SEMTA CALLS ON EMPLOYERS TO MAKE SKILLS IMPROVEMENT THEIR NEW YEAR RESOLUTION
05/01/2011 Enginuity
Semta, the Sector Skills Council for Science, Engineering and Manufacturing Technologies, is calling for employers to kick off the New Year with plans to invest in workforce skills.Only a third of companies in these vital sectors started last year with a training plan or set aside a budget to invest in skills.
Philip Whiteman, Chief Executive of Semta said: "As England's cricket team testifies: if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. It is essential for companies to map out how they will develop the skills of their people to achieve their business objectives. There will be less public funding in future so we need to help get real returns on skills investment.
"As emerging markets gain ground on the UK, remaining competitive in the sectors where we have a world-leading heritage is challenge enough, let alone when faced with some of the toughest austerity measures the UK has ever seen. We are calling upon the 130,000 employers we represent to make skills investment their New Year resolution as the route to success for their business, their sector, and ultimately the UK economy.
"Investment in training needs to provide a bottom line return. Our focus in 2011 will be to work with employers and governments across the UK to ensure a policy focus on science, manufacturing and engineering skills is at the heart of rebalancing the economy. A sector based approach, delivering practical learning programmes that meet specific company and broader industry needs is the right way to provide real economic benefit and energise people and companies through learning."
Set against the backdrop of rising university fees and an ageing skilled workforce, Semta expects that apprenticeships will have a greater role than ever before in ensuring businesses have the right skills to grow. Research published earlier this year revealed 30-40% of workers in science, engineering and manufacturing are aged 45 plus. The Government's recent skills strategy announced funds for 75,000 new adult apprenticeship places per year; good news for Semta's employers, where new technical skills are crucial in filling the skills gaps caused by retirements. But with only 15% of engineering employers currently offering apprenticeships, Semta's innovative approach to apprenticeships will be critical in finding the 10,000 higher skilled employees needed each year between now and 2016.
Semta has already run programmes which stimulated apprenticeship growth, for example, where smaller employers share apprentice workplace development or where larger companies do the initial training of more apprentices than they need to help smaller companies in their supply chain.
Semta highlights in 2010
In 2010 Semta became one of the first Sector Skills Councils to offer a Higher Apprenticeship with clear progression from Young Apprenticeships. Access to the new Higher Apprenticeship in Engineering Technology will increase the number of high-level engineering technicians and incorporated engineers by 1,000 a year in England and Wales. In 2011, Semta will be supporting businesses and government, working with the National Apprenticeships Service and the Skills Funding Agency to ensure continued growth.
In 2010 also Semta continued to support employers in improving their bottom-line through training, delivering an average return on skills investment of 6:1. Semta's National Skills Academy for Manufacturing celebrated its third birthday following a successful review by the Skills Funding Agency, marking the end of the three year development period for the organisation. The Skills Academy was set up to deliver economic benefit through work-based learning for the manufacturing sector and this year alone has seen 60 new training providers sign up to support its work. It has now trained 12,300 learners.
In addition, Semta has successfully achieved 'submitting body status' for the new Qualifications and Credit Framework (QCF), which replaced the National Qualifications Framework in December 2010. For employers the QCF will enable them to get in-house training recognised within a national framework, and help them find the right training (often in "bite-sized" chunks) to match their business needs.
Semta has also developed two new National Occupational Standards, for composites engineers and systems engineers, which provide a description of the skills, knowledge and understanding needed to achieve a nationally recognised level of competence.
Semta's role is:
· Intelligence: researching skills issues and identifying industry priorities
· Influence: ensuring government and education understand the skills employers need to achieve improved performance and growth, for example, more students with STEM employability skills, ready for work.
· Infrastructure: developing industry standards, designing apprenticeship programmes and approving vocational qualifications to meet industry needs.
· Investment: helping employers find available funding for skills. Semta's sector compact (which is available through to March 2011) has helped to start business focussed training for 6,000 companies, create training plans for 2,000 companies (85% SMEs) and increase the number of people registering for National Vocational Qualifications by 25% to over 100,000.
· Impact: supporting employers get a return on investment from training by using business analysis tools such as high performance working and strategic workforce planning tools which match skills development to business needs.
For further information please visit: www.semta.org.uk
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