Whatever happened to “World-Class Skills in the UK by 2020”?
By: Gareth Griffiths
Tags: Adult Learning, UK, Skills, Skills Development, Vocational Training

Tony Blair once joked that he could declare war on another country in the middle of a speech about adult learning and no-one would ever know, such is the lack of public interest. In terms of public policy too, vocational and Further Education are sometimes considered the poor relation when compared to Schools, or Higher Education and Universities. However, for a while under Blair’s government, workforce skills were considered a high priority. In 2004 the Chancellor commissioned Lord Sandy Leitch to assess the skills of the UK workforce and to provide recommendations that would shape the next generation of adult learning.

When it arrived in 2006, the report[1] provided the most comprehensive assessment of UK workforce skills that had been published for a generation. It set out the skills challenge likely to be faced by the UK over the coming decades, as a result of shifts in technology and globalisation, and assessed how well suited the current workforce was to face these challenges.

The answer was, “not very well”. The report found that:

“In OECD comparisons of 30 countries, the UK lies 17th on low skills, 20th on intermediate and 11th on high skills. 7 million adults lack functional numeracy and 5 million lack functional literacy. 17 million adults lack Level 1 numeracy — equivalent to a low level GCSE. The proportion of people with low or no qualifications is more than double that in Sweden, Japan and Canada.”

Chart taken from “Prosperity for all in the Global Economy, World Class Skills:final report”

In order to transform our workforce skills, Lord Leitch proposed that the government should set a series of challenging targets for learning at all levels to ensure that by 2020 we were in the top quartile of all countries and on course to deliver a “World Class” skills-base.

The recommendations were accepted by Government and the Department for Education and Skills set about putting policies in place to ensure that they were delivered.

Where are we now in 2020?

Whilst we’ve made good progress at degree level over the 14 years since the Leitch review was published, we’ve failed to make any significant progress in terms of lower level and intermediate level skills. We are currently ranked 24th out of 36 countries in the OECD for low level skills, 30th out of 36 for intermediate level skills, and 8th out of 37 for higher level skills.

What went wrong?

Lord Leitch himself recognised that adult learning was going to be crucial in delivering his vision. 70% of the 2020 workforce had left compulsory education by 2006 and so were already in the workforce. This meant that forecast increases in achievement levels amongst school leavers and University graduates alone would not be enough to reach the challenging targets that he had set, particularly at lower and intermediate level.

It would require a huge increase in vocational adult learning to upskill those with no qualifications already in the workforce to a minimum of NVQ Level 2 (or equivalent) — the level it was expected 95% of the working-age population would attain.

The government increased funding for adult learning, and tried through various means to engage employers in the process in order to upskill existing workers. Great effort was put into securing the number of learners required to meet the NVQ Level 2 target in particular. Not all of these attempts were successful however, and even when they were succesful in delivering learner numbers the deadweight and displacement effects were sometimes large.[2]

By 2010, the warning signs were already there that the 2020 targets would be missed. UKCES published their 2010 report “Ambition 2020: World Class Skills and Jobs for the UK” forecasting that our ambitious targets were likely to be missed, and that we would only make modest gains in our position relative to other countries by 2020. [3]

Later that same year, the coalition government was elected and subsequently took an axe to adult learner funding as part of their wider austerity drive. The Leitch targets were no more.

Between 2009–10 and 2018–19, government spending on adult education (excluding apprenticeships) decreased by 47 per cent, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies. The Learning and Work Institute estimated that 3.8 million fewer adults took part in training in 2020 compared with 2010.[4]

What can be done?

It will take a great deal of investment, both in terms of policy focus and finance, over the coming years if we are to meet the twin challenges of “bulding back better” post Covid-19, and to tackle the skills shortages that are likely to arise as a result of Brexit.

As can be seen above, the weaknesses around low and intermediate level skills identified by Lord Leitch in 2006 remain in evidence today. If we are to deliver a world-class skills based then the UK still needs to:

- Increase adult skills across all levels

- Increase employer engagement and investment in skills

- Increase individuals’ aspirations and awareness of the value of skills to them and their families

We also need to ensure that the skills system is able to respond to economic shocks, and quickly deliver the training required by employers and individuals as we rebuild the economy following Covid-19 and Brexit.

There are encouraging signs that the government is beginning to focus on this challenge. They recently announced increased funding for adult learning as part of their “National Skills Fund”. This includes increased funding for Apprenticeships, and an adult training guarantee for those without a full Level 3 qualification. Welcome as this is, it will only go part of the way to rolling back the funding cuts made in adult learning since 2010 and will do little to help those with no (or very low) qualifications in the workforce who may require learning at a lower level, at least initially.

In another sign of renewed focus on adult learning, last week the Education and Skills Select Committee published a series of recommendations[5] that they argue will better help to address the current skills needs of individuals and employers. In addition, last week the Fabian Society published their report “Sharing the Future: Workers and Technology in the 2020s”.[6] It proposes a comprehensive package of reforms that they say will help widen access to education for adults, and help to deliver the skilled workforce that will allow us to thrive in the post-Covid and post-Brexit world.

With new Government funding announcements and renewed interest from select committees and influential think-tanks, it appears that some momentum may be building behind adult skills policy in the UK once again. If this is sustained then perhaps the vision of world-class skills in the UK may one day be delivered, even if Leitch’s 2020 ambition is already lost.

Footnotes:

[1] Prosperity for all in the global economy — world class skills: final report — Full Text

[2] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/32281/12-767-assessing-deadweight-loss-with-investment-further-education.pdf

[3] https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/4151312.pdf

[4] https://feweek.co.uk/2020/01/01/adult-learning-real-cause-for-concern-as-participation-hits-record-low/

[5] https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5801/cmselect/cmeduc/278/27802.htm

[6] https://fabians.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/FABJ8359-Work-LONG-report-WEB-201214v1.pdf