Take a look at the diagram opposite. This is the condensed, simplified version of the full gamut of associations, agencies and interested bodies that in some shape or form are responsible for championing skills in the UK. At the top, overseeing it all and reporting to the Government is the latest body - launched in April this year - the UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES).
Just keeping up to date with the changes and interplay between these groups requires a skills/knowledge level that would make even the most cerebral of HR professionals feel cripplingly out of their league. In the past few months alone, the Sector Skills Development Agency (the body below UKCES that oversaw relations with employers from 25 sector-specific skills councils), closed, but was replaced by the Alliance of Sector Skills Councils, which has a confusingly similar remit. Also shut down was the National Employment Panel (adviser to the Government on demand-led skills strategies) although some of its work still exists, now under the new name, Working Ventures UK.
Below the level of sector-skills councils (SSCs) are national skills academies (see page 15), and in May three new ones (in addition to those in financial services, manufacturing, construction, food and drink, nuclear and the processing industry) appeared, covering sport and active leisure; creative and cultural industries; and hospitality. In addition, employers seeking to secure funding for training have to deal with a host of regional skills agencies, local authorities and strategic partnerships. This is before they try to make sense of the supply side - Jobcentre Plus (which aims to build direct local employment partnerships) and training providers such as Learn Direct.
It is a headache-inducing set-up. Chris Humphries, chair of UKCES, agrees. He wants to stamp out the confusion and provide clarity for employers (see page 6). Not only is he concerned by the complexity, he also suspects that it represents a huge waste of money, with HR directors bombarded by different bodies, whose remits largely overlap.
Funding confusion
"It's a confusing market," says Judith Fear, head of human resources at Hertsmere Council, which, between October 2007 and March 2008, put 46 of its staff through a level 2 NVQ in customer service. "You have to find out where you can get help with funding, and which organisations take the lead role. I get about 100 emails a day, a quarter of which will be training-related. It's impossible to look at them in any depth."
At the top of the funding tree is the Learning and Skills Council (LSC). Its total budget for education, employment and training approaches £11 billion per year. Since Train to Gain was launched in 2006, spending has hit about £500 million per year, with budgets for this year at £1 billion as its remit expands to include level 3 skills training. However, some have criticised the fact that just 240,000 employees have actually been helped in two years which, when all the money is filtered down and spent through its National Employer Service, brokers and partners, still works out at a cost of £4.16 million each. This figure contrasts with those from the regional development agencies. By comparison, these look like value for money, with a cost per NVQ gained of around £10,000.
The same criticism has been levelled at Local Employment Partnerships (LEPS) - launched with great fanfare last year with the aim of Jobcentre Plus matching up the long-term unemployed and low-skilled with employers direct. Since launch just 500 companies have signed up, with only 280 businesses directly going through the scheme.
So is the criticism justified? Mike Campbell, adviser to Lord Leitch during the framing of his report, says he sympathises with employers. "The Sector Skills Development Agency's remit is to engage with employers, as is the remit of the LSC. Employers are being trampled on by bodies out there. They just want a more streamlined system." That said though, he maintains that complexity is about the "supply chain rather than the institutions themselves". He adds: "I still think that the fundamental problem is that neither employers nor employees are taking training seriously enough. Some of this may be down to perceived complexity, but I think the reason is that companies still don't see the benefit of training."
Questions about value for money though have not gone unnoticed, and change is afoot. As budgets for the 25 SSCs continue to rise (see page 12) UKCES is now demanding that they each reveal the outputs on which their funding is predicated. "Targets have never been made public before," says Campbell. "This is about to change and over the next 12 months SSCs will have to re-apply for their licence. They will have to demonstrate past success and convince UKCES that their future plans are appropriate."
One new area where SSCs will have to prove themselves for the first time is recommending which skills courses are 'fit for purpose'. This is a significant extension of their responsibilities, and reflects another fear that this multiplicity of skills agencies does not adequately provide guidance for employers about which courses are actually of any use to them. According to Pablo Lloyd, deputy chief executive of Learn Direct, the largest provider of Train to Gain skills, the over-expansion of skills providers - and the creation of courses that do not equip staff with what business really needs - is one of the areas where government money is being wasted.
Dead wood
"So far, the Government's £3 billion investment in skills has not been sufficient to test just how much dead wood there is in the provision of courses," he says. "There are 20,000 different qualifications but there is not enough checking up on them. The less visibility there is for employers to make informed choices about the standard of courses out there, the less likely they are able to see which are the quality ones."
Learn Direct - which is one of 700 suppliers of Train to Gain training - says it is not worried that many of its courses will be dropped. Lloyd says he is "quite ruthless about courses that are not picked up", and announces that Learn Direct is taking action. "The SSC's audit is why we're thinking of introducing 'Amazon'-style ratings from previous buyers as a form of quality assurance against which buyers will be able to benchmark their results."
Indications are that the SSC audit will reduce the number of LSC-approved courses. The only way this can happen though is by employers/HR professionals working with their SSC to say what they need.
The audit could spell disaster for those providers operating at the margins. From next year any courses not on the SSC's approved list will not be funded by the LSC. "There are more than 16,000 vocational courses and a multiplicity of awarding bodies," comments Campbell. "They all cause confusion for buyers of services. Even LSC brokers find trouble making sense of all this. Once approved providers are identified, the LSC has been instructed not to fund any courses that are not on this list."
He adds: "Awarding bodies, in particular, will be in the firing line here, as they are creating all these qualifications. If there was a true market, many of these qualifications would have disappeared but they've kept going because employers and employees are not properly informed about the relevance of the courses. Awarding bodies are not interested in providing transparent information about the value of these qualifications. When you buy a fridge, you go to Which?. Employers should have similar information. "
But herein lies one important value-for-money conundrum. Employers want 'skills' but these may not necessarily mean 'qualifications'. The problem is that the Government is fixated by the numbers attaining specific standards. Will it be prepared to see a reduction in the numbers achieving these qualifications if employers prefer training that covers only what is needed for employees to do their job? This is one of the big questions HR needs to face up to when communicating to the Government what it needs. One unwanted consequence is already apparent - employers are partnering with qualification providers to design their own courses, thereby increasing the supply even further. This issue is looked at on page 20. With these perhaps businesses are saying they want to know what they are getting for their money.
