The new Labour Government’s announcement of the formation of ‘Skills England’, just three weeks on from its general election victory, is a welcome indication that it understands that the availability of an appropriately skilled workforce is one of the fundamental barriers to delivering on its core mission of growth.
The Prime Minister and Education Secretary are right to diagnose a fractured skills landscape and to focus on a shared national ambition to boost the country’s skills. The overall number of apprenticeship starts in England remains low compared to pre-lockdown levels and, whilst older workers and higher level apprenticeships are generally seeing increases, there are fewer young person and entry-level apprenticeships on offer.
We know that RenewableUK members find the skills system complex to navigate, with the myriad initiatives across government - from bootcamps, to work academies, T Levels, and apprenticeships - often confusing rather than clarifying how industry should go about meeting its workforce needs.
Meanwhile productivity continues to be stagnant, and although demand is high with some 900,000 vacancies across the economy, we have seen a rise in the number of economically inactive people, those out of work due to ill health, as well as the number of young people not in formal education or training.
To begin to address this and meet the skills needs of the next decade, Skills England will need to bring together central and local Government, businesses, training providers, and unions, alongside the Migration Advisory Committee to help reduce reliance on overseas workers.
Ensuring a coordinated approach
However, skills is a devolved matter and it will not be able to address the challenge of coordinating its delivery across the four nations. That’s why RenewableUK is continuing to call for the Government to explore how best to ensure each of the UK's nations are working in tandem to deliver on shared skills challenges, particularly in relation to green industries.
We know from our work in offshore wind that the right training and employment opportunities offer huge potential to benefit rural coastal communities, and this can be further strengthened in partnership with business. More broadly, working with combined authorities across the country will help to ensure regional skills needs are adequately assessed and catered for in skills delivery.
We are also seeking clarity on how Skills England will dovetail with other Government departments, such as the Department for Work and Pensions, to ensure those looking for work can find and access the training they need.
Losing no time
The Offshore Wind sector in the UK needs some 70,000 additional workers, most of whom will be skilled, to meet the pipeline of work through to 2030. Alongside this, doubling onshore wind capacity to 30GW by 2030 will create 27,000 jobs, following the lifting of the effective ban on development as one of Labour’s first key actions in office. Yet Skills England will, according to the Department for Education, be established in phases over the next 9 - 12 months.
The focus on a 'shadow' structure and reorganising the functions of the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (IFATE) into Skills England risks hindering progress around its initial creation, and it is essential that the clarion call of business leaders to make urgent progress is heard.
Building on what works
Whilst it is vital that Skills England helps improve the coordination and coherence of the training landscape, the Government must be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater as it pursues change. The previous government's Green Jobs Taskforce and its associated delivery groups helped bring businesses together around a common purpose and actively play a role in shaping action, and it is vital that this new body acts on industry input into the previous Government’s draft Green Skills Action Plan.
The starting point for Skills England should be that much of the work to assess future skills needs and build relationships with employers already exists. These assessments and structures can be utilised at pace by the new Government to maintain momentum, a coalition of the willing, and protect what worked under the previous administration.
Industry, including in the renewables sector, stands ready to help Skills England be truly transformative, and where Labour can deliver real impact is through a more ambitious approach to responding to skills gaps, as well as through a fervour in reforming the levers it has to address them. A good start would be:
greater flexibility in the use of the Apprenticeship Levy, whilst ensuring it continues to support apprenticeship starts in SMEs and the supply chain
further details on the British Jobs Bonus and how it might work for the energy sector
real partnership to help workers retrain, upskill and transition from other sectors, in order to and fill some of the most critical skills shortages employers across the country jointly face.
By Scott Young, Head of Skills, RenewableUK
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