Manufacturing to get National Skills Academy

Manufacturing News, Source : TheManufacturer.com
Published : 31 Oct 2005 12:45

The manufacturing sector, which has been increasingly suffering from a shortage of the kind of modern skills needed to compete globally at world class level, received a long-awaited boost today.

Manufacturing is among four UK industries that today received news that they will get National Skills Academies (NSA) - aiming to be open by September 2006. Another of the Academies will be devoted to the food and drink sector.

Trade and Industry Secretary Alan Johnson announced that manufacturing stood to benefit from a share of up to £40 million of investment in skills academies from both the Government and industry.

Responding to the announcement of the creation of a National Skills Academy for manufacturing, Martin Temple, Director General of EEF, the manufacturers' organisation said: "EEF welcomes this announcement and looks forward to working closely with our partners in this undertaking. It is now vital that we focus on the practical delivery of this initiative so that it adds value and makes a real contribution to addressing the skills needs of manufacturing".

The academies – the others will be concerned with construction, food and drink, and financial services – could train tens of thousands of young people and adults each year and will play a key part in creating jobs, tackling skills shortages and driving up productivity.

Manufacturing will need many more people trained in engineering and manufacturing skills and leadership and management, said a government statement today. Figures aggregated from the National Employer Skills Survey (NESS) in 2003 suggest the sector currently has around 48,000 vacancies,13,000 of which are skill shortage vacancies.

A key role of the manufacturing academy, to be led by the Sector Skills Council for Science, Engineering and Manufacturing Technologies Alliance (SEMTA), would be to encourage more young people and adults to consider a career in the industry by offering real opportunities for progression and skills development, linked closely to the vocational learning offered through schools.

Trade and Industry Secretary Alan Johnson said industry needed people with the right skills to compete in the global market and had understood from business leaders that manufacturing was a key area where government needed to work with the business to help more people get the training to meet current and future skills demand.

"Today we are creating a Manufacturing Academy that creates a single point of access and focus for the delivery of globally competitive skills for UK manufacturing,” he said.

SEMTA said it plans to develop a more coherent approach to support its sector, building on cross sectoral and regional initiatives already in place. These, it said, will help fill skills gaps in lead sub-sectors- aerospace, automotive, electronics and marine and raise standards in course design, delivery and assessment. The bid sets out the aim to deliver ways to support progression and transferability of skills qualifications. SEMTA will link closely with IMPROVE initially and over time work with other sector skills councils with an interest in manufacturing to ensure their sectors have access to the academies products and services.

IMPROVE plans to develop a virtual hub and spoke model for its Food and Drink Manufacturing Academy with spokes taking the form of academy centres of excellence officially recognised, accredited and monitored for the delivery of high quality learning. The concept of involving employers in developing National Skills Academies was announced in the Skills White Paper in March and 23 expressions of interest were received from Sector Skills Councils (SSC) and employers. Seven proposals were short listed and then judged by an employer-led panel.

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