Economic Development Association Scotland (EDAS) Seminar, Skills Investment to Accelerate Recovery,
11 June 2009, at 16 Forth Street, Edinburgh, EH1 3LH
Mark Batho
Funding a skilled future for Scotland
EDAS should perhaps congratulate itself on setting something of a trend in these “Road to Recovery” seminars. Those of you who enjoy your political satire will have noticed that this week’s Bremner, Bird and Fortune was billed as “the last show before the recovery.” If, indeed, the recovery started after they went off air on Sunday we’re now officially four days into it – so no time to waste!
The question posed on the EDAS web site before this seminar was “do we have the funds to create a skilled future for Scotland?” and I’ve the slightly uncomfortable feeling I might be the man who’s been lined up to give an answer on this. Well here goes: I don’t know. Ask me another question “do we have the wherewithal…?” and you’ve given me something I can talk about.
In fact I’d almost swap “wherewithal” for “funding” as a title for my organisation. It describes what we do quite well. Within a system of independent, self-governing colleges and universities we supply the wherewithal for them to provide learning, develop skills, create and exchange knowledge and contribute to the economic, social and cultural prospects of the nation. You see funding is finite – there’s never enough of it. Wherewithal is almost infinite - it comprises knowledge and experience, leadership, innovation, partnerships, potential and determination as well as money and it gives you much more scope to achieve your goals.
In the next 15 minutes or so I want to take you through examples of how this knowledge and experience, leadership,
Let me start by telling you what we know about how recessions affect learners.
We know that rises in unemployment levels hit particularly hard at young people, at those with little in the way of skills or qualifications and at those living in areas that already suffer the most from deprivation. We know too that if we ignore the challenges this knowledge brings then we would be guilty of helping to create another “lost generation”. We have been here before and we know how costly this would be for individuals and for society as a whole. The link between unemployment, poverty, deprivation, poor health and life chances are well documented and obvious to everyone.
One of the skills we’re developing as a strategic funding body is how we use our position to broker partnerships and build relationships more widely than we have in the past. Our new corporate plan, which is published next week, is a team sheet as well as a game plan. We’ve spent time considering not only what we want to achieve and how we can achieve it but also who we need to have working alongside us. We see business as one of our key partnership, not just in skills but in areas such as employability, research and knowledge exchange. If you go to our website after next Friday you will see it has been redesigned to match the corporate plan and that there is now a new service to allow businesses to understand how our work fits with the wider economy and to see how they can get closer to Scotland’s universities and colleges to create a competitive edge for economic recovery.
Alongside our colleagues at Skills Development Scotland we have a leadership role in helping to improve that crucial match between what employers need and what colleges and universities are providing – the essence of creating a skilled future for an economically sustainable Scotland. This is on-going work, of course, but the current economic situation requires us to respond to a rapidly changing situation.
Recently we have been investigating changes in the demand for learning and using our findings as the basis for discussions with colleges and universities about prioritising provision. As a result our main grant letter to colleges, for example, was very clear in asking colleges to prioritise our funding towards provision designed to improve people’s employment prospects. It also asked colleges to address the increasing demand for longer and full time courses and to weigh the importance of these against leisure and recreational provision
We are also considering the regional implications of the recession. We need to help colleges and universities in these areas that have been particularly hard hit by the recession to respond to local and regional challenges. We also need to be very closely in tune with industry sectors at the moment and understand the dynamics and scale of opportunities to accelerate recovery. We do not want to lead a kneejerk reaction that, for example, trains more engineers for wind farms than the industry can sustain in the short to medium term. We have to be realistic about businesses’ ability to absorb the skills we’re creating for the future.
I mentioned earlier the place of innovation and just wanted to take a bit of time now to talk through some of the initiatives we have introduced to help skill Scotland through the recession.
One of our first interventions for skills in the economic downturn was to invest £2 million in a new funding partnership with Skills Development Scotland. We have since added a further £5 million to this. It’s a departure for the Council in that it’s an underwriting scheme for colleges responding to local redundancy issues through the Partnership Action for Continuing Employment (PACE) programme.
When firms experience difficulty and the PACE team gets involved in trying to find employment opportunities for the workforce, the first stop is very often the local college. Colleges are been keen to support these local interventions but need the resources to be able to do so. Our underwriting scheme was a fast and appropriate response to a need emerging from the recession and fits strategically with the longer term responses we are currently developing.
For example, we are currently consulting on our employability strategy Learning to Work 2, which we are refreshing in light of the current challenges. Helping create a culture of innovation, enterprise and entrepreneurship is absolutely crucial to coming out stronger at the end of the recession.
The Council’s Skills Committee is taking forward the whole question of workforce development and skills utilisation. Last Friday, Fiona Hyslop announced 12 projects that work as a programme to develop this area and help strengthen the link between colleges and universities on the one hand and businesses on the other. We know that colleges and universities have a lot to offer to businesses but we also know that these links could and should grow much stronger, and this is where I feel the Council can add real value as a catalyst for releasing potential.
And finally …. The money
I was very pleased to learn of last week’s announcement by the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning that the Scottish Government is to make available an additional £28.1 million of funding for colleges. The money is to be invested by us over the next two years and the Government has been quite specific about what it wants to achieve with it – it’s to help colleges respond to the needs of individuals and businesses during the economic downturn. Our Council Board meets a week on Friday to look at the details but our discussions will be focussed on how we can further help people to learn new skills for new jobs
Let me conclude by saying that all of the above examples and I can give you many more, don’t treat colleges and universities in isolation. As well as the range of public bodies Scottish Enterprise, Skills Development Scotland, these initiatives have input from the unions, employer organisations and Sector Skills Councils. This partnership working, bringing together employers Sector Skills Councils, colleges and the public bodies is central to the success of the Scottish economy.
A great example of this is a project developed by Anniesland and Carnegie Colleges in conjunction with SEMTA, a private training provider and Skills Development Scotland. The Accelerated MA will tie in with the aircraft carrier contract at Babcock’s and BVT sites in the Forth and Clyde respectively. It clearly highlights the roles for a proactive sectors skills council, well linked colleges and public sector organisation that speak not only to each other but to the businesses and individuals of Scotland. Our young people should certainly be the focus for our investment today and in the future
I hope this gives you a bit of a flavour of what we do and where are we going. If you should read in the papers of a newly re-named funding body rejoicing in the title Scottish Wherewithal Council remember you heard it here first! Meanwhile I would welcome any questions.