or helping those who are long-term unemployed or those with
the fewest skills? How do you see the need for the Government
to intervene where help is most needed set alongside this agenda
of creating more green jobs?
Ms Lawton: I think one thing we
would be looking for is perhaps the Department for Work and Pensions
(DWP) to become one of the departments that is leading on the
Low Carbon Industrial Strategy because they are the Department
which knows where the gaps are, where the disadvantaged people
are, where their clients are. I know that all the departments
are working on this together, but, if they were perhaps one of
the lead departments in that, that could strengthen that process.
Q18 Joan Walley: But is not one of
the issues that perhaps the areas, which have the greatest numbers
of unemployed or the greatest numbers of people with fewer skills,
have the least capacity to be able to put together the bids that
could go forward to the DWP programmes which could tick both the
DWP box and tick the green jobs box as well?
Ms Lawton: I think in those areas
there is no reason why the local authorities and their partners
could not get together. For example, hopefully in some of those
areas they will be bidding for the money—
Q19 Joan Walley: But I am questioning
whether or not local authorities and their partners either have
the nous to know what is going on or have the skills to do it
or the capacity to do it.
Ms Lawton: I think there are certainly
questions over some local authorities, but I do think that, if
they can work with their partners who are working on the ground,
people in Jobcentre Plus, people in the local Learning and Skills
Council and those sorts of organisations, people working with
businesses, if they can get all of those people together and identify
the particular gaps and the particular needs, and there are some
local authorities who are very strong on this—
Q20 Joan Walley: Do you know of some
good practice of where that is happening?
Ms Lawton: Certainly there are
some pilots in the West Midlands that I have heard of.
Q21 Joan Walley: Could you say whereabouts
in the West Midlands?
Ms Lawton: Sorry, I do not know
the detail, I just know that there have been some pilots of kind
of joint working between Jobcentre Plus and the Learning and Skills
Council. I am not certain of in which parts, but I have been told
that there is some evidence there from the West Midlands that
that is working.
Mr Retallack: Can we find out?
Ms Lawton: Yes, I can certainly
find out.[18]
Q22 Chairman: One report has put the
potential for jobs from the wind sector as high as 87,000 people,
suggesting that this could be worth, or is worth, £11 billion.
Does that accord with your own assessment of the potential?
Ms Bird: Well, in our project
we have not been able to do any of this kind of analysis of our
own, so we are only able to see what other people have done and,
as you can see, there is a range of estimates out there, but unfortunately
we have not been able to do our own analysis of that.
Q23 Chairman: Well, given what you
have done, do you think that is the most promising sector in terms
of low carbon industries? Does it offer the biggest potential
for jobs, do you think?
Ms Bird: I think it is certainly
one of the more promising sectors. Energy efficiency again is
one that comes out as having a high potential for job creation.
Q24 Chairman: Why do you think other
European countries have been so much better at developing their
renewable energy industries than Britain?
Mr Retallack: For a number of
reasons, and different countries have to be looked at separately.
In the case of Germany, it is partly because they have done the
three things which, as I set out earlier, are necessary to create
jobs in this sector. They have provided long-term regulatory frameworks,
which have provided certainty that there would be a domestic market
for the product, they have put in place incentives and the infrastructure
when it comes to ports and clearly, when it comes to Germany,
it has to be said, they have invested in the skills necessary
for manufacturing some of the higher-tech elements, and that goes
back through to their education system and how early they engage
young people in specialising in the necessary skills. There are
downsides to that, and Kayte can certainly talk to it, but in
the case of Germany that is what has happened. In Spain, I mentioned
the highly interventionist nature of some of their incentives
with the local content requirements, for example, that they have
put in place, and there will be other examples that we will be
able to report back on, for example, when we have finished our
work on green jobs which looks at what is happening in the US
in due course.
Q25 Chairman: Are we now in Britain
too late? Given that you have mentioned Germany and you have mentioned
Spain and Denmark is also further ahead on wind, are we trying
to play catch-up after the boat has already left?
Mr Retallack: Not in every sector.
It is a very important question and I think one thing that we
would urge you to consider and the Government indeed to consider
is the need to be strategic when it comes to trying to create
new jobs in low carbon sectors because we cannot be leaders in
everything. Our sense is, however, certainly when it comes to
energy efficiency, that there is huge potential in the UK. When
it comes to wind, even though we are behind certainly the sort
of world leaders when it comes to the companies manufacturing
turbines, there is still huge potential here because of the fact
that the UK has the best offshore wind resource in the world,
the fact that we do have some skills that are highly relevant,
particularly from the oil and gas experience in the North Sea,
and we have the financial sector and consultancy sector skills
which are necessary too to make this work. There are all sorts
of jobs which will be created too for the maintenance of these
offshore wind installations which make it important that the UK
does try to catch up, if you like, because it would be a great
mistake, a great lost opportunity, were we not to capitalise on
those benefits.
Q26 Dr Turner: But of course in this
country, when people talk about renewable energy, they only think
of wind and sometimes solar, where, as the Chair has suggested,
we may well have missed the boat because we were so far behind
the curve, but that is not the only promising renewable sector.
We have the best tidal stream resources, we have the best wave
resources in the world around the shores of the UK and, for the
moment at least, we have a lead in the technology, fragile though
it may be. How do you think we can develop that industry, which
has many gigawatts of electrical potential and, therefore, many
thousands of jobs? How can we avoid making the same mistakes with
the opportunity to develop that industry which we made with wind?
Ms Bird: As you say, it is an
area where we are currently one of the world leaders and there
is great potential to develop that, although it would be on a
longer timescale perhaps than some of the other sectors that we
have been talking about. I think one of the key things for the
marine wave and tidal sector is to make sure that the research
that is going on now is translated into viable industries, and
I think potentially that is what has happened in the past with
the wind sector, for example, that we lost that opportunity to
capitalise on the research that we had done, so it is about developing
the right policies to ensure that the innovation can continue
from the research and development all the way through to the commercialisation
phase.
Q27 Dr Turner: Well, deployment,
as has been very well illustrated by Denmark, Germany and Spain
in the wind industry, is determined by the investment framework
and the market frameworks that are in place. Do we have anything
remotely approaching the right market circumstances and the right
investment incentives in the UK to develop marine power? It is
fine in the laboratory, it is fine in the demonstrator stage,
but that is a long way and a very long way financially in terms
of skill to getting a real industry.
Ms Bird: I think one of the most
important instruments will be the Renewables Obligation, so obviously
that has been banded now to give additional support to developing
industries and technologies, like wave and tidal; that is a step
in the right direction.
Q28 Dr Turner: Do you think that
the Renewables Obligation in its present structure, even with
the banding for two ROCs, is remotely adequate? It is just about,
I am told, enough to incentivise an offshore wind project.
Ms Bird: I am afraid I have not
done any detailed analysis into the numbers on that side, so I
cannot really comment.
Mr Retallack: I would just add
that I think the facts speak for themselves in the end when it
comes to marine renewables, and that is, in answer to your question,
that the incentives are not yet there in this country to see the
full potential developed yet when it comes to marine renewables.
Q29 Dr Turner: Well, we have already
seen in wave power that companies have had to look to Portugal
to start deployment. Are we going to see that as an emerging pattern
in other aspects because of the lack of proper investment frameworks?
Mr Retallack: I do not think we
can comment on that.
Q30 Chairman: We have got a company
down in the Isle of Wight manufacturing blades which has supposedly
closed. Now, why has that happened? Why could the Government not
do something to stop that?
Mr Retallack: Well, I think the
official reason given by Vestas, the Danish wind company, for
shutting down its manufacturing plant on the Isle of Wight was
that the planning restrictions and laws in this country frustrated
them, with local opposition having proven a barrier time and time
again. We are slightly sceptical of that argument, not least because
a lot of the turbines that they have been manufacturing there
are not for the UK market, so we suspect that what is probably
primarily responsible is the effect of the global recession and
its impact on demand.
Q31 Chairman: There is an extraordinary
contrast. For those of us who remember what it was like when the
North Sea oil industry was taking off in the early 1970s, it seems
an extraordinary contrast between the enormous effort that was
made by business leaders and Government to make sure that the
most rapid possible development of that resource occurred, and
lots of new technology was required because they were both installing
and producing in more hostile waters than previously most of the
oil industry had been involved with. Given what you say about
the potential wind resource we have in this country, it does seem
extraordinary and very frustrating that we are not seeing a similar
united effort. Now, is this a lack of interest by business leaders
as well as by Government? The big oil companies are actually reducing
their interest in this area rather than increasing it, which makes
some of us hope that the oil price goes back to $200 very quickly.
I just think that there seems to be a great opportunity and no
one is pressing the Government hard enough, apart from people
like you and us perhaps, to change the policy framework and business
itself is not really driving it forward.
Mr Retallack: Well, I think there
are two aspects to this and one is the role of Government and
one is the role of business. On the Government front, it is fair
to say, I think, that governments have been too slow when it comes
to putting in place the right frameworks, incentives and skills
necessary, and that has been a real shame. However, we should
give credit where it is due and I think it is fair to say that
the Government has now woken up to the potential for job creation
here, and we welcome the fact that certainly under Peter Mandelson,
DBERR, or whatever it is called these days, DBIS, I think, has
decided to reverse a decade-long attitude to industrial policy.
They have said that we actually do need an industrial strategy
if we are going to maximise the potential job creation in the
low carbon economy, which is a very welcome change and we hope
that the detail matches the rhetoric, if you like, in the summer
with the detailed announcements, we hope to see, on what that
Low Carbon Industrial Strategy will look like. On the company
front, I think it is again a real shame that companies like Shell
and BP have decided that they do not want to invest in renewable
energy projects in the UK any more, including offshore wind, and
unfortunately actually I suspect that the higher the oil price
goes, the more likely they are to continue to think, "We
don't need to invest in renewables and we'll continue to put our
money, for example, in the tar sands in Alberta in Canada because
that's where we'll make more money".
Q32 Joan Walley: In the evidence
which you submitted,[19]
you suggested that, because you have got green jobs in so many
different sectors, there is not really any need to have a generic
green skill set, and I am just wondering whether or not you feel
that that is the right approach to take and whether or not, if
we are going to get some new skills right the way across the board,
that is going to mean people at all different levels understanding
the need perhaps to change what they are doing, and would there
not be some point in having that kind of green skill set that
could inform the development of innovation and policy and bring
new technology into manufacturing?
Ms Lawton: In our evidence, we
were really saying that from the evidence that we have seen jobs
will be created in lots of different sectors, so there will be
jobs in high-tech manufacturing, there may be jobs in loft insulation
and there may be jobs in finance or management consultancy and
they all require a very different set of skills, so we felt that
there is not necessarily a kind of single green skill set that
would be useful for the person in high-tech manufacturing and
the person in architectural services. That is not to say that
there is not a role for some of the work perhaps that the trade
unions and some employers are doing around `greening' work places,
which is relevant to all organisations, and that is perhaps something
slightly different from what we were talking about here, so we
felt that generally with skills policy it helped if you could
be as specific as possible about where you think skills issues
are and what the remedy for those is rather than having a very
broad approach and saying, "Everyone needs this kind of skill
or this qualification". We think that in the past that possibly
has not been the best approach, but there is certainly a need
for a kind of greening of workplaces, greening how businesses
operate, and perhaps that is a slightly different thing, but it
is definitely needed.
Q33 Joan Walley: Given that there
does not seem to be any targeting by Government or industry of
where the specific skill gaps are, why do you think that is?
Ms Lawton: At the moment, the
Government's approach to skills is quite broad in that it has
these quite broad targets for having people at different levels
of qualification and its targets are very kind of generic in that
sense, but within their strategy though there does not seem to
be a particular focus on what kind of qualifications or where
these skills are needed, so they have targets that X per cent
of people should have a Level 3 qualification by a certain date,
but there is not very much said about what kinds of qualifications
those should be and what sectors they should be in, so I think
possibly it is those targets which are driving some of the action.
They have certainly said that they want a kind of demand-led system,
which could be a very strong approach, but, where it is governed
by those very broad targets, it is not clear that those two sit
together very well.
Q34 Joan Walley: But if it is the
case that we have different government initiatives coming forward,
and you referred to the strategy, and there are changes in the
Learning and Skills Council and how that is going to be positioned
away from the stand-alone councils within the local authorities
and then you have got further and higher education, do you not
think that there should be some way of looking at the skills and
the qualifications and changing the existing pattern so that it
does reflect the priority of creating new jobs?
Ms Lawton: Certainly, and in our
evidence we were talking about an organisation, whether it be
a department, an agency or whatever, which has oversight of those
current gaps and has some kind of sense of where the future demand
is.
Q35 Joan Walley: So who do you think
it is who has that knowledge?
Ms Lawton: At the moment, I would
imagine DIUS, for example, the former department people there
would have had that knowledge, the Department for Innovation,
Universities and Skills, and presumably those people have moved
over to the new Department. It would also potentially have been
something that the Learning and Skills Council were looking at.
Q36 Joan Walley: So you are saying
that the people who have the skills, by and large, are now the
ones who have moved to the new DBERR and the other ones have moved
to the local authorities, so there is not even a focal point as
to where that understanding of where the gaps are is?
Ms Lawton: I am not fully aware
of exactly who is responsible for what within the departments,
but I would imagine that the people who were doing that at the
old DIUS have gone over to the new Business Department and, if
that is going to continue to be a priority in that Department,
then they will have the expertise.
Q37 Joan Walley: Just looking at
the new developing skills which we will need if we are to move
to green technology, do you think that there are sectors or particular
areas where those skills are already well advanced and could be
used to help adapt more widely across the wider economy?
Ms Lawton: We are actually right
in the middle of some of our research around this in terms of
talking to employers where we are doing some interviews and a
survey as well and we do not yet have the results from that, so
it is probably a bit early for us to comment on that, but we can
certainly send you the results when we have them.[20]
Chairman: Thank you very much. I think
we are out of time now. As you will continue to do some work in
the area which we are looking at and we certainly will not be
publishing our Report until the autumn, perhaps we could keep
in touch because there may be more stuff you could let us have
either in writing or in conversation with the staff because this
is a very important bit of work from our point of view and we
would appreciate having a further input from you. Thanks for coming
in.
17 EAC 3rd Report, Session 2008-09: Pre-Budget Report
2008: Green fiscal policy in a recession, HC 102. Back
18
Note by Witness: The West Midlands examples Ms Lawson
referred to are ongoing pilots looking at joint commissioning
between Jobcentre Plus and the Learning and Skills Council so
that funding for skills and welfare to work support is aligned,
to support job entry and career progression. However, to our knowledge,
there has not yet been any published evaluation of the programmes,
so unfortunately we are not able to provide any further evidence
on the outcomes of the pilots at this point. Back
19
See Ev 1 Back
20
Note by Witness: Work is currently being undertaken by
Ippr and their findings will published in due course. Back
| 
