Gordon Brown missed an opportunity to introduce a training
framework to update the skills of the UK's IT workforce in the
Budget earlier this month, according to industry
leaders.
Although the chancellor highlighted the importance of IT investment
to the UK economy and announced enhanced tax incentives for
research and development, measures to boost IT training and career
development were not forthcoming.
Philip Virgo, strategic adviser to the Institute for the Management
of Information Systems, said the government should exempt employees
and employers from paying income tax and national insurance
contributions on full-time IT training.
He also urged the government to widen the focus of its national
skills strategy, which aims to ensure that every adult in the UK is
qualified to NVQ level two, to cover more advanced IT skills.
"The government is focused on NVQ2 and although it gets people onto
the bottom rung of the ladder, this is not the area where we are
uncompetitive," said Virgo.
"We need people with NVQ3 and NVQ4 who are capable of installing
computer systems based on software packages and who are the kind of
people who can deliver e-government modernisation.
"Unless we have massive annual spending to update our ICT skills,
the skills we have will become outdated. Our IT skills base is
atrophying."
David Roberts, chief executive of the Corporate IT Forum, said the
IT profession needed to agree on a certification process to
recognise skills and establish an institute to represent IT
professionals, similar to the accountancy and legal
professions.
"In my view, the British Computer Society is the one [organisation]
with the significant independence and with enough standing to take
on the mantle," said Roberts.