Chris Humphries - UK Commission for Employment and Skills

ePolitix.com speaks to Chris Humphries, chief executive of the UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES), about his role and the importance of employers in tackling skills shortages.

Question: You've been appointed the chief executive for the UK Commission for Employment and Skills. Can you tell us about the role you are you going to be playing?

Chris Humphries: The Commission's role is an unusual one because we are positioned as a strategic advisory body; we have no responsibility for implementation or delivery. We are set up as almost an observatory to monitor the way in which the employment and skills systems across the UK best serve economic and individual needs, and to report progress to government on how we see the performance of our employment and skills systems against the background of UK goals and targets but also international performance and best practice.

Through that work we can advise government on the changes in policy and practice that would help to ensure that our employment and skills systems better meet the economic challenges facing the UK in the global economy over the next 10 to 12 years.

We have to do three things: monitor the UK's progress; advise the government on how to improve the performance of the employment and skills system to better support sound economic and social cohesion progress; and to help bring continuous improvement to the performance of employers, individuals and learning providers so that we keep the UK performing at world class level.

Question: The UK Commission was set up as a recommendation of the 2006 report by Lord Leitch, what will be the main priorities of the Commission?

Chris Humphries: One of the Commission's first jobs in the first year of operation, is to develop a five-year strategy running from next April to 2014 and to produce a document, consult on it - which we are doing at the moment - and publish it at the beginning of the next financial year in 2009. So on one level, that is still under discussion and debate.

However, we have been actively consulting and publishing progressive versions of the document and I think we are far enough along the process to be able to say that there will be three key strategic priorities for the Commission.

The first will be to raise employer ambition and engagement in skills. To ensure that employers maximise the opportunities presented by the talents of their people, to strengthen the employer voice on skills and to help develop the employer skills system so the employers have greater influence over the way in which it operates.

Second, maximising individual access and opportunity and recognising that strong and high performing employers need a willing and world class workforce. We know that we have to ensure that all individuals need to have the opportunity to develop their skills, to enable their effective participation in the workforce and to progress over time to be able to maximise their talents regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, disability and so on.

Third, to build a far more responsive employment and skill system, that includes the totality of activity publicly funded in post-school education and training and the ways in which our qualifications system, quality assurance systems and our colleges, universities and providers all work together.

Therefore, we feel we have to build a more demand-responsive system that understands long term opportunities and challenges, learns from international best practice and helps to provide a more customised employment and skills offer that is best matched to the needs, priorities and talents of both employers and workers. Those are our three main priorities and we expect the document which will be published in April to reflect this programme of work.

Question: Lord Leitch's report had a number of goals, including a vision of an 80 per cent employment rate by 2020. Given the current economic crisis, and the fact that the UK has entered a recession, do you think that this is achievable?

Chris Humphries: No, and to be honest I do not think the government ever accepted that as an achievable target. It is important to understand the way in which most organisations, including ours, are looking at that target. We think that it is a completely appropriate aspiration, to deliver a long term 80 per cent employment rate, but neither the government nor we have ever accepted that it was achievable within the 2020 timeframe.

What the report endorsed was the concept of an 80 per cent aspiration; we are sitting just under 75 per cent at the moment. In our assessment and in the draft targets we've been putting out in our consultation for the strategic plan is that we are much more likely to reach the 80 per cent target by 2030. In the interim and in our consultation work we have been proposing the idea of seeking to reach 77 per cent by 2020. That has not yet been accepted as a formal target by the UK government but certainly in the conversations we have had there seems to be interest and support for such a proposition.

Question: What is the UKCES doing to help employers navigate the complexity of the skills system?

Chris Humphries: I would point you in the direction of our publication: Simplification of Skills in England published at the end of October. The publication has been immediately endorsed and supported by ministers and the work to actually implement the recommendations of the report is just beginning.

Our aim is to have finished that first programme of work by 2009 and all we can tell you at the moment is that the proposals have been roundly endorsed and supported by employers, training providers, everyone involved in the employment and skills world so at the moment we are optimistic that it will get implemented.

Question: Finally, in your opinion, what role should employers play in addressing the skills shortage in the UK?

Chris Humphries: At the heart of all of this employers have a critical role to play. However, there is what I would call a tri-partite responsibility for skills. I think we need much more effective collaboration between government, employers and individuals who share a responsibility for raising skill levels over time.

The role I think employers can best play is by understanding and recognising the value of skills and making a commitment to invest in their human capital in the same way that they would be willing to invest in physical capital. Employers should see the investment in people as an investment in the business and not a cost, and treat it as something that produces a tangible return for the business and therefore is part of their long-term business planning.

The second thing to realise is that the UK is in a unique position in terms of the high proportion of adults that lack basic employability skills. We have an unhappily high number of disengaged and excluded adults in terms of skills. We have a very high proportion of people with basic numeracy and literacy challenges and too high a proportion of people with low or no qualifications at all. We are unusual in the OECD in the number of adults who are lacking in appropriate or sufficient skills for work.

Employers should not necessarily have to fix this as it is a failing in our education and training system which has led to the current situation. Far too many people have failed to leave school with adequate skills and qualifications. As a result employers have the problem in finding jobs for people who do not necessarily have the skills to succeed.

What employers need to do is work with government and co-operate by providing time and support for such adults in their workforce to allow them to gain basic skills and to set themselves on their first pathway towards qualifications that will give them long term progression opportunities.

The third thing employers should do is to recognise that investing in workers is a genuine positive investment with a good return and therefore be willing to ensure that they invest in all of their workforce over time to develop their skills so that they keep pace with industrial change, with changes in competition and rising technological requirements that increasingly put people under pressure to develop new skills.

And finally they need to do is invest in the leadership and management capabilities of their workforce so that they really know how to compete effectively in today’s global marketplace and how best to liberate the talents of their workforce in order to advance their business strategy.