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Lifelong Learning and Skills – the TUC view

Iain Murray(Senior Policy Officer)

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The state of workplace skills – what the statistics tell us?• An entrenched training divide (Labour Force Survey)

– 1998: 43% of graduate employees received regular training compared with 9% of employees without any qualifications

– 2008: Equivalent figures are 38% and 10%

• A long tail of employers that do not train (NESS)– 33% of employers offer no training at all and 37% of

employees (around 8M) received no training over the past year

• UK employers’ investment in training is often exaggerated (Education at a Glance, OECD)

– New OECD analysis measuring employer investment based on ‘duration of training’ shows UK employers up in a particularly bad light, with very low rates of duration of training for the low-skilled in particular.

– “In the UK the intensity of participation is particularly low among persons without upper secondary qualifications”.

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Main elements of Leitch Review• Stretching targets to virtually eradicate low skills by 2020 + to

drive up intermediate/higher skills

• Continuation of voluntary approach on workplace training + introduction of Skills Pledge

• New demand-led skills approach via Train to Gain and Skills Accounts and further expansion of Apprenticeships

• Integration of employment and skills policy/provision

• UK Commission for Employment and Skills + greater role for Sector Skills Councils

• UKCES to undertake review in 2010 to consider the need for introduction of a right to workplace training for employees without a level 2 qualification

• Proposed Right to Request Time to Train to be introduced in 2010 (and 2010 review delayed to 2014/15)

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Leitch – TUC welcome for…

• …the scale of ambition on skills at all levels

• …recognition that workplace route is crucial

• … investing in workplace skills via Train to Gain and Apprenticeships

• …admission of the importance of building individual demand via Skills Accounts and Adult Career and Advancement Service

• …subsequent welcomed for proposed Right to Request Time to Train

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Leitch – TUC concerns about…..

• The over-dependence on employer demand

– “Whilst the review quite rightly concludes that employers must significantly increase their investment in skills, there is a questionable presumption that this will occur as a direct consequence of making the skills system more 'employer friendly’……………nor do we believe that employers are necessarily always the best judges of the longer-term skill needs of their workforce.”

• Not enough attention paid to building the collective capacity of unions to promote and support skills in the workplace

• Not enough attention paid to skills utilisation and tackling the “low skills equilibrium”

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A gradual redefinition of the employer demand-led approach?

• Leitch Implementation Plan (World Class Skills, July 2007)– “What all our reforms have in common is that

they are trying to put the customer - in this case, adult learners and employers - first. We call this our 'demand-led' approach”

• Strategic Skills: right skills, right place, right time (Speech by John Denham, 24/10/08)– “Employers need to be helped to co-ordinate and to

communicate demand. By industry. By sector. Or by locality. Whichever turns out to be most needed and is likely to be most effective. Over recent months, this has been the direction of our skills policy.”

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What is this new strategic skills policy?

• “Government policy can and should be a major influence on employer investment in skills…”• e.g. Train to Gain – the Sector Skills Compact

approach and other flexibilities• “Through policy, regulation and through procurement, we

are able to shape and create markets, and the skills that will be needed to drive them….”– e.g. A bigger role for procurement especially in

relation to major government infrastructure projects• “And we can also identify fast changing parts of the

economy where individual employer demand may not produce sufficient skilled people sufficiently quickly…”– e.g. Aligning skills policy with longer-term economic

and industrial strategies such as the ‘green economy’• Skills policy and the economic downturn

– e.g. adapting Train to Gain to give more support to those at risk of redundancy and the unemployed

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Train to Gain–Ofsted’s findingsKey message 1.

• It is reaching ‘hard to reach’ learners via the workplace route and making a real difference to their lives……

• “Well over three quarters of the employees interviewed or whose records were analysed for this survey had little prior history of training or attainment. Provision funded by Train to Gain offered them their first opportunity to gain a qualification since leaving school. The employees were highly satisfied with the training and assessment they had received. They took great pride in the achievement of their qualifications and many were inspired to continue learning and pursue further qualifications. Their achievements often motivated other colleagues at work.”

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Train to Gain–Ofsted’s findingsKey message 2.

• It is also having a positive impact on organisational and business performance….

• “Although fewer than one in 10 of employers had formal mechanisms for evaluating the impact of training on business performance, all could attribute improvements in employee performance to the training and assessment they received through Train to Gain; over three quarters had specific examples of ways in which it had made their businesses more competitive or effective.”

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Train to Gain–Ofsted’s findingsKey message 3.• But it is not reaching enough ‘hard-to-reach’

employers……

• “Most of the employers surveyed had existing or recent links with providers, and were enthusiastic and supportive of training in general. Despite this, almost all met the criteria for hard to reach employers. Genuinely hard to reach employers – those with a poor history of training or strongly resistant to it – did exist within the employer base of a small number of providers, often as a result of good work done with union learning representatives; However, there were too few of them…….. too many employers still wanted training at no cost to themselves or claimed that they had no need for a highly skilled workforce. Few employers beat a path to providers’ doors. Most of the employees were recruited as a result of promotional work carried out by providers, suggesting that provision was supply driven, rather than demand-led.”

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UK Commission for Employment and Skills: 5-year strategic plan

• TUC has identified 5 areas needing more attention– The new economic context– Building on the developing strategic skills

policy– Collective employer measures and

regulation– A greater focus on individual demand and

the collective role of trade unions– The skills utilisation challenge

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Building the union role further

• union learning representatives and the role of unionlearn

• a more strategic and collective approach at the workplace

• a bigger role in influencing the delivery of Train to Gain

• Skills Accounts and the new Adult Advancement and Careers Service

• the union voice on UKCES, Sector Skills Councils, RDAs and other bodies