Employers to drive skills development

Employers should play a greater role in developing the country’s skills agenda, according to recommendations yesterday that are likely to see an enhanced focus on tackling the emerging IT skills crisis.

Commissioned by the Treasury, The Leitch Review into the skills the UK will need in 2020 concluded that employers should be given greater control over vocational education and that no training courses should receive public money unless they are approved by business-led Sector Skills Councils such as the IT-focused E-skills UK.

The report was welcomed by Larry Hirst, chief executive of IBM in the UK and the chair of E-skills UK, who argued that strengthening his organisation’s powers would allow it to better develop the technology skills required to plug the current skills gap. “As a result of the review, we expect to be able to accelerate the implementation of E-skills UK’s strategy and increase our impact to the benefit of the economy, businesses and individuals,” he added.

However, in return for a greater role in determining how public money is spent on skills the report also recommends that private firms “pledge” to train more staff at work - something many IT skills experts have long called for. If firms fail to undertake such training voluntarily the report calls for workers to be given a statutory right to workplace training.

Robert Chapman, chief executive of IT training firm The Training Camp, welcomed moves to encourage firms to spend more on skills development, but argued that the government would do better to offer training incentives than try and mandate investment. “The government may feel it has to force people to train,” he said. “But I’d much rather see them incentivising people to train through tax credits, like they already do for R&D.”

Lord Leitch said that while the report's goals for 2020 were “ambitious”, failure to realise them would jeopardise the UK’s economic standing. “Without increased skills, we would condemn ourselves to a lingering decline in competitiveness, diminishing economic growth and a bleaker future for all,” he added.

Chancellor Gordon Brown is today expected to back certain aspects of the report in his pre-budget review: pledging new cash to help schools modernise and invest more in IT equipment, new funds for vocational training schemes, and appointing former CBI boss Digby Jones as his new “skills envoy”.