Government to force IT suppliers to provide training

Skills secretary John Denham announces initiative to use public procurement power to ensure workforce skills improve

Denham wants IT firms to focus on training

IT firms that win government contracts will be required to train their employees to a certain level as part of an initiative announced by skills secretary John Denham.

The government spends nearly £14bn a year on procuring IT services and wants to make sure that money goes some way to improving the skills base of the IT workforce.

IT leaders from all government departments have committed to ensuring successful contractors have a development plan in place for their workforce, Denham announced today.

"The IT industry is one of the industries which is critical to the future of the British economy and its ability to survive and thrive post-recession. It's vitally important that British business has IT skills to draw on at all levels, " he said.

The move is part of a shake-up of the skills and training system to tackle expected skills shortages in the future.

The IT industry in the UK has long faced a skills shortage. The Sector Skills Council for IT, e-Skills UK, has said the IT industry will need around 131,000 people each year for the next 10 years and that most of these will be graduates, in addition to a need to up-skill the current workforce.

UK digital industries alone produce an annual gross value added contribution of around £86bn, 10.9 per cent of the UK total, and have the potential to contribute a further £35bn over the next five to seven years.

Yesterday Denham met government chief information officer John Suffolk and leading IT industry representatives to discuss how government and industry can work together to promote investment in skills in the IT sector through procurement.

Denham said preventing firms cutting back on skills training in a recession was vital to long-term competitiveness.

"In tough economic times like these, there is a danger that employers will reduce their investment in the skills of their employees as they look to cut costs. But research shows that companies who don't train are 2.5 times more li ely to fail than those who do," he said.

"A failure to train now will mean that when the economy begins to grow again we will not have the skilled workers we need to seize those opportunities that growth presents."