Manufacturers’ group launches commission to track down talent for industry

Businesses, employees, educators and policy makers have united to create an industrial skills blueprint to find and train talent for industry.

Manufacturers’ organisation Make UK has launched the Industrial Strategy Skills Commission to help solve the skills deficit in manufacturing and engineering.

It brings together experts in education, training and industry to diagnose problems and carve new talent pathways into manufacturing.

Co-chaired by former Minster for Skills, Apprenticeships and Higher Education Robert Halfon and former Deputy Leader of the Labour Party Tom Watson, now Baron Watson of Wyre Forest, the Commission will identify key priorities and highlight issues.

The Commissioners are supported by an advisory group of leading education experts, industry experts and policy makers.

Other commission members include Oxfordshire-based Dame Judith Hackitt, former Chair of the Health and Safety Executive and current Interim Chair of the Office for Nuclear Regulation, and Dr John Neill CBE, former Executive Chairman of Oxford-based Unipart  .

Advisory board members include Rowan Crozier, chief executive of Birmingham-based metal stamping and precision toolmaking specialist Brandauer, and Simon Connell who heads Baker Dearing Educational Trust which supports more than 40 technical colleges including University Technical Colleges in Swindon and Portsmouth.

Other advisory board members are Brian Holliday, member of the Executive Management Board of Oxfordshire-based Siemens plc who is also Chairman of Siemens Digital Industries and Chairman of Siemens Industry Software UK.

Many manufacturers are struggling to recruit, with some 58,000 unfilled live vacancies, while apprentice starts have fallen by 42%, since the Apprenticeship Levy was introduced seven years ago.

Make UK also says there hasn’t been enough uptake of T-levels, designed to deliver technical skills, ‘to make a meaningful difference’.

The Industrial Strategy Skills Commission will meet regularly, supported by the advisory board.

Commissioners will gather written evidence from stakeholders and visit manufacturers and training providers to look for best practice, before reporting their findings to government early next year.

Robert Halfon, Co-Chair of Make UK’s Industrial Strategy Skills Commission said: “The new Industrial Strategy Skills Commission has urgent work to do.

“This unique bringing together of business, industry, government, educational experts and providers and policy makers must change the perceptions of working in industry and find the quickest and most effective way of attracting the best talent into the engineering and manufacturing sectors.

“The new government has committed to reforming the current Apprenticeship Levy and replacing it with a Skills and Growth Levy.

“But it is imperative that we make sure this new levy provides enough of the right apprenticeship opportunities at all levels so that employers across the length and breadth of the country have access to the skills they and our country need to grow.”

 Tom Watson, Baron Watson of Wyre Forest and Co-Chair of Make UK’s Industrial Strategy Skills Commission, added: “I have long advocated for a robust Industrial Strategy and supported Make UK in highlighting how the United Kingdom was unique among advanced economies in lacking such a strategy, a gap which has stifled our industrial success.

“Labour’s new Industrial Strategy will be pivotal in reigniting growth and providing a much-needed boost to British industry, which requires a stable environment to foster investment, unlike the inconsistent initiatives of recent years.

“At its core, the strategy must include a dynamic and practical skills plan to supply the trained workforce businesses desperately need to thrive.”

 And Stephen Phipson CBE, Chief Executive of Make UK, said: “The Industrial Strategy can only succeed if businesses have access to people with the right skills.

“The new Industrial Strategy Skills Commission will look at the cumulative training and recruitment issues currently facing the manufacturing sector and drill down for the best solutions.

“Our latest research is showing the demand for companies looking to upskill their current workforce continuing to rise at a time that the pipeline for technical teachers is declining.

“Add to that the fall in the number of new people coming into the sector, an ageing workforce and more people than ever taking early retirement, the result is significant skills gaps across the workforce which need to be tackled quickly if industry is to grow and prosper.”