Divergent skills policy trajectories in England and Scotland after Leitch

Abstract

The UK Labour government has consistently argued that boosting the supply of skilled, qualified labour is ‘the key’ to national economic success and social justice, a position recently endorsed by the Leitch Review of Skills. However, while the argument that skills have an important role to play is widely accepted, Leitch's assertion that ‘skills are the most important lever’ remains contentious. Political devolution means that while the UK government retains control over skills policy in England, this is not the case in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland where education and training is a matter for their respective parliaments and assemblies. Indeed, there are interesting differences of approach emerging in terms of how the ‘skills problem’ is understood and the forms of policy interventions that are needed. While English policy-makers have embraced the Leitch agenda and are focused narrowly on boosting skills supply and matching overseas levels of qualification stocks, their Scottish counterparts are stressing the need for skills to be utilised effectively at work and are seeking to integrate skills policy within a wider business improvement, innovation and economic development agenda. This article examines these contrasting approaches, together with the main challenges they confront. It argues that there is an opportunity for Scotland to lead the way in developing a more integrative approach to skills policy that addresses key issues of skill demand and usage. However, translating this new policy position into practical policy interventions will require a process of policy learning. In the longer term, there is the potential for Scotland's approach to challenge the assumptions upon which English policy is based.

Keywords:

• devolution
• England
• Scotland
• skills policy
• skills utilisation

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Ewart Keep, Caroline Lloyd and Gareth Rees of SKOPE for their comments on an earlier draft of this article. Any errors of fact or reasoning are entirely my own.

Notes

1. Wales’ recently published skills and employment strategy (Welsh Assembly Government 2008) also stresses the importance of skill utilisation, noting that: ‘Skills will make the biggest difference to the prosperity of Wales when they are used effectively in Welsh workplaces’.

2. The new Commission replaces ‘the Skills Alliance’ in England which was a ministerially-led body, comprising representatives from the Trades Union Congress, the Confederation of British Industry and the Small Business Service, responsible for monitoring England's skills strategy, and also takes over the management of the SSC network from the SSDA.

3. Individual Learner Accounts (ILAs) were initially launched England in 2000 as a way of providing learning subsidies to adults and encouraging them to undertake particular forms of learning. ILA schemes were later created in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. ILA schemes were suspended throughout the UK in 2001 following evidence of fraudulent practice on the part of a small number of providers, but were subsequently re-launched in Wales and Scotland.

4. The target for the UK as a whole is to increase the number of apprenticeships to 500,000 by 2020 (Leitch 2006).

5. Since this article was originally drafted, the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning, Fiona Hyslop, has set up a Leadership Group to take forward the skill utilisation agenda in Scotland (see Scottish Government 2008) and a joint Scottish Government/UKCES-commissioned literature review in the topic has been produced by the Centre for Enterprise (CFE 2008). In Scotland, the Scottish Funding Council and Skills Development Scotland will work together on this agenda.