Invited Skills for the Public Sector Workforce 2010 Conference speaker, the Rt. Hon. Dr. Vince Cable MP, Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills gave a speech today on his views of universities and HE sector and his aspirations for it.
To view the full speech, please click here
Research from the Institute of Leadership & Management (ILM) highlights widespread concern among public
sector managers that budget cuts will cripple frontline services, as well as damage staff health and morale.
The survey of 1,554 managers reveals over two-thirds believe their teams are operating at full capacity with little or no room for efficiency savings. They worry that blanket cuts to public sector budgets will leave them unable to deliver frontline services. The report, ‘Leading change in the public sector’, found over two-thirds (69%) of managers had experienced budget cuts in the past year. Despite this the research reveals a cadre of committed and talents managers who are up for the challenge of leading their teams and organisations through what will be a difficult time.
Read the full report at www.i-l-m.com/publicsector
A survey of 2,100 employers across the private and public sector has suggested a 'jobless recovery' may still be on the cards for the UK. The research from Manpower also highlights a reduction in public sector staff for the first time in 16 years.
While recording a net employment outlook figure of +1 per cent across UK employers, the public sector records a negative figure of -1 per cent, indicating the number of employers who intend to reduce employees in this sector now exceeds those who intend to increase them.
As with other aspects of the economy there is uncertainty about the impact on employment of the ongoing cuts. While the probable reduction in public sector recruitment overall employment is not going to push the unemployed figures to the 3 million mark it is by no means certain that the private sector is going to be able to offer the opportunities required to compensate for those job losses.
Regional differences are also significant - if a little predictable.
From Manpower's survey employers in the South East are the most positive about hiring while those in the West Midlands are the most negative - scoring +9 per cent and -5 per cent respectively.
Manpower's chairman Jeffrey Joerres has noted the first signs of a hiring recovery in the US but whether other countries follow suit is by no means certain.
Is there a fundamental problem with the UK's attitude to skills? Are we not just missing out on developing our workforce to its full potential but also managing to undervalue the workforce we have?
Writing in the TimesOnline, technology entrepreneur Mike Lynch suggests competition among graduate employers and our national attitude to successful business people is compromising the wealth that can be generated from the UK's talent.
"The City can outbid small entrepreneurial firms by offering big salaries," he says. "Twenty years ago the City would hire people with classics degrees. Now the prize bank recruit is more likely to be a first-class engineer or maths graduate with crucial analytical skills. There is nothing wrong with having a strong financial services sector, but we have learnt the risks of piling all our economic eggs into one basket."
The UK, argues Mr Lynch does have enough in the way of raw talent, but we do not value success in the same way as, say, the US. We also do not seem to believe in investing in bright new ideas. Finally, Lynch argues the government can do more to ensure entrepreneurial skills are allowed to flourish by revisiting local planning and development policies to help new companies starting up, as well as addressing the wider tax structure on business.
Private firms should be given the chance to provide public sector services to cut costs in harder financial times, business chiefs have claimed. CBI Scotland have urged the Scottish Government to consider a "radical re-engineering" of public services in order to save money in the "leaner times ahead". The group is calling for a level playing field to enable private sector firms to compete on a fair basis, with no "institutional bias" against them.
New skills academies have been announced under a multimillion-pound Government drive to improve training of workers in industries ranging from rail to biotechnology.
The national academies will cover five sectors - rail engineering, logistics, green building services, biotechnology and composites - funded by £12 million of public investment matched by private firms.
A further £2.9 million Government funding is being spent on an academy for the power industry, with more than 300,000 people expected to take part in all the training programmes over the next four years.
The Government said it will help create up to 1,000 apprentices a year in the nuclear industry as part of plans for 35,000 advanced and higher apprenticeships for people aged between 19 and 30.
The NHS has been successful in meeting previously agreed targets on the creation of new public sector apprenticeships.
Health secretary Andy Burnham revealed that the health service has now recruited in excess of 5,000 additional apprentices, in line with quotas established by Gordon Brown last year.
The prime minister committed to the creation of an additional 21,000 public sector apprenticeships in February 2009, with the NHS and social care services vowing to provide a "major contribution".
Mr Burnham said the creation of the new jobs will help young people to learn life-enriching skills as well as providing trained clinical staff for the health service.
He added: "We must do all we can to provide high quality routes into jobs so that we can ensure we have a highly skilled and highly motivated NHS workforce for future generations."
David Cameron unveiled the pledge as part of a new Tory appeal to voters who have never before voted Conservative, including millions of public sector employees.
The Tories promised a “power-shift to public sector workers” and let them control their working lives. That could see millions of nurses, primary school staff and even call-centre workers setting up independent legal associations that agree contracts to deliver services, much as GPs’ practices do.
Appealing directly to public sector staff, Mr Cameron said: “We will give you the chance to set up employee-owned co-operatives to take over the services so you can be your own boss and offer the public a better service the way you think it should be done, not the way some distant bureaucrat thinks it should be done.”
Co-operative members would set working practices, and could remove managers who lost workers’ confidence. Ultimately, they would be able to take ownership of previously state-owned buildings and other assets.
They would also be able to bid to take over other Government services.
George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, said that collectives would still face some central control on the way they provide services, because they would be contracting services to a local authority or the National Health Service. Standards such as the national curriculum would remain, he said.
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