The Times Education Supplement has the news today that Lord Mandelson is considering giving Regional Development Agencies responsibility for drawing up skills strategies, which would then be implemented by the new Skills Funding Agency (SFA).
Our Head of Economic Policy Lee Hopley has responded to the report here. Many manufacturers, and employers as a whole, will despair at yet another structural reorganisation in a system already in need of stability and simplification. Such changes are happening with increasing frequency, it seems: the Learning and Skills Council is being abolished after less than ten years; the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills lasted less than two; and now the Skills Funding Agency is being reformed before it has even been formed in the first place.
Nevertheless, the debate over whether skills policy and funding should be set on a regional or sector-specific basis is one worth having. It has always been our view that it makes more sense to look at specific sectors of industry, rather than on regional geography.
There may be some areas of manufacturing that are defined principally by their region (cheese-making, perhaps?) - but is there a peculiarly North Eastern way of welding an aeroplane fuselage? Probably not. British companies operating in the same sector will have similar skills needs, regardless of where in the UK they are based – the ‘what’ is more important than the ‘where’.
Lord Mandelson’s intervention looks set to spark renewed debate on this issue, and we can expect some interesting responses from Sector Skills Councils, which would be the main losers under the proposed scheme. By all means let's have that debate - but let's make sure that whatever the outcome, the system stands at least some chance of surviving an election and being fit for purpose for more than a couple of years.