Mixed reception for new skills strategy

Setting out what he described as an ambitious vision for giving people and businesses the skills they need to help drive economic growth, Business Secretary Lord Mandelson said the government would: • Create a modern class of technicians, through an expansion of advanced apprenticeships, creating 35,000 new places over the next two years; • Give every adult a personal skills account, empowering learners to shop around for training with new information on how well different courses and colleges can meet their needs; • Radically simplify the way in which skills policy is delivered – working with the UK Commission for Employment and Skills to reduce the number of public bodies by more than 30. "We need engineers to lay the cables to expand access to high-speed internet, skilled people to build the electric vehicles of the future, and technicians to develop the medicines that will save lives," he went on. "The goal of this strategy is a skills system defined not simply by targets based on achieved qualifications, but by 'real world' outcomes. Relevant, quality skills, with real market value." The Government would deploy around £100m to support around 160,000 training places in areas such as life sciences, digital media and technology, advanced manufacturing, engineering, construction and low carbon energy. 1,000 new scholarships worth £1,000 each would be on offer to encourage the best apprentices to progress into higher education and more employers would be given the chance to drive and shape training provision through launching a fifth competitive bidding round of the National Skills Academies programme. However, the Chartered Institute for Personnel Development (CIPD) slammed the proposals saying that the proposals signalled the emergence of another wave of quangos that would further marginalise employers in the skills system. CIPD skills adviser Tom Richmond (pictured) said: "For all the talk of having a 'demand-led' skills system, the Government is clearly more interested in giving extra powers to quangos, government departments and local authorities than it is in giving individuals and employers control of how and where funding is spent. Until the Government realises that meddling quangos and ministers are the problem, not the solution, the wastage and inefficiency within our skills system will continue unabated. The manufacturers' organisation EEF welcomed the strategy but expressed concern at plans to move power to plan skills strategies to the Regional Development Agencies, a move which it says was done without consultation with business. Director of policy Steve Radley said: "Employers have been crying out for simplification of the current confused and cluttered system. This strategy has to be the definitive move to a more demand-led system , driven by the needs of employers and learners . "However, we are sceptical about whether giving new powers to Regional Development Agencies is the right approach to planning skills strategies, when it is a sector-led view that will most accurately reflect the needs of business."