The Summer Budget & Productivity Plan
Two months into the new Parliament the Chancellor unveiled his ‘emergency’ Budget and accompanying ‘productivity plan’. With deficit reduction, growth and job creation at their heart, they set out plans to encourage “long-term investment in economic capital, including infrastructure, skills and knowledge” to drive up productivity. Below are some of the key headlines:
Rebalancing the economy through infrastructure investment
The Budget continues to advance the Government’s desire to devolve greater powers to cities and regions, particularly with regard to skills provision, health, housing and transport. Consortia of universities, cities, Local Enterprise Partnerships and businesses will be invited to conduct science and innovation audits to map strengths and identify potential areas of strategic focus for different regions.
In its submission to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills’ ‘2020 vision for science and research’ consultation in 2014, the Science Council called on the Government to develop a long-term investment strategy that supports and provides opportunities for all sectors and regions of the UK. We recognise that science and innovation are the drivers of growth and job creation at the local and regional level and Government has the capacity to unlock this potential even more.
A raft of additional ‘Plans’ are set to be published later this year. A National Infrastructure Plan for capital spending on science; a National Infrastructure Plan for Skills aimed at for high numbers of new technical and professional skilled workers to enter the workforce in the coming years; and a Digital Transformation Plan with actions to support the adoption of digital technologies across the economy.
The announcement of infrastructure and skills plans is a welcome development. The Science Council has previously called for national advisory groups for science infrastructure and science skills – with professional body representation - to provide leadership and guidance for a national science and innovation strategy.
Increasing the quantity of apprenticeships
The Government has pledged to meet its target of 3 million apprenticeships – supported by a new Apprenticeship Delivery Board - by the end of the current Parliament, but is troubled by the downward trend in employer investment in training. In an attempt to tackle this, large employers will be subject to a compulsory levy to help fund all post-16 apprenticeships. Employers will also be able to access this funding for apprenticeship training. This has been recommended most recently by Professor Alison Wolf. Further details on implementation will be set out in the next Comprehensive Spending Review. The Government will also set apprenticeship targets for public sector bodies. The Science Council’s current views and reflections on the status of science apprenticeships can be read here.
Post-Budget, the Minister for Science, John Johnson MP announced that the University of Sheffield’s Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre is to further expand its degree-level apprenticeship programme to provide new work-based routes for people to achieve Chartered Engineer status. Also launched post-Budget by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and DfE were plans to review post-16 education and training provision in England through a national programme of area-based reviews. The review will aim to enable greater institutional specialism and expertise in professional and technical disciplines through “fewer, often larger, more resilient and efficient providers.” The delivery infrastructure will include the new Institutes of Technology and National Colleges. The reviews will be conducted between July 2015 and March 2017.
Raising the status and provision of professional and technical education
While the Government does not define what it considers professional and technical education to be, its stated aim is to “simplify and streamline further education qualifications” by creating a professional and technical education system that provides individuals with clear, high-quality routes to employment. Further education colleges will also invited to become Institutes of Technology, which will deliver level 3-5 provision. The Government will also look to improve destination and earnings data for post-16 options.
The Business Secretary Sajid Javid spoke just prior to the Budget about tackling the “blizzard of complicated and overlapping qualifications, often with no obvious pathway to a decent job.” He also recognised that employers and professional bodies will play a key role in ensuring that high-level, sector-specific skills training delivered in the proposed Institutes of Technology are aligned with apprenticeship standards.
Bringing greater clarity to the qualifications landscape is a welcome development. As the Science Council has continually highlighted, the existing landscape can be hard for young people to navigate and if a poorly informed choice is made, this can close down potential career pathways at a later stage. Increasing young people’s science careers awareness from an early age should continue to be a priority for Government and for the wider science community.
Further reforms to higher education
Key announcements include the replacement of the maintenance grant in favour of a loan system of up to £8,200 for those from low and middle income households. A new Teaching Excellence Framework will aim “to sharpen incentives for providing an outstanding education to students”. It is envisaged that the Framework will better align graduate skills and expectations with employers’ own demands. The Government will be consulting further later in 2015. The Government recently consulted on income-contingent loans for postgraduates – to which the Science Council responded - and will announce details later in the year.
Other news
Further education and skills policy should be developed with professional bodies at its heart, as a way of improving policy in this area according to a report by the Skills Commission. The report calls for a “genuine partnership” between Government, professional and industry bodies, and employers to develop and implement skills reforms. It says that as employers and learners struggle to understand the complex qualification landscape because of frequent change, time is required to enable reforms to embed and develop. This, in turn will lead to greater employer buy-into vocational and technical qualifications.
The Government has responded to the House of Commons Education Select Committee’s inquiry on ‘Apprenticeships and traineeships for 16 to 19 year olds’, accepting many of the Committee’s recommendations. This includes finding a mechanism to strengthen SMEs’ ability to engage in the Trailblazer programme and outline its future stages with regard to the “ownership of new apprenticeship standards, how new standards will be developed or existing standards revised in response to future needs, and who will provide oversight and leadership of these processes.” However the Government rejected the Committee’s recommendations to encourage schools to incorporate work experience into the 14 to 16 National Curriculum and to require schools to publish a careers plan.
Training and education must keep pace with technological changes, according to the Government’s response to the House of Lords Digital Skills Select Committee inquiry which was published at the beginning of 2015. The response states that further details of how the Government will deliver its digital agenda will be part of this year’s Comprehensive Spending Review.
