The Government's record on creating an environment attractive to
e-businesses is less than perfect. Now the training infrastructure
must change without ministerial assistance
Is the Government all spin and no delivery? No, for IT and
communications it's worse than that. Labour's delivery of its IT
modernisation agenda looks like a gardener who keeps pulling up his
plants to see if the roots are growing, re-planting them upside
down and then for good measure dumping weedkiller on top.
Is this an unfair comment? I don't think so. Just look at its
record to date: the £24.5bn of new taxes on information and
communications technology companies; IR35; the Regulation of
Investigatory Powers Act; the delayed Communications Act; still no
Ofcom as a single communications regulator; technology companies
falling like ninepins; broadband and digital terrestrial TV
roll-out stalled; and public sector IT projects in a mess.
So if the Government is failing to make the UK the best place to do
e-business, is it keeping to its top priority of education and
training? No. The collapse of the Individual Learning Accounts
scheme, the problems with the funding of colleges, the removal of
grants to students and the laboured replacement of Training and
Enterprise Councils by Learning & Skills Councils have all
damaged our ability to improve UK citizens' qualifications and
skills base. Now we have an even bigger threat to our training
base.
In the 6 September 2001 issue of Computer Weekly I wrote about the
alphabet soup of training and the delays in the Government's plans
to create Sector Skills Councils to replace the National Training
Organisations (NTOs). I know that ministers are avid readers of
Computer Weekly and I had hoped my article, together with the
lobbying efforts of lots of other people, would have given the
Labour administration a gentle reminder to stop spinning and start
delivering.
When the Government eventually published its proposals it was
obvious it had ignored the advice it had gained during
consultations and its detailed plan of action would be impossible
to deliver.
In theory by 1 April the NTOs like E-Skills and Engineering
Manufacture Training Authority will be abolished and employers are
supposed to have spontaneously created the new Sector Skills
Councils to cover all the training that the UK needs. Are you an
employer and did you know about your new responsibility?
This masterplan came from the Sector Skills Council implementation
team of the Department for Education and Skills, based in
Sheffield. Some commentators thought this was an elaborate April
Fool's joke. London-based education department staff started to try
to find a practical way forward. Civil servants at the Department
of Trade & Industry have just kept their heads down.
The compromise plan was for the NTOs to effectively manage their
own transition into fewer, better Sector Skills Councils and to
deliver the Government's promise of skills improvements. But the
mandarins in Sheffield have said no. They insist the Sector Skills
Councils should be set up from scratch and that will take a massive
amount of time. Few believe it can be done before the end of this
year.
Funding for the NTOs stops next month and they have been told that
they can apply for transitional grants of up to a maximum of 50% of
their last year's funding.
In theory, when the Sector Skills Councils are set up, NTOs will be
able to negotiate transfer of staff and on-going work. In practice
the people who will persuade employers to set up Sector Skills
Councils are the managers of the NTOs and they may not exist by
then.
What a muddle. Almost everyone will agree with the theory that
employers and employees must take more ownership of training. But
anyone who has been involved will know companies have to be
encouraged, cajoled and bribed to do what is best for them. Indeed
that is the very reason that NTOs and their successor Sector Skills
Councils need to exist.
Just when the UK's IT industry is desperate to improve its skills
base the organisation of the UK's training will be in limbo. The
last thing we need is revolution when the training community are
fully behind an evolutionary approach to provide better delivery.
The Government needs to think again. If it carries on as it is,
this time next year UK training may have been decapitated.
What are Sector Skills Councils?
- New network of smaller Sector Skills Councils to replace the
current network of National Training Organisations (NTOs)
- Government recognition for NTOs to cease on 31 March
- Sector Skills Councils to be established and funded by a new
Sector Skills Development Agency.
Ian Bruce, former Conservative MP for South Dorset, is
chairman of IT consultancy IBA, immediate past chairman of Eurim
and vice-chairman of Pitcom