Conservatives are being urged to lift the life-chances of the 1.25 million 16-24 year-olds who are not in education, employment or training, and to improve the opportunities of all young people who are in training.
<span />To boost their hopes, harness their ambitions and enhance their prospects, the report of the Conservative Party’s Vocational Skills Working Group argues for a radical overhaul of state funding for skills training.
<span />The aim is to give industry the trainees it needs and trainees the jobs they want.
<span />The group, which forms part of the Economic Competitiveness Policy Group, argues that the training system is at present unable to fill Britain’s skills gap because it is an unresponsive, top-down bureaucracy. The Group recommends a <strong>new, demand-led system</strong> in which:
<span />-?????????????????? <strong>industry rather than bureaucracies identify the types of training needed by future employers;</strong>

<strong /><strong>
-?????????????????? <strong>the allocation of taxpayer funding to particular courses follows student choice; and</strong>

</strong>-?????????????????? <strong>
-?????????????????? <strong>a new careers service guides trainees to courses that lead to real jobs</strong>.

</strong>-?????????????????? .
<span />The Group also recommends a new employer-based apprenticeships system which would restore the importance of apprenticeships in the education system.
<span />Commenting on the proposals, John Redwood, the Chairman of the Economic Competitiveness Policy Group, said:
<span />It is a scandal that so many young people are not in jobs or receiving worthwhile training. Our skills system is expensive, bureaucratic and not nearly effective enough. There are too few apprenticeships, too few young people undertaking Level 3 vocational training and the success rate is too low. We recommend ridding ourselves of the clumsy architecture of the current skills quangos, and replacing it with a system which is driven by student choice and business needs.?
<span />John Hayes, Shadow Minister for Vocational Education, said:
<span />This report tackles the scandal of the 1.25 million 16-24 year olds who are not in education, employment or training a lost generation that deserves better. To meet this challenge we want to see the value of vocational training elevated within society. In any other field, if only half of those people enrolled on courses completed them, it would be a national scandal this is the case with apprenticeships, and it is unacceptable. Apprenticeships must be the right vehicle for boosting skills in the economy and adding value to the organisation and individual involved.?
<span /><strong>The report argues that Britain is under-skilled:
</strong>

<span />
<ul type="disc">
<li>Just 28% of Britons are qualified to apprentice, skilled craft and technician levels, compared to 51% of the French and 65% of Germans.</li>
</ul>
<span />
<ul type="disc">
<li>The UK has a higher proportion of the workforce with low or no qualifications, compared with its main competitors in the USA, France and Germany.</li>
</ul>
<span />
<ul type="disc">
<li>The UK is 17^th out of the 30 OECD countries, in a comparison of post-16 rates of participation in the economy.</li>
</ul>
<span />
<ul type="disc">
<li>The proportion of the UK workforce with Level 4 qualifications ranks 11^th in the OECD.</li>
</ul>
<span />
<ul type="disc">
<li>The UK is placed 17^th on the World Economic Forum’s Human Capital league.</li>
</ul>
<span /><strong>The report puts forward a new analysis of why Britain is under-skilled:
</strong><span />
<ul type="disc">
<li>The training system is dominated by the Learning and Skills Council (LSC), with its nine regional and forty-seven local offices (now moving to 148 local partnerships).</li>
</ul>
<span />
<ul type="disc">
<li>This large bureaucracy absorbs over ??250 million in meeting its own administrative costs, but spends only 16% (??1.7 billion) of its funding on intermediate skills training.</li>
</ul>
<span />
<ul type="disc">
<li>The LSC, rather than business, takes the lead in determine what sort of training is offered; as a result, much of the training is not properly matched to the needs of the marketplace.</li>
</ul>
<span />
<ul type="disc">
<li>Trainees do not receive adequate help in making choices about the course that will lead to real jobs, because the Connexions service is not a careers service focused on the job market.</li>
</ul>
<span />And finally:
<span />
<ul type="disc">
<li>The LSC also runs the apprenticeship system, with employers playing a subservient role; this has resulted in only 20% of so-called apprenticeships being employer-based, and only 5% of employers providing training directly themselves.</li>
</ul>
<span /><strong>To attack these causes of under-skilling, the report recommends</strong>:
<span />
<ul type="disc">
<li>Replacing the complex funding architecture of national, regional and local LSCs, the Sector Skills Development Agency, and the Regional Development Agencies by a single, simple system, in which money follows the trainee. (Funds of the same quantity as at present would flow from the DfES to the trainee’s local authority, and from there, on behalf of that trainee, to a training provider.)</li>
</ul>
<span />
<ul type="disc">
<li>Giving the employer-based Sector Skills Councils (SSCs) the responsibility for:</li>
</ul>
<span />
<ul type="disc">
<ul type="circle">
<li>Designing training programmes with training providers, to ensure that they match employer needs;</li>
<li>Working with accreditation bodies to shape qualifications that reflect the needs of industry; and</li>
<li>Providing the DfES with information on the job market, which enables the department to set entry criteria for training that weights the allocation of finite funding towards the skills requirements of the market.</li>
</ul>
</ul>
<span />
<ul type="disc">
<li>Establishing, as a partial replacement of the Connexion service, a dedicated Careers Advisory Service, which would make a reality of trainee choice by offering:</li>
</ul>
<span />
<ul type="disc">
<ul type="circle">
<li>Knowledgeable advice that is tailored to both trainee and business needs, maximising young people’s chances of employment; and</li>
<li>Advice on applicants’ eligibility for state funding.</li>
</ul>
</ul>

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