'End top-down approach to skills funding'
11 December 2009
The UK’s food industry skills chief has labelled the system of funding vocational qualifications ‘out of date’ and says businesses need more flexible assistance in training staff to help prepare for economic recovery
Jack Matthews, chief executive of food and drink sector skills council Improve, says the current policy of only funding training if employees complete a full accredited qualification fails to recognise the complex skills needs of most companies and puts many, particularly smaller businesses, off engaging with the skills agenda altogether.
“At present we have a one-size-fits-all approach to funding training in the workplace which assumes pre-set qualifications can answer the skills issues all businesses face,” said Matthews. “Qualifications might look good on league tables and on someone’s CV, but, as the Leitch Report warned three years ago, a top-down approach to skills and training is not the answer.
“What industry needs is confidence in and choice of training that will deliver real benefits. In the current economic climate, investing in the skills of employees is a sound means of improving efficiency and performance which will help a business prepare for recovery. But with budgets being squeezed, employers need help. Pre-packaged qualifications can never address the specific skills needs of all individual businesses, so there is a degree of inefficiency about the millions being poured into them.
“In its latest white paper on skills, the government said it wanted to remodel the system so the cost of training was shared more evenly between employers and the state. That is fine, as long as the government is flexible about the kind of training it will make public funds available for, and therefore guarantees to employers that they will get matched assistance in the skills development they really need. This means linking funding to skills attainment rather than qualifications, either through short courses or individual units within broader qualifications. That way, employers can have confidence that they are getting bespoke training directly relevant to their business needs, and the government can be sure public money is being used more efficiently to target specific shortages.”
Matthews said the introduction of the Qualifications and Credit Framework (QCF), a new credit-based system for accrediting qualifications, would allow for a more flexible approach to funding. “This credit-based approach means people can learn one, two or three steps at a time, increasing the flexibility and relevance of the training as well as offering more opportunities to progress on to higher skills,” he said. “It makes sense to link funding to the accumulative attainment of credits and their relevance and application in the workplace, rather than simply to the final qualification, otherwise the theory and the practice won’t match. The government must recognise this and allow skills and training to become truly demand-led and responsive to the needs of industry.”
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