This week, The Leaders Council announced the publication of its special report into the Skills & Post-16 Education Act and the impact it will have on the construction, engineering and manufacturing sectors.
The compilation of the report followed a meeting between Leaders Council chair, Lord Blunkett, and 26 leaders from the construction, engineering and manufacturing arenas.
During the discussion on April 26, 2022, at London’s Caledonian Club, attendees discussed their views on the then Skills & Post-16 Education Bill, in the days before it proceeded to Royal Assent and became enshrined in law.
The views and insights of all involved were used to compile the special report, which is being presented to relevant policymakers and leaders within the construction, engineering and manufacturing industries.
One of the hallmarks of the Act is the government’s introduction of Local Skills Improvement Plans [LSIPs]. The idea of these is to put industry at the centre of the skills system by requiring employers and colleges to collaborate, which will ensure that education is delivering on the needs of industry and that learners are emerging with the requisite skills for the workplace.
The measure and its intentions have understandably received praise. However, scepticism remains among leaders within the industry over how LSIPs will practically work on the ground, given the long enduring disconnect between industry and the education sector.
Make UK’s senior policy manager for employment, Jamie Cater, hailed LSIPS as “the most significant development for employers” within the new law, which had the potential to “bring employers and training providers together to tackle skills shortages”. Yet, he warned that in order to make them effective, it will be imperative for LSIPs and their facilitators to “work with national bodies such as the Unit for Future Skills.”
Cater added: “Employer engagement will be a central challenge for LSIPs to succeed; Make UK will be playing its part in making sure that the voice of manufacturers is heard as LSIPs get up and running.”
Dave Radley, owner and founder of construction training provider DMR Training & Consultancy, called for greater clarity from the government on how LSIPs are to be properly implemented and how the accountability framework will function where they fail.
Radley said: “Education is not going to get its act together overnight and there needs to be a concrete plan for industry and education to come together and collaborate effectively, and the Act lacks such detail.”
Furthermore, Radley remained concerned over how stakeholders with “differing views” would be able to come together and start “pulling in the same direction” after years of self-interest.
“What will be key for smooth dialogue and effective implementation of this is that weget the right people around the table all pulling in the same direction, but this could be a complex exercise.
“While accountability (for failing to deliver what industry needs) is again a positive suggestion, more clarity is needed on what the accountability framework might look like. I have been into colleges and measured performance myself before, and although I don’t have the influence of the secretary of state for education, even he cannot simply enter a failing institution, click his fingers and solve all the problems overnight.
“The accountability system needs to be robust enough to initiate change where required.”
Recro Consulting managing director, John McDonough, was also concerned that the simple drawing up of LSIPs may not prove sufficient to encourage education providers to do things differently after years of poor-quality provision and a lack of engagement with industry.
McDonough said: Employers get what comes through employability and skills funding through job centres, colleges and training providers. The elephant in the room is that the quality is often poor, the results aren’t being. measured by the Department for Work & Pensions [DWP] and there is a mismatch between what employers need, what is funded and what providers can deliver.
“Moving the dial in the marketplace to make further. education providers do things differently and deliver the paradigm shift we need is no simple fix. People have been institutionalised and are going through the motions, so the civil servants and ministers that we need to deliver such systemic change don’t have the capability, competence nor motivation to do it.”
McDonough went on to further suggest that within some corners of education and government, figures of influence lack the effort and motivation to begin resolving the problem.
“A senior business leader encapsulated the situation perfectly when he told me recently that: ‘I agree with you completely, but this stuff is in the “too difficult” box. You’re dealing with people who don’t want a solution and business wants to deal with people who do.’ If the appetite isn’t there to resolve this, the Act will make little difference.”
Elsewhere, Tradeforce Gas & Heating boss, Michael Charalambous, questioned how quickly LSIPs could have their desired impact even it were to transpire that they worked properly.
“I was pleased to see that the government is seeking to realign the skills system around the needs of employers. However, it must be said that the needs of employers have remained the same for the last two decades and as much as the government wants employers and the education sector to collaborate on this, what industry is asking for has always been different to what the Department for Education has produced in the past,” Charalambous said.
“Now is the time when education needs to listen so that we can truly work together to come up with viable solutions.”
ARC Coachworks managing director, Gary Clark, raised the issue that while LSIPs could help deliver the workforce of the future for large parts of the industry, the needs of more specialist firms such as his own - which provides a repairs service mainly for commercial vehicles - also needed to be considered.
Clark explained: “It is all well and good if the government wants industry to be working with colleges and we’re able to get industry representatives helping to design the courses of the future. But the very specialist nature of our industry raises the question: are we broad enough to be considered here, or will we simply be overlooked (by LSIPs) because not many firms do the work that we do?”
The full special report into the impact of the Skills & Post-16 Education Act can be accessed here.
Photo by Josh Beech on Unsplash
