It's tempting to cut training costs in
a recession - an expense under close scrutiny in many
organisations. But will short-term savings now lead to tears
later?
Peter Kingston The Guardian
Sharp end: training, such as provided on this
stained glass course, is vital for social and professional
well-being.
Photograph: Alamy
As the economic downturn starts to bite with real venom, it is
clear that bodies involved in education and training such as
Lifelong Learning UK acquire new importance. Good training is going
to be more important than ever for many thousands of people trying
to hang on to jobs or to find new ones.
LLUK is the body that has been charged by government with
setting the standards for those who carry out that training. It has
been playing an essential role in "professionalising" the further
education teaching force. It is surely ironic then that, at a time
when it is needed more than ever, LLUK is having to focus some of
its energies on securing its own future.
"The priority at the moment for LLUK is getting re-licensed, so
we can continue to meet employers' needs," says David Hunter, its
chief executive.
LLUK is one of 25 sector skills councils (SSCs). These are the
state-sponsored, employer-led organisations that cover some 85% of
the workforce in the UK.
The SSCs are by necessity a diverse bunch, covering areas
ranging from the construction industry, pharmaceuticals and
telecoms to financial services, car retailing, fashion through to
social care and creative media. But they share the same fundamental
tasks: to reduce skills gaps and shortages, to improve
productivity, to boost skills of those working in their sectors and
to improve the training that takes place there.
They are still fairly new. Labour launched the first sector
skills councils in 2002, after scrapping the previous system of 72
national training organisations. LLUK officially began operations
in January 2005. Now, five years on, the government says all skills
councils must reapply for their licences if they are to continue
operating.
This may come at a difficult time for any SSCs considered not to
be pulling their weight. In the 2006 report bearing his name, Lord
Leitch dropped heavy hints that he was not greatly impressed with
what all the new organisations were doing. As he subsequently told
the House of Commons innovation, universities and skills select
committee: "I started off liking the concept of sector skills
councils, but not so much the delivery."
Leitch saw encouraging signs that SSCs were bedding down and
some were excellent, he said. But their performance overall was
patchy. He felt this was because they had been set conflicting
objectives by government which in turn left them without a clear
remit.
Some suffered from "deficiencies in performance management and
ineffective leadership," he said. And some were significantly less
well known to the businesses and organisations they were supposed
to be acting for.
Worthy of survival
So, all SSCs must prove that they are worthy of survival, with no
exceptions, and none can assume a happy outcome.
Chris Humphries, chief executive of the UK Commission for
Employment and Skills, the body responsible for deciding which ones
will live to fight another day, says: "We don't have a set number
of licences that we believe is the right one and we are absolutely
not assuming that every SSC can or will pass the re-licensing
test."
Humphries has made clear that he would "certainly like to think
that most will get through" and believes that things have improved
since Leitch looked at SSCs. And employers' organisations have made
it clear to him that they want UKCES to help the SSC network, not
rip it up by its roots.
And what of the ministers authorising the re-licensing exercise?
LLUK could glean encouragement from recent utterances by the
further education minister Sion Simon, who acknowledged that it
"plays a crucial role in supporting the Government's ambitions to
make the FE workforce world class".
To help victims of the economic downturn, well-trained teachers
and trainers are essential, he says, which is why "LLUK's role in
helping improve the professionalism of leaders and teachers is so
important." It can make a good case for being allowed to stick to
its tasks because it underpins all the other SSCs.
"We develop the standards for teaching and what people learn who
become qualified teachers, the skills, knowledge and expertise they
should have," says Ivor Jones, LLUK's executive director of
strategy and business development. From these standards,
qualifications are put together by "awarding institutions".
LLUK continues to monitor the standards. Its brief is much
broader, however, than the professional development of all those
working in further education and community learning and
development. Its responsibilities cover higher education;
libraries, archives and information services; and training that is
done in the workplace. And it covers all these activities across
the UK. Totting up all the people affected, LLUK covers more than a
million working in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and
Wales.
Like their counterparts in the 24 other SSCs they could be
forgiven for feeling nervous about the outcome of the re-licensing
and its effects on their livelihoods.
Perhaps this though gives them a keener empathy in addressing
LLUK's other immediate task, to assist the government's response to
the recession.
"We're doing a number of things," says Hunter. Most prominently
LLUK is collaborating with other organisations such as UKCES and
the Institute of Directors to try to convey a difficult
message.
"We're working on a marketing campaign to make sure that
training is seen as absolutely essential at this time so that when
we actually come out of recession we actually have people who are
trained to make the best of it."
There is compelling evidence, he reckons, that those companies
that kept their training up during the last recession were
significantly better positioned to take off again when it ended
than those which had not.
LLUK is also keen to foster a mutual benefit for people who fall
victim of the economic downturn, or who are worried that they are
going to lose their jobs.
"We want to take full opportunity of the fact that same people
will be stock-taking on their careers and might like to consider
teaching adults," he says. "We're working on some kind of campaign
to make sure that the offer is there."
The Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills recently
gave the go ahead for a campaign. But has Lifelong Learning UK got
any handle on the numbers of opportunities that might be found in
further education for those thinking of a new career?
"Judging by the number of jobs that are still being advertised
in the Guardian and elsewhere the opportunities are very much still
there," he says.
The campaign goes beyond teachers. Lifelong Learning UK is
overseeing a number of projects to bring people with managerial
experience into further education.
"We've got an ageing population in the further education
workforce," Hunter said. "We're refreshing the stock."
Weblinks
Sector skills councils:
sscalliance.org/Sectors/SectorSkillsCouncils/SectorSkillsCouncils.asp
Lifelong Learning UK: http://www.lluk.org/
