Manufacturers, leading unions, skills training providers and industry bodies are calling on the Government to take urgent action to safeguard the skills the country’s economy needs now and in the future by acting to save the country’s apprenticeships and reskill, retrain and redeploy the expertise of those skilled workers made redundant as a result of COVID.
Against the current backdrop of mass lay-offs on a scale unseen since the 1980s, the manufacturing sector faces a loss of skills, jobs, and apprentices that without help will not return to levels seen before COVID for years to come.
Apprenticeships, long seen by the sector as the best route to secure invaluable skills, are becoming unaffordable as businesses struggle for survival. In May the number of starts for 16-18-year-olds dropped 79% year on year, with numbers set to dwindle even further. And a third of manufacturers are cancelling or putting their apprenticeship training on hold due to financial pressure from Covid.
Make UK, the Trade Union Congress, the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions and skills training providers Enginuity and Cogent alongside other leading industry stakeholders from sectors including the construction equipment sector, aerospace and automotive have joined forces to write to the Secretary of State for Education Gavin Williamson, outlining the immediate and direct action needed to safeguard Britain’s skills, young people and the manufacturing sector as a whole.
They say a National Skills taskforce must be set up at speed involving the trade unions and other key stakeholders to ensure vitals skills and skilled workers are retained and redeployed within industry. The taskforce should work to identify opportunities where workers’ skills are in demand, whether in manufacturing or other sectors and develop a flagship upskilling programme to support employers in the development of new digital and ‘green’ skills needed for a future-proofed economy.
This should work alongside a nationally agreed programme for workers who already have the necessary basic skills to reskill them into new growth areas of work and take advantage of new jobs that will be required as companies look to work differently, bringing their supply chains closer to home and enter new markets.
Apprentices, the skilled workers of the future, must also be protected through more flexible use of levy funds paid by companies. Government must extend the lifetime of funds from 24 to 36 months to allow apprentices the chance to finish their courses.
The levy should also be further adapted to allow it to be used for short term retraining and reskilling, alongside the introduction of modular learning to speed apprentices through training. Flex should be applied allowing levy-paying companies to use their levy funds to protect employment, while non-levy companies should have access to new direct grants.
They say that to future proof the apprenticeship model going forward, Government must also allow companies to spend more levy funds on an apprenticeship to reflect the real cost of training a young person.
Rob Oliver, CEO of CEA (Construction Equipment Association) said: “Apprenticeship starts dropped off a cliff in May as the effects of Covid-19 hit. The aim of the CEA, working with Make UK and a host of leading manufacturers’ associations, is to draw attention to the issue and suggest some ways forward for the government. Not least we are calling for some further flexibility in the use of the apprenticeship levy fund to help secure apprentice positions, in addition to what has been introduced via the Kickstart Scheme.”
