By Elke Heins (University of Edinburgh) and Steven Ballantyne (Freie Universität Berlin). Image by Easy-Peasy.AI.
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The UK’s skills landscape is undergoing significant reform in response to a rapidly transforming economy, and having the right skills in the right places has been identified as key to achieving a fair and successful transition to net zero. An SPA-funded collaborative workshop at the University of Edinburgh brought together academics, policymakers and practitioners from across the UK to discuss some of the challenges to and ambitions for ensuring the provision of the skills required for the transition to net zero.
Constrained divergence in UK skill formation systems and the intersectoral character of skills policy
The scene was set by a presentation of the co-organisers on how the UK’s growth model and welfare state constrain policy divergence in skill formation at the devolved level. While the presenters illustrated that there is significant substate divergence in policy rhetoric and governance, they presented less divergence in policy outputs and outcomes. To explain the findings, they argued that skill formation cuts across several policy areas that are driven by overarching institutional legacies and economic logics, and these are difficult to counter at the devolved level.
This cross-cutting character of skill formation was acknowledged by all participants. There was broad consensus that responsibility for skills policy should therefore lie with a government division that cuts across government departments due to the intersection of skills policy with education, labour markets, and wider industrial strategies to meet relevant social and ecological aims. It was pointed out, however, that existing policy silos make the necessary civil service reform challenging. The attainment gap, parity of esteem amongst all post-16 education routes, and a just transition to a decarbonised economy featured highly amongst the further challenges discussed on the day.
Parity of esteem and closing the attainment gap
Participants were inspired by learning about two pioneering examples from Scotland on how to foster the formation of skills relevant the green transition while closing the attainment gap. The first of such projects is the Foundation Apprenticeship (FA) scheme, a pathway into work primarily for 16–17-year-olds. Typically, FAs involve senior phase students going to a workplace (where they are assigned a personal mentor) one whole day or a couple of afternoons a week while still attending school.
Recent research from the OECD highlighted that what is crucial in workforce and skills formation is a systemic career pathways programme. The OECD highlighted Scotland’s Foundation Apprenticeships as an excellent, scaleable and systemic programme providing pathways from FAs to modern apprenticeships to degree apprenticeship, which are co-designed and delivered by industry. In Aberdeenshire, FAs are delivering positive and sustained outcomes include improvements in attendance, engagement, confidence, and mental health. The scheme has been so successful that the attainment gap has not just been closed but even reversed with students from more deprived backgrounds achieving better results when taking FAs than those from less deprived backgrounds. It is the formally assessed work-based element, the meaningful interaction with a mentor in the workplace, and focus on real-life practical skills that seems to make all the difference for the learners. The fact that middle-class parents have started to consider vocational training on equal grounds to more traditional academic routes has been hailed as an indicator of parity of esteem. Meanwhile, employers appreciate the broader range of talent they are getting and the opportunities to work with motivated pupils to build the skills that industry needs. Importantly, FAs address workforce development challenges and skills gaps in the region, particularly in the energy sector.
Building the skills that the green energy sector needs is also the focus of the National Energy Skills Accelerator, another successful example from the North East of Scotland in providing access to new skills and capabilities needed for the move to net zero. NESA is a partnership between Robert Gordon University, the University of Aberdeen and North East Scotland College and is supported by key partners from business as well as Skills Development Scotland (SDS) and Energy Transition Zone Ltd. The importance of a partnership approach and buy-in from employers was highlighted by several workshop participants in ensuring the success of initiatives. Policy predictability is another key factor for skills training provision and any questioning of the commitment to net zero is causing damage for planning. Educational institutions and training providers are effectively part of the energy supply chain – supplying skilled workers – and are often impacted by market, policy, and project uncertainty. It is well known that changes in policy and government have a knock-on effect on investor confidence and commitments, which in turn can delay or stall project progress. This has a direct impact on job availability, as well as demand and funding for skills development. In order to prepare the workforce for energy transition employment opportunities skills development must be informed by industry needs, have sufficient ring-fenced funding, and start now.
Policy innovation and learning from best practice
A concluding roundtable with representatives from SDS, STUC, the Scottish Government, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), the think tank policyWISE, and academic experts reflected on the challenges of providing skills for the net-zero transition, shared existing good policy practice and reported on recent reforms. While we heard a lot about good policy practice from Scotland, lessons can also be learned from Wales. This is the UK nation with the most integrated post-16 education and skills service overseen by an arm’s length body for funding, which oversees all tertiary education and research. There was some debate about whether the Welsh approach could have even gone further. At a UK-wide level, there is also important policy innovation with the institutionalisation of Skills England and the move of adult skills from the Department for Education to the Department for Work and Pensions to help get more people into skilled work, e.g. in housing and construction. Several local trailblazers and the development of the new Jobs and Careers Service will work to encourage closer collaboration with employers and to enable more people to retain work and progress on the job will provide evidence on which interventions can be upscaled to support economic growth and break down barriers to opportunity. Training and re-skilling provided by trade unions is an additional lever to complement state-driven approaches. Lessons can also be learned internationally as jobcentres in many European countries have always been more than just benefit (and sanctioning) agencies.
The demand for skills and their supply through policy vary across the regions and nations of the UK. This workshop highlighted that taking into account local labour market needs, as well as changing demographics, is essential to any successful skills policy, not least in the context of the transition to net zero.
Author bios:
Dr Elke Heins, Senior Lecturer in Social Policy, School of Social and Political Science, University of Edinburgh
Dr Steven Ballantyne, Postdoctoral Researcher at Freie Universität Berlin