TUC urges ministers to brush up on their German

The report, called 'German Lessons: Developing industrial policy in the UK looks at how government approaches to industry in Germany and the UK have differed since 1945', comes up with a number of suggestions as to "how a more strategic, intelligent and active approach to government industrial policy could reap huge dividends for British manufacturing and the UK economy". It says that in the UK there is a great deal of emphasis on large firms and on the very smallest companies, but little thought or support is given over to medium-sized enterprises. Yet in Germany, the 'mittelstand' – a network of thousands of medium companies – is the backbone of the economy and a crucial part of the German supply chain. The report contends that the concept of the social market is as dear a principle to the German people as the NHS is to the British public, and an economic system which brings management and workers together and has at its heart a strong positive role for unions and employers gave German firms a very definite advantage as the global economic slowdown began to take hold. The TUC report also says that talented graduates in the UK are less likely to choose a career in industry than they are in Germany, and this combined with a three-year vocational training programme provides a massive boost to the country's manufacturing firms. Similarly Germany makes much more use of apprenticeships – around 40 per cent of school leavers are taken on by employers for three years, whereas in the UK only 6 per cent of 16-18 year olds were on apprenticeships in 2010, and most of these were for little more than a year. TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said: "The government has got to adopt a smarter, more intelligent approach to the development of its industrial policy. The UK economy is crying out for assistance and a revival in our manufacturing sector – and less of a dependence on the financial sector – will be a crucial factor in delivering growth and creating thousands of much-needed jobs." Included in the report are a number of policy recommendations including: · The creation of a UK version of the social market to include the introduction of German-style employee representatives on works councils. · A concentration of effort on high skill, high value manufacturing sectors. · Urgent action on skills. · Increased support for medium-sized companies. · The creation of a strategic investment bank. · A smarter approach to procurement Research in the report is based on interviews with managers and union officials at German companies or German-owned companies based in the UK. Five companies in Germany are featured in the report – Volkswagen, Siemens, ThyssenKrupp, BASF and Airbus, and four from the UK – Bentley (owned by Volkswagen), Siemens, BMW and Roballo Engineering (ThyssenKrupp).