Examination of Witnesses (Questions 279-315)
MR TIM
BALCON
20 OCTOBER 2009
Q279 Chairman: Good morning and welcome
to the Committee. Thank you very much for coming. I am sorry you
have had to wait a little while but some of us had trouble getting
here this morning so we started few minutes late. Can I begin
by asking about the National Skills Strategy which was announced
when the Government published its Low Carbon Industrial Strategy.
Have you been involved in preparing this?
Mr Balcon: No.
Q280 Chairman: Do you think it is
going to work? Will it be effective?
Mr Balcon: No.
Q281 Chairman: Why not?
Mr Balcon: I have grave concerns
over its ability to respond to a part of the economy that is very
fast moving and requires a flexible here and now response. It
appears from reading the document that it engages with the current
skills system which is a very cumbersome, slow, prescribed, policy
and funding driven process and I think it needs to change. It
needs to better reflect what employers actually value rather than
what the policies would want them to. For me, the skills infrastructure
is not aligned to respond to the flexible and changing needs of
an energy-related sector.
Q282 Chairman: You say that it does
not reflect what employers would actually value, what do you mean
by that?
Mr Balcon: Employers are finding
it very difficult to engage with, if you like, Train to Gain,
for example, which is a very clear offer to them. They have found
it almost impenetrable to get any kind of meaningful response
from that. The RDAs clearly are regional organisations but many
employers do not see regional boundaries and, therefore, are confused
about who to speak to, where to go for advice and guidance and
where to get the most meaningful help from. I think it requires
an employer who has, if you like, sophisticated systems in place
to be able to understand how this works to get a response from
it, and even then it is not always clear and not always easy.
The employers that we speak to that are very considerable in terms
of the energy sector would say that it is quite hard at this moment
in time.
Q283 Chairman: The employers you
speak to come from which industries, broadly speaking?
Mr Balcon: We represent the electricity,
gas, water and waste management companies. If you look at our
board, we have members from National Grid and from EDF Energy,
for example. We have a strategic group which includes most, if
not all of the power generators, a lot of the network operators
and certainly includes National Grid transmission and distribution.
Almost all of the asset owners and very many of the contractors
of the supply chain are associated with that as well. We also
lead on a cross-SSC Forum which includes other SSCs that have
a relationship with the Low Carbon Industrial Strategy. That includes
seven Sector Skills Councils. You are looking at ConstructionSkills
and AssetSkills, et cetera. We have a wide reach across all of
those Sector Skills Councils that can have an impact on this particular
agenda.
Q284 Joan Walley: You are painting
a bit of a bleak picture. In view of what you said about not having
been involved, to what extent do the Low Carbon Transition Plan
and the Low Carbon Industrial Strategy provide the mechanisms
and milestones for delivering on the green skills agenda? I appreciate
you said that you had not been involved but can you see any merit
in what is being proposed by Government in terms of how it relates
to skills and the training agenda?
Mr Balcon: Of course, you can
always extract value from anything if you try hard enough. I think
what I am saying and, in a sense, what you are hearing is my frustration
about trying to engage the skills system with the needs of the
energy sector. We have a number of frustrating examples. If you
take smart metering, for example, it is a classic example and
serves the purpose very well. We are looking at changing 23,000
meters per week for the next eight years. We have tried to engage
with the LSCs and the RDAs to say we need a response which is
different from what they are currently offering and the response
has come back saying, "It does not fit with our agenda because
it does not fit with the targets or the qualifications that we
have a remit to achieve". In order to meet those kinds of
numbers it really needs somebody to change the remit or the approach
to skills that is taken. If you look at Train to Gain there is
value there that you can use and I am sure there will be employers
in the energy sector who will say, "Actually, I have got
good value from this". My point is that it is ad hoc and
not strategically joined up. It needs a national strategy on skills
related to this agenda to be driven down and implemented through
the regions rather than a bottom-up geographical response to talk
to local employers to find out what they need. For that reason,
and I do apologise for the fact that I am painting quite a black
picture here, things needs to be said and need to change in order
to respond to this.
Q285 Joan Walley: Would you not have
expected your organisation to be having that input to make that
point of view known to Government when drawing up these two strategies?
Mr Balcon: Yes.
Q286 Joan Walley: So what is wrong
institutionally that there is not that contact between yourself
and those responsible for the new Skills Strategy?
Mr Balcon: If I can step back
and just explain the origin it might explain where we have got
to here. It is six years now since the Sector Skills Councils
were established. They were established as employer-led bodies
on the basis that employers would determine what remit and footprint
that would serve. Within that time this agenda has emerged. It
has almost come through the middle of this. We have been saying
in Energy & Utility Skills that actually this is a key sector
and it requires some leadership on this. We tried to engage the
SSDA, the predecessor to UKCES, to put some resource in to see
what it would look like if we had a Skills Strategy and we were
not successful in doing that. We have been making representations
to UKCES and also to BIS saying that there needs to be some leadership,
a cross-sector group. Your point is well made that says why is
that dialogue so hard and I can tell you from my perspective that
I do not think it is as effective as it should be. You can sit
back and wait for things to happen or you can just get on with
things. What we have done is we have brought together seven Sector
Skills Councils and said we would all be happy to commit some
resource to make sure this will happen. We have started to engage
that and we have a Renewables Group, which includes seven Sector
Skills Councils and also includes the four nations, which appears
to be working well. We have just received some funding from DECC
which is ostensibly to develop the Skills Strategy. That is happening
but I wish it had happened a little bit sooner. If we can start
to give that group some authority and remit and get behind that
group then I think the potential to do something is really quite
meaningful.
Q287 Joan Walley: In relation to
what you have just said in terms of what is missing from the Transition
Plan and the Industrial Strategy, you mentioned Train to Grain
as though it was not quite hitting the nail on the head with respect
to the green jobs skills agenda, but in terms of the new initiatives
like, for example, Flexible New Deal and the other government
programmes where a large number of employers are coming into the
whole employment arena, have you got linkages there with this
new skills green agenda?
Mr Balcon: Train to Gain needs
to change in order for it to be effective in this agenda. We have
made that point and still hold that point. I am more enthusiastic
or positive about the New Deal. We have what appears to be a good
dialogue with Jobcentre Plus that says where the potential is
there and they seem much more open-minded to looking at the flexibilities
required in order to engage with this agenda properly. We are
still at the early stages yet but the dialogue is positive.
Q288 Joan Walley: Have we left it
too late to develop the skills that we need?
Mr Balcon: No. We have not let
left it too late, there is still an opportunity to do something.
There are two approaches to this, both of which need to be done
together. There needs to be a step back and a proper worked through
strategy that needs to start from the UK and then implemented
down into those geographical areas. It is very helpful for devolved
nations to develop their own strategies because that gives us
some clear guidance in terms of the kinds of policies that they
will do. At the same time, employers are asking for things here
and now. It is okay developing all of this thinking and current
action plan, but the things that need to happen here and now need
to be supported. All that would be required in order to meet that
is just some flexibility with the current skills system and the
funding to pump-prime some of these areas, or just some incentives
to bring employers around the table to do this. The National Skills
Academy for Power, which appears now to be moving forward slowly,
is a really good mechanism by which to develop and implement some
of the strategies necessary to meet these demands.
Q289 Dr Turner: In your written evidence[3]
you say "it is critical that the skills agenda is industry
led" which goes against a lot of other evidence we have had.
Why do you think a demand-led Skills Strategy is most effective?
Perhaps you could base your answer around the smart metering programme
which could be a very good example of the applicability of the
two different approaches.
Mr Balcon: The people who understand
the market best are the people who operate within the market.
If you look at the potential for new jobs, new businesses, for
economic growth, it can only be done by the people who are willing
to commit and ensure some entrepreneurialism around what that
means. They are the people who have the best understanding of
what their skills requirements are. It is incomprehensible to
me to believe that people like myself or people in government
would actually be able to tell them what skills they require.
Q290 Dr Turner: Coming back to smart
meters as an example, perhaps you could tell us in practice how
this example would work. It would seem to the innocent that what
you want if you are going to install smart meters is a lot of
properly skilled electricians with just a particular briefing
on the nature of smart meters. If the basic Skills Strategy produces
lots of really well skilled electricians, have you not got what
you basically need?
Mr Balcon: I am not sure I understand
how you got those two points together. When you are talking of
a large volume of work associated with smart metering, what the
employer will determine is how best to do that. They will look
at the current qualifications. We are not looking at generating
new qualifications because in reality most of this energy agenda
is not new jobs, it is just existing jobs with an increase in
scope. This is why it does not chine particularly well with the
skills agenda because at this moment in time the skills agenda
requires qualifications that are of a certain size. On smart metering,
what an employer will determine is how many meters need to be
changed in a day and what skill set will be required. Would that
be a fully blown competent electrician or would it be somebody
who just has the skills to change those meters? I would say it
could probably be either and it depends on the size of the company
and the scope and how many meters they are actually changing.
What you have there is a need for a qualification to reflect their
working practices as well as the skills sets that they would require.
Q291 Dr Turner: So you would want
a specific certificate for smart meters which would not necessarily
embrace the whole scope of electrical work?
Mr Balcon: That may be a possibility,
absolutely.
Q292 Dr Turner: How does industry
feed into the Sector Skills Council to express requirements like
that?
Mr Balcon: There are many routes
into doing that. In a sense, the qualification is a portal to
competence. The starting place there is the National Occupational
Standards and do they reflect what employers manage to do on the
ground, this is the point. It needs to fit with those working
practices and then the qualification will follow. As I keep saying,
this may not be a full qualification, it may be just a part of
the qualification. It could be any tweak to the existing National
Occupational Standards and that may be all that is necessary and
at that point then you say, "How many people do we need now?"
If we take the numbers as read, the 23,000 meters to be installed
every week, it will probably require about 1,200 to be operating
just on meters alone and then you say, "Where do those people
come from?" and you start to engage with the Jobcentre Plus
or the New Deal programme to say there is an opportunity to train
somebody specifically associated with that skill set just to do
those things. In time that may extend to a full-blown electrician.
That is an example of how it might work rather than being definite.
The employers are driving this and they need to understand what
their requirements are and sometimes that is worthy of debate.
We have to reflect the qualifications of bite-sized chunks of
learning that they would require for them to be able to do that.
Q293 Dr Turner: Of course, a lot
of the companies involved will be small businesses. Are you satisfied
that there is enough training support for small businesses to
help them through it?
Mr Balcon: Small businesses will
always be hard. This is not going to be an easy one to solve.
The way to do that, if you take smart metering on the gas side,
which is probably a better example and I can give you a better
solution, is it would require somebody to be competent in gas
work. We have a Gas Safe Register with 120,000 gas engineers and
it would not be too difficult to reach those micro-businesses
and explain what their competence requirements would be in order
to be able to do this. The difficulty is, of course, if you impose
difficult qualifications or licence to practise systems on top
of that you almost prohibit their ability to engage in this market.
It is about providing fit-for-purpose and effective qualifications
and a learning process for them to get to that point.
Q294 Martin Horwood: Can I follow
on from Des's point and your theory that the industries themselves
will be able to work out what the demand for skills is. I will
quote you a really parochial example here. My boiler packed up
last week and I went to a very reputable local plumbing firm and
asked them about replacements and I said, "Can you look into
combined heat and power", being a bit greenie. They did not
even know what it was. We are only months away from commercially
available combined heat and power being on the market. There are
probably millions of the kinds of micro-businesses that Des talked
about out there who simply are not aware of what is coming down
the track, so how can we rely on the industry to identify the
skills? Surely we need a much more proactive approach from somewhere,
from you or from government, to try and map out the pathways that
are coming down because it will transform their businesses.
Mr Balcon: I think that is the
point. I was also encouraged to speak to SummitSkills who on that
particular example would be able to explain the fact that they
deal in qualifications associated with those technologies that
you are asking for here. Absolutely, it requires leadership. Employers,
generally speaking, are here and now, particularly micro-businesses.
It requires somebody to understand what they are asking for but
also to step out and say what does the future look like as well,
which in a sense is a priority for the Skills Council to be able
to do. We can engage with a skills system that would be ready
and able to respond to future needs but also there is a here and
now need as well. I do take the point that just an employer-led
process is incomplete but you really have to start there.
Q295 Dr Turner: What are your feelings
about the Government's role? If there was more active Government
intervention in the Skills Strategy, can you see hazards there?
Mr Balcon: I would encourage an
intelligent collaboration between Government and employers. The
example I give is in power generation. Through the Power Sector
Skills Strategy Group we brought employers together and they identified
that they would need to replace 80 per cent of their technical
workforce in the next 15 years. That is quite an astounding number.
If they resorted to their current approaches to skills it would
be on an individual basis and you would not get the kind of response
that would give the safety and security of supply which is what
the rest of the UK is asking for. Where Government can come in
is encouraging that collaboration. Collaboration is not a natural
event for employers, it is something that needs to be worked at
and resourced. What I would encourage Government to do is to say,
"We can provide some incentive for collaboration, for employers
to work together so they can develop the system" because
the universities do not provide enough engineers. Stephen Holliday
from National Grid only a couple of weeks ago mentioned that.
Despite the size of these employers, not one of them is big enough
to alter the HE infrastructure, ditto with FE colleges or even
private training providers. There is a clear relationship here
that needs to happen between employers who need to articulate
what their skills requirements are and an engagement with Government
to incentivise that collaboration but also to respond to those
strategic needs.
Q296 Dr Turner: If the Government
does not get that right?
Mr Balcon: If it does not get
that right I think what employers will do is revert back to the
current way that they meet their skills requirements. The numbers
explain the fact that there is such a dire training need, particularly
in power generation at the moment.
Q297 Colin Challen: I have nothing
against hairdressers, some of my constituents are hairdressers,
but it seems to me that if we substituted the word "hairdressing"
for "power and energy sector" your answers this morning
would probably be just as good. I cannot see a qualitative difference
between preparing for climate change and a bad hair day. What
is happening in this sector that is so different that you could
actually put your hand up and say everything is being done that
needs to be done to address climate change within your remit?
Mr Balcon: I think the first point
is to articulate what that looks like, and I do not think we have
yet. We understand there is a huge opportunity and an absolute
need to respond to climate change, but the bit that is missing
is to say how we transfer that knowledge into meaningful activity
on the ground. When you ask employers are they engaged, is this
something of interest to them, absolutely it is, it is a key imperative
to them, but the bit that is missing is a strategic response to
that requirement. I keep saying, and I think it is a mantra now
within these conversations, we have to have a national Sector
Skills approach to energy. That needs to be understood and bought
into by the key employers who will show leadership in this agenda.
They are the ones who are going to drive this. Nationally they
will be the big employers. They will engage their supply chain
into this. If they engage into that they will drive it themselves
anyway. The bit that is missing is to say, "I hear all the
stuff about skills but I find it hard to engage with. I don't
really hear the stuff that I need to do that would help me and,
therefore, it's hard". Employers do not have a remit to develop
a National Skills Strategy, that is our role. I think we will
be very successful. As I have mentioned, we pull the employers
together and say, "Let's start with what we need" and
that starting point is understanding how many engineers are required
just to satisfy replacement need, let alone moving on to this
agenda. We have a clear articulation of what that means here and
now but what we need to move towards, which is what we will do
through the Renewables Group, the cross-sector group, is to say,
"Let's have a consensus on some of the key drivers and some
of the key requirements that we need for this agenda" and
then we will work out how to implement that on the ground.
Q298 Colin Challen: Is not the word
that is really missing "planning"? Basically we are
relying on signals, forecasts, engagement, collegiate behaviour,
people coming together and having a chat in various places. There
is no plan, it is just reliant on everybody hopefully pulling
together because they feel perhaps inclined to do so if the market
conditions are right.
Mr Balcon: I could not agree more.
That is why I would say engagement with nine individual RDAs to
respond to this is not going to be an effective solution. No doubt
it will give you some models of best practice but it is not going
to meet that strategic need.
Q299 Chairman: Do you have the sense
that employers are articulating sufficiently clearly what their
needs are, or is that part of the gap in this whole process?
Mr Balcon: I think employers do
have a good understanding of what they would like to do although
it may not be accurate at this moment in time. In a sense, this
is an agenda where we need to show some foresight and that foresight
inevitably will be wrong because things will change. It is about
getting employers to say what needs to happen to make a response
to this now and become engaged in that plan so that plan is flexible
and can respond to it. Employers are more sophisticated in their
approach than perhaps they are given credit for.
Q300 Chairman: They are communicating
that adequately?
Mr Balcon: The mechanisms E&U
Skills use is through the Power Sector Skills Strategy Group and
National Skills Academy for Power, which is the mechanism by which
to respond to this.
Q301 Chairman: Looking at renewable
energy, is there the leadership we need in renewable energy skills
delivery to make sure that Britain can achieve some quite challenging
targets on renewables?
Mr Balcon: Again, I think it needs
a strategic plan.
Q302 Chairman: We have this extraordinary
situation where we have got the most natural potential for offshore
wind and yet none of the kit that is required for offshore wind
turbines is built in Britain.
Mr Balcon: That is right.
Q303 Chairman: Why do you think that
is?
Mr Balcon: It is difficult to
say. If I can reverse the question a little bit. If I give the
example of Germany, I think it is accurate to say that Germany
leads the world in terms of photovoltaic panels and maybe the
reason for that is because the incentives that were placed before
them by government were quite appealing for them to set up there
so in a sense they have a market-driven response. Any response
that we have here or incentives have to incentivise the market
because the market will pull employers into this because they
will want to be able to respond to that. I think the key to that
is to find out those employers who are willing to show some leadership
and be early adopters of those technologies and then to use those
employers and support them with their skills needs. I also suspect
that will require some pump-priming to help them with that thinking
as well. Again, it refers back to a previous point I made about
the collaboration between Government and employers and I think
there is a clear partnership that is needed there.
Q304 Chairman: Just staying with
offshore wind for a moment. We are not talking about growth of
ten per cent a year, this is an industry that is going to have
to be about 15 times bigger over the next ten years than it is
right now. We have got double ROCs already agreed for offshore
wind. Are you saying there need to be additional incentives to
get British employers interested in training people who can make
the kit that we are going to need?
Mr Balcon: There are two parts
to the question. The first part is about what attracts inward
investment and what attracts employers to be able to invest in
new business around this, and I have to say my knowledge does
not extend to a point where I can speak with any authority. At
one point I used to work in an inward investment role and one
of the key triggers for inward investment is having a skill base
for people to develop their businesses within. I am unsure at
this moment in time what that offer will be. I suspect we can
do an awful lot more in incentivising employers to come and locate
in a particular area, associated perhaps with a university or
an FE college, and a clear commitment that says if you are training
people within this remit then we can help and support you do that.
I imagine that would be very attractive to inward investment in
this area.
Q305 Chairman: So how will the Renewable
Energy Skills Group fit into the National Skills Strategy?
Mr Balcon: I am hopeful it will
actually develop it. That is a really good opportunity to have
a well thought-out and intelligent strategy. What I would like
to happen is for people to get behind that group and support it.
It has been very difficult because we have had to scramble around
for resources to be able to do that. Perhaps part of the answer
is how the Sector Skills Councils are set up in the first place.
If you are going to do this you may as well get behind it to resource
it. I do not think there is a better opportunity than supporting
that group.
Q306 Joan Walley: It is not just
a question of the Renewable Energy Skills Group fitting into the
National Skills Strategy, is it not also a case of how each of
those fit into the research and innovation and research and development
strategies? It seems to me that there is not ownership around
the table of all the different constituent parts who need to understand
what direction the green energy agenda is going in order that
everything can then be put in place, including the skills.
Mr Balcon: I think that is right.
Skills is very often one of the afterthoughts, so I take your
point. There needs to be a clear inward investment strategy, clear
research and development. I agree with your point that they need
to be joined up. The other thing about the cross-sector Renewable
Energy Skills Group is I would say that is not about fitting into
the strategy but that group should develop the strategy.
Q307 Joan Walley: In terms of which
groups are developing the strategy, what can we learn from the
devolved administrations? What are the issues arising out of the
different Regional Development Agencies and the different examples
of how this agenda is or is not being taken forward around the
country?
Mr Balcon: Within the Renewable
Energy Skills Group we have just seconded our Scottish manager
into Scottish Government to work specifically on this agenda.
That means we have some clear linkages with the Scottish Government.
We can bring the expertise that we have but also we can cross-fertilise
that with, if you like, a nation's requirement on this agenda.
One of the examples in terms of wind power is Scotland had geared
up for ten per cent in generation coming from renewable sources
but that is likely to be 50 per cent now from Scotland. It is
that understanding and therefore we can get in early to understand
what those skills requirements are. There are some leads being
taken here and it is taking the best advantage of them.
Q308 Colin Challen: What is your
view about the availability of training facilities to train the
next generation of workers in this sector appropriately for the
new needs that we have? Do you think that the Low Carbon Industrial
Strategy is addressing the question of training facilities adequately?
Mr Balcon: On the issue of training
facilities I do not think there is a current infrastructure. In
a sense, the development of the National Skills Academy for Power
is to correct that. There are actions being taken fully supported
by employers and, in fact, employers are investing significantly
in the National Skills Academy for Power. The second part of the
question is probably the reason why we have not got a skills infrastructure
because the way that FE colleges are funded is about developing
qualifications. Your example of hairdressers is one that says
it is much easier and cheaper for an FE college to train people
in hairdressing than it is to invest in engineering or renewable
energy skills. The other thing associated with that is my issue
with going down a regional agenda. When you look at the big numbers
that a national strategy requires to train people, those kinds
of numbers, you can say there is a real need and it is pretty
obvious to all concerned, but when you split that down into local
areas that number is not that big and it is not big enough to
incentivise an FE college to invest significantly in capital infrastructure,
et cetera, which is why we need a different response. I think
that response will come from the National Skills Academy for Power.
Q309 Martin Horwood: In some of your
answers you seem to be implying that what we are really talking
about is a fairly narrow field of specific engineering expertise.
Surely green jobs and green skills are going to apply across the
whole wide range. We have heard quite a lot of evidence calling
for a broader green skills agenda which could address everyone
from Civil Service procurement managers to finance professionals
and management consultants, a whole range of people not just at
the beginning of their formal training but in continuing professional
development as well. Do you think that broad green skills agenda
is something that would be valuable and you would be involved
in supporting?
Mr Balcon: I think we are involved
in supporting it. This is part of the rationale behind the cross-sector
Renewable Group, exactly to do that. That is where we have the
views of the seven Sector Skills Councils who bring their particular
expertise to say in terms of managing buildings that would be
AssetSkills, in terms of plumbers using microgeneration it would
be SummitSkills. They have clear sector strategies, and have had
for some time, but they have just been re-licensed and gone through
a National Audit Office approach to make sure they are fit-for-purpose.
It is about bringing those together, which in a sense is the work
we are doing now to bring that huge agenda and what it will look
like.
Q310 Martin Horwood: To pick up on
your last phrase, what exactly will it look like? You have got
all the relevant people together perhaps from the different skills
sectors and you are talking about it, the need for a strategy,
but in practice what will this look like? How will this change
the way somebody like a procurement manager is trained or will
get professional development?
Mr Balcon: There are two parts
to the process. I think we are all sceptical of the information
that is coming out saying that it will create X thousands of jobs.
When you go and speak to employers I am not sure where those numbers
have come from. The first thing is to say what kinds of jobs we
are talking about here because everybody I speak to is saying
it is not necessarily new jobs but an extension of scope. It will
create new jobs because of the volume but it is not new jobs doing
new things in renewable energy, it is somebody who is using their
existing skills building up to that.
Q311 Martin Horwood: I was not so
much talking about creating new jobs as changing the existing
ones. How will it actually deliver?
Mr Balcon: That is the point.
The first thing is to understand what that looks like and the
second thing is to determine what the training provision would
look like to be able to respond to that. In a sense, that is a
piece of work that we have got funded by DECC to do exactly that.
Q312 Martin Horwood: If I was an
employer looking out for some incentive to develop the skills
of the people in my employment, what kinds of incentives do you
imagine might be coming down the track in a few years' time as
a result of the work that the Skills Group is doing?
Mr Balcon: What I would like them
to be able to see is a clear line of who it is that is going to
give them the best advice, which I would say is naturally the
Sector Skills Councils because they engage with employers from
a national and local perspective as well. Then it is the ability
to tap into a local training provision that gives them the kinds
of skills that they are asking for. I do not think it is complicated,
I just think it is hard to do.
Q313 Martin Horwood: I have got a
big engineering company in my constituency called Design Installation
Systems who do the infrastructure for buildings. Clearly the low
carbon economy is going to change the way they work. This is a
company that invests quite a lot in apprenticeships and things
like this and they are kind of tearing their hair out at the way
in which apprenticeships work at the moment. If I just go back
to them and say, "Don't worry, the Skills Group is going
to tell you where to get better advice", they are going to
say, "Martin, what are you talking about?" There has
got to be something more concrete for a company like that to see
how things are going to change.
Mr Balcon: Taking your point about
apprenticeships, I think it is about the current system that says,
"an apprenticeship must look like this" and, therefore,
we try to squeeze employer need within that. I am saying with
this agenda it has to be more flexible. The starting point is
to say let us develop the qualifications in small units that would
respond to what you would want your employees to be able to do.
That is not difficult, that is something we can do and we have
got the expertise to do that, but once we have done that it is
about saying maybe there is funding available to be able to support
that and then the local training provision will train people against
that rather than training people against the skills policy which
clearly is not aligned to what you are asking for here.
Q314 Martin Horwood: Okay, so the
local FE college will be providing these new skills and qualifications
perhaps, but what incentive could the employer have to send people
on that? He has taken quite a risk investing in apprenticeships
to start with because people poach his qualified apprentices shortly
after they finish training without having made the investment.
It is already quite a risky thing. Why should he spend more time
sending his people off to get these other qualifications? We understand
the broader need, but as a business what incentive will he have?
Mr Balcon: There is a dual responsibility
here. You cannot take away the risks of investing in training
from an employer, and that will always be their risk to manage
as and when. I do not think necessarily I would support that the
Government should just pay for training because it is a risk.
I do think this is where this intelligent partnership comes in.
If you are saying you have some training needs, I would encourage
you to talk to other local employers in that area and to say,
"What we can grow here is the local economy but the quid
pro quo is you will train people against the skills requirements
that you will need and we will part support that in the collaborative
effort necessary to engage with FE colleges to do the kinds of
qualifications you are after" or, if it is universities,
to get them engaged as well. That is where Government can help
just to take some of the risk away from the decision that you
want to make anyway.
Q315 Mark Lazarowicz: I apologise
for popping out earlier but I had an urgent constituency matter
to deal with. This goes back to a point that I think Martin mentioned
at the beginning of his question. Is there not a tendency or danger
that the green skilling will take place in particular professions
and skills but you will not necessarily see a greening of the
entire corporate approach of a business? How do you ensure that
the greening is not left just to particular professions or skills
but there is a central direction? Is that not important otherwise
you are going to find the greening is always going to be a bit
of an add-on for particular activities rather than integral to
what is being done.
Mr Balcon: I think the opposite
of the question is would you want to create something that is
not necessarily there. The green agenda is often talked about
as a new thing, as a new sector, an emerging sector, and it is
going to create these jobs in this area, but it is not. My understanding,
which I think is shared by all the Sector Skills Councils I have
spoken to, is that it is just a natural progression of the economy.
If employers are going to take advantage of that they would have
to develop the green skills to be able to take those advantages
because it is going to give them market advantage and that is
where the incentive comes from. I would not subscribe to the sort
of labelling of this as a "green" thing because it gives
all sorts of incorrect connotations; it is a very clear business
decision that says, "Are you going to take advantage of the
market? If you do, it requires you to understand what skills are
necessary to promote a low carbon economy".
Chairman: We have got some other witnesses
we have to see now. Thank you very much for coming in and for
your answers. We will certainly reflect on what you have said
when we come to write our report. Thank you.
3 See Ev 82 Back
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