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We have worked with NAMTEC and the AEMStudents programme during its first year. I was very pleased with the student who came to work with us for 3 months. Some excellent development work regarding pelleting technology advances, and there was a business school that he attended half way through the placement too.

Perhaps the selection stages were too long and laborious which could put potential employers (and employees) off the course.

But I would recommend this type of programme to others - a programme that puts the meaning back into why enter a career in Engineering and Advanced metals - Excitment of doing something new and innovative.

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QED was founded in 1990 as a charity in Bradford. We want to contribute to a society based on the belief that there can be unity in diversity. A society which is more cohesive and where people from all backgrounds are valued as individuals.
We believe that this vision is only possible if peolple truly feel inclusive part of society.At present this is not the case.

We need around half a million more ethnic minorites into jobs to address the huge employment rate gap that exists between the minority communites and the general population. As you would expect some groups are more affeted than others-for example those of Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin. This MUST be addresses as a prioity.

Linked to that are the barriers due to poor education performance and poor take up of vocational training programmes. The government must adress these issues too.

One addional barrier is the attitude of employers. According to an employers body, up to half the employment rate gap mentioned above can be explained by unfair employer discrimination!! This means even if supply side barriers of the labour market are addresses the gap will still persist if employers dont change their perceptions about these communities.

Adreesing these issues are also importnat considering that a large increase in the the labour force in the next ten years will come from minirity ethnic communites in the UK.

Finally, the government MUST make more use of community based employment and traing agencies, like QED, that are led by minority ethnic peole as partners to address these issues.

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RELOCATE OUTSIDE LONDON
I spent the first 24 years of my life living in London. When I was a student at University College London, I used to travel in on the Underground and every carriage carried an advertisement showing a happy person surrounded by green fields and accompanied by the catchphrase 'work out of London, get more out of life'. As someone who has worked both inside and outside of London, I am certain that this statement is as true today as it was when I was a student. However, such advertisements, which were run by the Government in those days, are never seen any more. As well as getting more out of life, moving as many publicly-funded services as possible out of London would have many other benefits including huge reductions in building costs for public buildings, huge savings in time (and hence increased productivity) due to greatly reduced commuting to and from work, less use of combustible fuels and fewer traffic jams. Yet, exactly the opposite is happening. In my own area, a proposal to build the UK Centre for Medical Research and Innovation has recently been given the go ahead and will be built near the centre of London with funding from the MRC as well as the major medical charities, the Wellcome Trust and Cancer Research UK. I understand that the cost of this building will be around £600 million and that it will house perhaps 1200 scientific and support staff. It will involve the movement of the National Institute for Medical Research currently housed on the outskirts of North London to Central London. As the Director of a MRC Unit and Director of Research at the College of Life Sciences at Dundee for over 20 years, which comprises 850 scientific and support staff and is widely regarded as one of the leading research centres in the life sciences in Europe, I know that to rebuild our research complex from scratch to an extremely high specification would cost about £100 million and that a building 50% bigger i.e. equivalent to UK CMRI would cost £150 million only a quarter of what I understand to be the projected cost of this project in London. While the arguments for an against this project are complex, and the Wellcome Trust and CRUK being independent charities are welcome to spend their money as they see fit, it seems mistaken to me to initiate projects that will involve moving more people into Central London, when there are much less expensive locations where they would probably flourish equally well. This type of devolution would have many other long term benefits for the UK in terms of ensuring a fair redistribution of wealth and talent.

I hope that these brief thoughts will inform the recommendations that you will be making to Government in September.

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RESEARCH OVERHEAD EXPENDITURE
When the MRC or BBSRC award a research grant to a scientist in a University, in addition to the money that is awarded to conduct the research itself, an 'overhead' element is also added to help the University maintain the infrastructure and support services that are needed for the research to flourish. In order to assess how much overhead is needed, Universities need to fill in complex forms to justify every penny of overhead they are applying for. As a result, there are armies of people employed in Universities up and down the country whose remit it is to extract every last penny of overhead out of the Research Councils. To keep these growing demands at bay, the Research Councils in turn employ people to scrutinise these claims very closely. Thus an expensive, unproductive bureaucratic machinery has mushroomed quite unnecessarily. In addition, the overheads that are frequently now awarded amount to as much or more as the direct cost of conducting the research itself, which is not only excessive but has had other serious consequences. Firstly, such high overheads provide no incentive for the Universities to become more efficient and reduce their own central administrative costs, and nor is it clear that the overhead is used to directly to support the research that is being undertaken. Secondly, the huge overheads now linked to grants have made the cost of carrying out basic research in the UK extremely expensive in comparison to other countries. This has resulted in the UK’s major pharmaceutical industry reducing its interactions with UK Universities at exactly the moment when one would have hoped for an expansion. I was recently shocked to learn that GlaxoSmith Kline’s investment in the UK Universities is only one third of what it was only a few years ago – it is going overseas instead. A research overhead is essential but, in my opinion, a perfectly adequate amount would be 50% of the sum that is awarded to conduct the research itself i.e. the overhead would be a third of the total amount of the grant. If all research grants carried such a fixed overhead, this would eliminate at a stroke the whole bureaucratic machinery, which should reduce the administrative costs of the Research Councils and the Universities, and encourage more pharmaceutical investment in the UK’s Universities. I suspect that similar steps to simply procedures, taken in other areas of government, would save a significant amount of public money and greatly improve efficiency.

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ebns is one of the six regeneration zones set up by Advantage West Midlands. Our Connections to Opportunities report highlights a significant range of problems faced by employers and new employees which result from the present delivery of skills and training for work. In our view these issues will not be addressed through new qualifications but by a change of approach to people with no or low skills. We suggest that menntoring and coaching for employers is part of the solution to the skills problem.

Specific probems cited include:

Ignorance of the workplace culture on the part f the workless returners. Poor punctuality, attendance, conduct and work ethic combine to undermine employment stability. Without support, these problems go unaddressed and sustaining work becomes very difficult.

Many employers are over-reliant on pre-employment preparation to address these issues. Moreover, many organisations lack any kind of structured internal employee development programme.
For many workless people, a history of failure, represented by the ‘benefits trap’, low academic attainment, and underperformance in previous jobs generate familiarity with low levels of success and a lack of motivation. Disengaged employers, and co-workers with similar problems exacerbate these issues.
Many workless people lack aspiration due, in part, to inter-generational worklessness, or perpetual low-skilled or sporadic employment. Many lack knowledge of how to advance and what is required to do so. Many do not know that they can advance at all.
Many more bring to employment a lack of confidence and poor positive mental attitude. A history of failure and familiarity with low levels of success is damaging to self-esteem and self-worth and can lead to attitudinal issues.
Employers often have extremely negative attitudes towards hiring workless people. Many employers consulted by the C2O Project perceived workless people to be high risk and high cost, requiring time, money and resources to equip them with the generic and job-specific skills, knowledge, values and attitudes required to perform productively. SMEs tend to be particularly wary as cost-associated risks tend to be higher for smaller businesses.

Many workless people lack job readiness at the point at which they enter employment. Many workless people lack key generic and employability skills, including communication and self-confidence, required to enter and sustain employment, while many face significant personal or financial constraints (such as long term health problems or childcare needs).

There are also significant structural problems with employment preparation mechanisms. Employment preparation has improved but there remain insufficient systems or structures for the ‘carrying-over’ of the employability skills, support and services developed during pre-employment into the workplace. When the long term workless move into paid work, they are unable to sustain their position.

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The GMB is a major UK Trade Union representing more than 600,000 workers in all sectors of the economy. We participate in many of the existing Sector Skills Councils and welcome the opportunity to comment on steps to simplify the UK skills system.

It appears to us based on direct experience that there is a considerable duplication and potential waste of resources in SSC’s covering UK Manufacturing industry. We see a strong role for SSC merger in this area.

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The NCWE promotes, develops and supports qaulity work experience for the benefit of students, employers and the economy.

Any restructuring, re-design or intergration of existing organisations and services needs to inlcude simple advice and guidance to employes which addresses:

1) the range of qualifications/skills that require work experience as a mandaotry element(e.g. GCSE, Diploma, Foundation degree, UG industrial Placements, Apprenticeships etc).
2)Simple frameworks for delivery of work experience at each level
3) A progresssive aapproach to the frameworks so that students know what to expect from work placements as they go through the system and help them make the right subject choices a the right time.

If employers in idustries with skills shortages could offer progressive and incremental work experience it may help to see the same individuals return to the company at different stages along their career path.

At present, employers may have various opportunites for young people at relevant stages of their development but a lack of clarity of what is required and when, stops them realing the opportunities. Employers should be recognised for having a holistic or seamless approach to the provision of quality work experience.

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The Simplification of Skills report highlighted the need to listen to employers, and find ways to not only reduce complexity but also respond to local employer demand. The Greater Cambridge Partnership is currently leading on a project which aims to put the employer at the centre of its skills strategy. Level 2 attainment targets are important but they do not necessarily reflect company priorities – especially given that 75% of the 2020 workforce is already in work. Flexible demand led training which meets the needs of employers is essential; funding part of this provision through existing public sector funding routes would have a significant impact on the economy as a whole – and of course would lead to greater employer engagement and a range of new employee skills which are fit for purpose.

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Re Andrew Wheeler: As an SSC we recognise that the market for skills does not directly match the market for qualifications. Many of our sectors historically focused on competence for their workforce, vital in a safety conscious and highly regulated sector. This focus has not necessarily been evidenced by the uptake of recognised national vocational qualifications. However, where employers have found the vocational market slow, bureaucratic and unresponsive, they have invested in in-house training and bespoke qualifications.

Working with our regulators and the qualification frameworks we are keen to open up the market for skills so that businesses can evidence this investment, and also show an industry wide approach to consistent competence that allows the industry to operate and compete on a level playing field. This market for skills does not solely relate to qualifications, but may include; registration of competence (licence to operate); endorsement of approved training; and endorsement of bespoke qualifications.

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We need to view these strategies not only in terms of their industrial and commercial utility but also in terms of their contribution to the stability of society. I was an undergraduate at the time of the Paris riots in 1968 and don't believe we have learned the political lessons from those world changing events. Governments, through programs such as YOP and YTS (of which, within the MSC, I was one of the architects) have learned how to control high levels of essentially working class unemployment. Present Governments have no equivalent strategies for dealing with high numbers of unemployed young people who comprise our intellectual elite - in disaffected mode, this group has a truly explosive potential - it simply needs a cause and a spark.

Government has also overlooked the social aspects of occupational development. Being a valued member of an adult work group is one of the most fundamental rites of passage that any young person experiences. If there is rejection or exploitation in this process it can be deeply scarring and affect attitudes for the rest of adult life. In my teaching role, I look after the professional development of around 200 undergraduate and graduate architects on work placement as part of their professional training at the elite AA School of Architecture (www.aaschool.ac.uk). With the recession, an increasing number of unscrupulous employers are offering placements without pay - sometimes for working an 80 hour week. If not illegal, then certainly immoral. The structural change that is required is to secure work placement for trainees within the learning framework in a way that is as binding on employers as taxation and VAT. Modern apprenticeships are a light step in the right direction but don't go nearly far enough.

In my research role, as Chair of 5S Consulting (www.5sconsulting.com), I recognise the conundrum in these arguments. Particularly that while most contemporary training models assume a certain size and capability within employing organisations; today, most initial employment and training is actually done in small companies or micro-businesses who do not have the resource or expertise to deal with complex bureaucratic solutions. This means that solutions for delivery must be simple, adequately supported and rigorously applied.

The final point I wish to make is that our institutions for managing vocational preparation are more 19th than 21st century. In Wales, where I was on the Board of ELWa, there was (briefly) a vision that the whole of post-school education and training in Wales might be delivered within a single framework. Needless to say there were too many entrenched interests to even let a debate on this to get off the ground. With radical changes now in the ways in which we can learn and in how work can be organised and how goods and services can be procured within the global economy, we need a pretty fundamental and urgent review of how we should be delivering, accrediting and such services

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