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Slough joins skills pledge |
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The leader of Slough Borough Council, Cllr Rob Anderson, signed a Skills Pledge on February 24 at the Copthorne Hotel, committing the council to develop and encourage its workforce.
The council, along with the Learning and Skills Council (LSC), has been working on the pledge since 2007 which promises to improve the working skills of its employees. Once signed, the council will be encouraging other employers in Slough to follow suit. The Skills Pledge comes after Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Education Secretary, Alan Johnson, called on all employers to sign up to ensure all their employees reach a skills level equivalent to five good GCSEs. The initiative, part of a plan to equip Britain's workforce for the future, will share responsibility between the state, employer and employees and will be open to all employers irrespective of size, status or sector. It is designed to stimulate demand for training services and support a new culture where gaining skills is taken as a matter of course. Unveiled at a public debate on how to retain competitiveness in the face of emerging economic powers, it follows Lord Leitch's report into skills, in December, which highlighted the need to achieve world-class skills by 2020. Leader of the Council, Cllr Rob Anderson, said: “Slough has become known as a boom town and we’d like to keep it that way by ensuring all employees in the borough get the continuous training and skills they need. I’m looking forward to signing the pledge on behalf of the council and also to see other companies in the town follow in our footsteps.” Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, said: "In the future, skills will be the only route to prosperity and jobs. Of 3.4m unskilled jobs today, by 2020, we will need only 600,000. So, if the UK is to continue to succeed in the new global economy, we will need to be more ambitious with more people training and employers, employees and government each meeting their responsibilities. "This will only succeed if the British people themselves are involved in discussing and agreeing this priority to invest in education and skills.” The government has already welcomed the Leitch aspiration to have at least 90 percent of working age adults qualified to Level 2 - the vocational equivalent to five good GCSEs - by 2020 to retain and drive forward competitiveness. To help adults get the skills they need for employment, the government is implementing a ‘demand-led’ funding system to meet employers’ needs and gear training to their requirements. Employers signing the Skills Pledge will commit to a training plan to build on the needs of their business. The plan would show timescales for training all staff to Level 2 as well as committing resources and setting priorities. An employer making the Skills Pledge will be making a commitment to raise the skill levels of all employees, giving staff certified competence in the workplace and the literacy, numeracy and employability skills for progression. The Skills Pledge will help employers’ competitiveness by helping them focus on the skills needs of their workforce. As productivity is increasingly driven by skills the ability of firms to succeed will also increasingly depend on their ability to draw on a skilled labour force. |
