Insights and Elephants
We got an email from Skills England the other day. And that got us thinking...
We received a nice email from Skills England the other day. For those of our readers who may be thinking that The Green Edge has reached the heady heights of being able to hold one-on-ones with such august bodies, we hasten to add that the email was not addressed to us directly; rather it was circulated to the attendees of one (or more) of its seven roundtables held recently to ‘…bring together employers, training providers, and industry governing bodies to share insights, discuss potential outcomes, and develop a collective strategy to influence the Skills England review process’. We, of course, inveigled our way in to one of them, to listen and—as is our wont—add a little greenness to proceedings where we deemed appropriate1.
We guess the email had a pretty wide distribution and it would be good, we think, if Skills England were to post it in its cosy corner of DfE’s website. But, since we don’t see it there yet—and since the email wasn’t marked as confidential or anything like that—we’ve posted it ourselves as a companion piece to this one2. If we’ve committed a no-no in doing that, no doubt someone will tell us, and we promise to take it down immediately with nary a quip questioning why Skills England would want to keep such nuggets within restricted circulation.
Anyway, perusing the email we found many ‘insights’ that we’ve been talking and writing about here on The Green Edge for some time—although by now we’d tend to refer to them more as pachyderms in the chamber rather than the aforementioned i-word.
For a start, up-to-date data is key. Absolutely, and as we wrote in our Dear Skills England post last week, the best possible data on labour market trends and employer needs is needed to build a resilient, future-ready workforce.
Next, shortage of skilled FE Teachers is a significant issue. We hear lots of good folk talking about that, not least the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER), who says that if you don’t pay ‘em properly, you ain’t gonna get ‘em. And our friends at EngineeringUK, who we featured in a special Green Edge podcast a few weeks ago and who also popped up on last week’s update to tell us about their new report on the state of STEM Education in England, extend this to schools, telling us that ‘[a]ccording to [a survey of schools leaders, advisers, and teachers] 26% of respondents report that STEM teacher vacancies have affected the STEM careers activities on offer’.
And then there’s the insight that it’s essential that the skills system supports SMEs. Well, yes, that’s a no-brainer really, which is why we’ve been so happy to work with Enginuity on its Future Skills Hub, aiming to identify not only what those skills might be, but critically where SMEs can find support and opportunities to skill up and participate in the big waves of digitalisation, electrification, hydrogen and other technologies washing over the Engineering and Manufacturing landscapes at the present time.
Sustainability gets a rather cursory mention in Skills England’s email, and only couched in terms of this word ‘green’ (Yes, yes, we know we’re contributing to that by calling ourselves what we call ourselves, but The Sustainable Edge is such a mouthful, don’t you know). Anyhow, the email tells us the shortage of FE teachers is particularly acute in the green industry, alongside construction and engineering and manufacturing. Correct us if we’re wrong, but these sectors are a big chunk of the green industry, aren’t they? At least the email contains the ‘insight’ that construction, engineering and digital all need ‘green’ skills—a point we also made in our recent Waves of Greening post.
But, for us, the biggest takeaway of all from Skills England’s email is the recognition that skills needs are different in different parts of the country and the system needs to reflect that. This is touched on in a few places in the email, with the observation that the Local Skills Improvement Plans (LSIPs) are a good start—which they are, but as we’ve said many times, they are just a start, and without funds for proper execution, Dwight D.’s assertion that ‘plans are worthless, but planning is everything’ might well apply—along with the feedback that the roundtables ‘urged Skills England to adopt a social partnership model and to make the most of existing, effective networks and representative groups.’
This idea of a social partnership model is couched under the slogan co-creation not co-delivery—as ever in the realms of government, quasi- or otherwise, Skills England can’t resist a slogan or two—meaning that ‘stakeholders want to be part of the creation and development of the solution; not just asked to deliver the ‘answer’ which has been developed by Skills England/Government’. Amen to that—although with a new government that makes previous Labour projects under the likes of Attlee and Blair look like Adam Smith’s Night-Watchman states, it’s a little difficult to see how that might play out in the co-creation direction, given the current stranglehold being exerted by Big School.
Nonetheless, at least we’re picking up an acknowledgement—whether grudging or otherwise, we shall see—of the importance of place in all this. All of which we’ve been merrily banging on about for some time: from the deep dive into green skills by the Sussex LSIP we posted about all the way back in 2022; to the bootcamping of green skills in the North East, geared at least in part to the needs of the on- and offshore green industry up there; and the different ways green skills deployment models might work in local, regional and national contexts.
It's also the reason why we love hearing about—and, on occasion, becoming involved in—initiatives like First Hand. We first bumped into Forth CIC, who leads First Hand, at the beginning of 2023, and we posted on the project itself earlier this year. We won’t repeat ourselves with the detail, but suffice to say this is all about place-based learning. For those who are curious, First Hand’s website is up and running and its new LinkedIn page is now live.
Image: First Hand
Focused on the challenge of closing the skills gaps needed for industry to move towards more responsible production, First Hand is building a programme of field trips, factory tours, and open and place-based learning together with a knowledge-exchange platform, all to complement the more traditional learning pathways. If we tell you that one of the current First Hand collaborators—and hosts of a site visit we recently attended—is The Felix Project, which rescued and redistributed something like 32 million meals in London in 2023 that would otherwise have gone in the bin, you might see where First Hand is coming from. For all our admiration of Felix, though, we have to question why organisations like that need to exist—and they do—in a land where national food strategies are commissioned and then ignored by government, and obesity drugs may yet become some kind of routine answer to the damage done to the population by years of ultra-processed food.
What can be done to control and reduce production and consumption of ultra-processed food, which is rising worldwide? Reformulation does not eliminate harm, and profitability discourages manufacturers from switching to make nutritious foods. Moreover, the investment management companies that increasingly dominate corporate shareholdings would likely resist any such change.
Source: BMJ
Grumpy Old Men language aside, though, we have a lot of time for Felix Project and also for First Hand, whose experiential learning events will continue to span food, circular economy, material and energy transitions, and urban futures, concentrating on engagement and the development of ‘transformative’ skills around complexity and systems change, creativity and innovation, and collaboration and partnerships.
There’s an ask here too. As First Hand is finalising its plans for events in 2025, it has just issued an open call for partners and is keen to hear from organisations who recognise the urgency to upskill and reskill workforces for transformative climate action. Partners are being sought from a range of walks:
Place partners – to open your space or local network for learning;
Network partners – to mobilise your network for learning and networking opportunities;
Mission partners – to collaborate with First Hand to advance your missions;
Content partners – to share expertise through co-hosted events or itineraries.
We feel this may well be of interest to some of our subscribers, which is why we’re telling you about it here. If so, we recommend a look through First Hand’s Open Call for Partners page.
It’s funny how one line of thought triggers another, and we spend a lot of time doing that here on The Green Edge. Trying to make coherent sense out of the world of sustainability often feels like a big jigsaw puzzle, where a few islands in the puzzle build up and litter the mat until we find missing pieces to join the islands together until eventually—we hope—the puzzle is complete.
Our email from Skills England got us thinking about First Hand, and we see lots of great local and place-based initiatives that, to date, haven’t quite become part of a joined-up solution. The previous government, frankly, made a total hash of it. What will this one do? We shall see.
Just to close the loop, though, from First Hand back to the Skills England email: First Hand is based around the UN’s sustainable development goal SDG12 for Responsible Consumption and Production. And, while First Hand is really focusing on skills for responsible production, it isn’t looking too much at the responsible consumption side, which is really all about sustainable demand. To its credit, though, the Skills England email did present a passing nod to demand, although in a different context to First Hand, when it wrote:
Demand is just as important as supply: creating a desire from young people and existing workers to want to gain in-demand skills is just as important as making sure the system can deliver them. Many sectors struggle to attract young people into entry level roles. Good quality careers advice is key here and needs to engage young people at an earlier age – employers need to be involved to really sell their sectors and roles, and it needs to be clear to people what roles are available in their areas and what skills are needed
Source: Skills England
A tenuous link to finish on, perhaps, but it makes sense to our grasshopper brains.
Actually, we didn’t inveigle, we were invited. But never let the facts get in the way of a good turn of phrase.
We didn’t email the companion post to our readership as we don’t like to bombard our subscribers with too many emails in any one week. After all, it is Reports Roundup week next week, so they’ll be getting a couple more than usual from us then.