1. The UK skills system


The Skills Commission, an independent body comprising leading figures from across the education sector, published a substantial guide to the UK skills system in 2015.


It defines the skills system as an “umbrella term encompassing a wide range of vocational education and training in both the private and the public sectors. It covers all levels and life stages, and the diverse network of groups that provide, support, and benefit from these opportunities”.


“There is a vast range of vocational education and training which covers the informal accrual of skills by exposure to work-like environments or tasks to formally certificated and long term courses. Levels of training also range from the provision of basic English and maths skills at Entry Level or Level 1, through to highly technical degree-based apprenticeships, and everything from employability and offender learning in between”.


The Skills Commission says the skills system can be seen as two overlapping systems: a private system of skills development led and funded by employers and individuals; and a public system supported and funded by government. “The private system meets market needs and the public system has a duty to ensure people are sufficiently skilled for the labour market, supporting productivity and economic growth.”


The ultimate goal of policymakers, says the Commission, is to strengthen both these systems, and crucially the links between them, while “avoiding the moral hazard of disincentivising employers to train.”


The skills system also covers multiple policy areas and government departments. “Here, education, further and higher education, adult skills, employer engagement, welfare, and industrial strategy all converge”.


The Commission makes clear that there is an urgent need for reform not least because there are serious skills shortages in the UK economy, but demographic changes are also increasing the pressure: “The UK has an ageing population, and replacement labour demand due to retirement is predicted to hit key growth sectors of the economy. At the other end of the spectrum, a dip in the 16- 19-year-old population will be followed by a significant growth in this demographic entering further education and training in the 2020s.”


The Skills Commission report, Guide to the skills system 2015, includes the following key findings:


• 51% of 16- to 18-year-olds in education and training follow vocational and technical training programmes including apprenticeships;


• a greater number of 16- to 18-year-olds study in further education (FE) colleges and sixth form colleges than in schools;


• of all 16- to 18-year-olds, currently around 6% start apprenticeships;


• each year further education (FE) colleges educate and train over 3.1 million people;


• over 1.2 million courses in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) subjects are undertaken by students at FE colleges;


• 254 FE colleges provide undergraduate and postgraduate level courses and 144,000 students study higher education in an FE college;


• 21.7% of young full-time undergraduate entrants registered at FE colleges were from neighbourhoods with low rates of participation in higher education, more than double the equivalent rate (10.4%) at universities;


• 97% of colleges recruit learners via Jobcentre Plus;


• further education is not just provided by colleges. It is also delivered by over 3,000 independent training providers in England as well as the third sector, employers, offender learning, and so on;


• the success rate for apprenticeships in 2013-14 was 68.9% compared to 73.8% in 2011-12, a decline of 4.9 percentage points; and


• the economic return to the Treasury from adult apprenticeships spending is around £18 per £1 of government funding.