SkillsActive News

by Bertie Everard

SkillsActive, which is now regarded as an ‘exemplar’ SSC, has been successful in gaining approval to set up a National Skills Academy, which is due to become an operational reality by the autumn. It has also signed up to the Skills Pledge, which is the only route to Train to Gain funding. The sports, leisure and fitness sectors are more likely to benefit than the outdoors, although it should give a fillip to outdoor skills development in the North West.

The outdoor sector was not well represented at the SkillsActive Convention at Wembley Stadium on 1 May, which attracted nearly 400 people. Richard Caborn MP, Minister of Sport since 2001 (but now replaced by Gerry Sutcliffe), was the keynote speaker.

Two quotes about the future:
I look forward to the time when there is only one professional body for the whole industry, instead of all these NGBs; the industry is far too fragmented. We must be a fit-for-purpose organisation, so we must bring all these NGBs together.

The one area I have concern about is Further Education. There is a need to bring it together. It is a poor relation. It should be teaching young people to make a real difference (in answer to a subsequent question, he said he included Higher Education also).

His second point was echoed by a subsequent speaker, Mark Sensen, Managing Director of Greenwich Leisure Ltd, who complained that courses did not meet employers’ needs, and it was time for education and training to be employer-led. This would be done through the National Skills Academy ‘taking control’. He was supported by Steve Philpott, CEO of Leisure Management Ltd, who said that the public education system is not responding to our needs.

I was impressed by a fellow-chemist, Sir Robin Wales, Mayor of Newham and Board Member of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games, who saw the Games as a means to an end. While also criticising FE, he stressed the importance of inspiring people, as distinct from teaching them skills. The outcomes he wanted were social cohesion, leadership, ambition, enhanced self-image, health and well-being, creativity, participation in society and engagement. He could have added adventure, but didn’t. By contrast, Sir (now Lord) Digby Jones was fixated on skills alone.

Dr Pat Duffy, CEO of Sports Coach UK, pleaded for all 1.1 million coaches in the UK to be registered and licensed to practise.

Stephen Studd, CEO of SkillsActive, pleaded eloquently for the government to allocate to the sector a fairer proportion of the £133m of public money invested annually in qualifications, while only 17% of NGB awards receive any public funding. However, no-one from the government stayed to listen.

The SkillsActive Outdoor Employers Group met on 3 July, but was inquorate. A new chair was elected – Martin Robinson of Girlguiding. Peter Thompson, Outdoor Sector Manager, now responds to the Head of Sector Development. A new Outdoor Sector Census was proposed, to try to get more information about outdoor sector employers and their client throughput. The Group was updated on progress with the Sector Skills Agreement (SSA), which is acknowledged to be so far disappointing when measured as return on investment (of money and time) – but we live in hope! Recognisable outcomes from SkillsActive’s attempt to influence are few: the £100,000 received from the North West Development Agency is one, and an 11th hour allocation of unspent funds from the South West LSC was another (not involving consultation with outdoor employers, because there wasn’t time). No fundamental changes in the outlooks of decision-making bodies have been discerned. There is uncertainty about the future funding of apprenticeships. No summary of the outdoor section of the lengthy SSA has been written like the SPRITO Plans for Growth glossy. An outdoor-specific version of the Sector Qualification Strategy (SQS) is not expected till the autumn, but it is intended to be another document that will influence qualifications and their funding.

Funding has been obtained for two standards development projects, one to cover expeditions and exploration and the other, higher level outdoor standards (levels 4 and 5). The OEG will steer the projects, but hopefully more effectively than the Level 3 standards revision process was steered. It is intended to assemble ‘specialist working groups to ensure world class input’. There are obvious parallels with the IOL project to develop standards and professional qualifications at these levels, meeting the needs of employers, as a follow-on to APIOL; the intended users will be much the same for both initiatives. Although the approaches will differ, it was requested that links between the two will be forged o avoid unnecessary duplication of work by the same or similar busy people.

Induction standards for the outdoors’, leading to a nationally accepted award recognised by QCA, and deliverable independently of FE colleges, are on their way. The National Skills Academy based on COMET, now has a project manager and team being appointed, including two or three training providers. It is not known how these are being selected, but it is expected that arrangements will be in place by 23-24 July.

The Sector Skills Council meeting was discussed, critically, by those who attended. It was felt that in future councillors should work together to set the agenda, rather than be given long inputs from SkillsActive staff. Little or nothing concrete came out of the meeting, from an outdoor perspective. Likewise, a project entitled ‘European Qualifications Framework Outdoor Animators’ (‘Animator’ = ‘one who inspires, incites or puts in motion, eg through religious zeal’), involving a full partner 2-day meeting in France, appears to have yielded no outcomes useful to the outdoor sector. The minutes were mostly about procedures for claiming expenses. The next meeting is in Lithuania.

 Finally, I argued the need for joining up the thinking, in the current review of the youth work standards, between the SkillsActive (both Playwork and the Outdoors) and the Lifelong Learning SSC; also for reviewing the performance and effectiveness of the Outdoor Employers Group, eg by using the National Occupational Standards for Trustees and members of management committees. It was agreed to revert to this at the next meeting.

Bertie Everard

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