Skills policy flip-flops damaging industry – C&G Group14 October 2014

Constant change over the past three decades has damaged the UK's skill system, according to the City & Guilds Group.

Its latest report – Sense & Instability: three decades of skills and employment policy – has scrutinised the policies of successive administrations on skills and employment and recommended:

• Better long-term planning for skills policy that is linked to long-term economic forecasts
• Greater coherence between central government policymaking and local implementation
• Greater scrutiny of changes to skills policy to deliver better taxpayer value for money
• Better checks and balances to remove the risk of politics influencing policy decisions.

Sir John Armitt, chairman of City & Guilds, said: "They say that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. It would be madness to ignore the evidence of three decades of skills and employment policy – yet our politicians have failed to learn from the past. This report is a wake-up call to all policymakers. I urge all parties – irrespective of political colours or ideology – to look and learn."

The report revealed that there have been 61 Secretaries of State responsible for skills and employment policy in the last three decades (compared with 18 for schools policy and 16 for higher education) and, between them, they produced 13 major Acts of Parliament.

City & Guilds added: "The policy area has flipped between departments or been shared with multiple departments no fewer than 10 times since the 1980s. Consistent churn has created a collective amnesia and growing lack of organisational memory at political and official levels."

Mikki Draggoo, head of corporate relations at the City & Guilds Group, added: "We've seen politicians from every party making pledges about what they will do to close the UK's skills gap. But a successful system is too important to sacrifice for a headline that will be recycled as yesterday's news.

"The best action politicians can take to help employers get the skills they need is to think carefully before taking action. Stable, long-term planning is the key to success here. Learning from past successes and mistakes and giving new policies a chance to mature will yield much better, long-lasting results – and ultimately sustainable economic growth."

Ian Vallely

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