Unions and Sector Skills Councils Case studies of social partnership good practice
Introduction
Social partnership was highlighted in the November 2010 skills strategy paper Skills for Sustainable Growth as the underpinning model for the reformed UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES), in which both unions and Sector Skills Councils (SSCs) have a key role. The strategy says that the UKCES should “become a true vehicle for economic growth and social partnership, with employers, trade unions and others coming together to give effective leadership to business on skills”. This booklet has been produced by unionlearn and the Alliance of Sector Skills Councils to demonstrate some of the ways in which unions and SSCs are already working together in a social partnership to improve the skills, and thus prospects of employees and businesses in the UK. There is probably no single model that fits every sector; however it is hoped that the range of activity highlighted in the following pages will inspire other unions and SSCs to find their own topics for collaboration. Unionlearn is the TUC organisation that supports union-led strategies for learning and skills opportunities in England. It helps unions open up learning and skills opportunities for their members and develops and delivers trade union education
for their representatives and professional officers. Unionlearn provides support to trade union officers serving on the boards of SSCs, and facilitates networks of union officials at both the sectoral and cross-sectoral levels, including working groups to implement partnership agreements. The Alliance of Sector Skills Councils represents, promotes and supports the work of the SSCs across the UK. Established in 2008, the Alliance is the collective voice of SSCs and has the unique role of positioning them within the UK skills system. SSCs are employer-driven organisations covering approximately 90 per cent of the UK workforce on skills issues. The Alliance works to: • •
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place SSCs at the heart of the UK skills system enable SSCs to deliver standards and qualifications that meet the needs of the employers position SSCs collectively as the authoritative voice on sectoral labour market intelligence facilitate collaborative and cross sector activity that cannot be carried out individually by SSCs.
Unions and Sector Skills Councils
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Promoting apprenticeships in the health sector
At the unionlearn annual conference in 2009 Skills for Health signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the health sector unions and unionlearn. This document set up the formal arrangements for a ‘Joint Action Working Group’ to oversee the implementation of a joint action plan. One of the major initiatives set up by the group was a Skills for Health funded project to raise trade union awareness of apprenticeships, and to encourage their involvement at local level. Working at regional level, the project used union networks to gain access to Social Partnership Forums, with the offer of organising regional workshops for employers, workplace union reps and full-time officers. The objective was to explain all about apprenticeships and then discuss how best to work together to deliver them in their Trust – using a social partnership model of learning. So far three regional workshops have taken place, in the South West, South Central and South East Coast, and a fourth, NHS London, is under discussion. The one-day workshops received excellent feedback, with
peakers covered all the key S issues, including the relevance of higher apprenticeships to assistant practitioner roles.
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participants finding the information about the wide range of jobs that apprenticeship frameworks cover really useful, as well as realising what an important role there is for trade unions to play in apprenticeship design and delivery. Speakers covered all the key issues, including the relevance of higher apprenticeships to assistant practitioner roles. Discussion groups tackled the trickier issues such as how to maximise the chances of a job at the end of the apprenticeship when so many staff are being redeployed or made redundant. Management and union participants alike were enthusiastic about the opportunity to work differently together in partnership on such a positive agenda. Alongside the workshops, a briefing on health sector apprenticeships is being written – a short printed version for use in trade union courses, conferences or other meetings, with a more comprehensive electronic version that will be available on union websites. A number of challenges remain, particularly how to spread the initiative to other regions not yet involved. However, the project has shown there is an appetite amongst unions for getting involved in supporting apprenticeships, despite all the other things that are going on, and that the opportunity to work together in a different, partnership way around learning and apprenticeships is very much welcomed by managers and workplace reps alike.
on Weller Photo: Sim
Unions and Sector Skills Councils
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The Manufacturing Skills Alliance
The Manufacturing Skills Alliance (MSA) is the brand name for a range of SSC activity in the manufacturing sector, involving the SSCs Cogent, Improve, Proskills, Semta and Skillset. The MSA and trade union working group was formed early in 2009, largely in response to the recession. It followed a coordinated campaign by trade union board members to encourage their SSCs to develop a strategy to protect skills development from cuts, enhance skills offerings to employees at risk of being made redundant, and encourage employers to take up offers of government funding for skills development. A number of initiatives have been taken forward jointly by the SSCs and unions covering the sector. These include the publication of two leaflets for employers, one detailing the support available through the
SSCs, and the most recent one a straightforward guide to apprenticeships in England. Early in 2010, with support from unionlearn’s Skills: Recession and Recovery project team, the group also arranged regional workshops for union representatives and officers. As well as providing information for the unions reps, the organisers were keen to find out what additional support could be provided by the Alliance. Four specific resources were identified by almost all of the participants: •
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T he MSA working group is a model of how a social partnership born out of identification of need can function and evolve without significant financial commitment by any of the parties.
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statistics and case studies on the benefits of training for companies a skills matching tool to be available on SSC websites bite-size ‘conversion’ modules, where appropriate, to facilitate re-deployment into other parts of the manufacturing sector more Information, Advice and Guidance (IAG) on the wider manufacturing sector.
The first of these, a leaflet for union reps and officers involved in bargaining with employers, was produced as an online resource. This was launched at the 2010 unionlearn conference, and is updated at regular intervals. A first, but essential, step towards achieving a solution for the other three has been to prioritise a co-ordinated approach to labour market intelligence.
ller Photo: Simon We
This will in turn facilitate the identification of both transferable and ‘adaptable’ skills, and the modules needed to facilitate transfer or adaptation. Once all of these are in place, a careers advice service that identifies horizontal as well as vertical progression opportunities will be a realistic possibility. The MSA working group is a model of how a social partnership born out of identifying a need can
function and evolve without significant financial commitment by any of the parties, beyond time and the provision of meeting facilities. As its original objectives near realisation, new priorities are emerging, in particular the need to convince manufacturing employers, schools, students and parents of the value of apprenticeships.
Unions and Sector Skills Councils
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Union toolkits
The first union toolkit was developed by Cogent with the intention of replicating the portfolio of paper resources used by their employer engagement managers in discussion with employers. Cogent realised that the content of the toolkits would need to be tailored to suit the requirements of the ULRs who would be using them, and so organised a series of focus groups to establish just what those requirements might be. The focus groups were attended by ULRs, officers and trade union education tutors, and provided a wealth of suggestions about what information reps need. The most important message coming from the consultation, however, was that a bundle of paper would just gather dust in a corner. All of the information about Cogent’s products is on their website, what reps needed was an explanation of how those products could be used by them. The eventual solution was a trade union specific ‘portal’ on the Cogent website, accessed from a link on the
T he Cogent toolkit has been an invaluable resource for union members in the sector, and is now being emulated by other SSCs.
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home page and leading to clearly written guides on using the resources available from the SSC. The Cogent toolkit has been an invaluable resource for union members in the sector, and is now being emulated by other SSCs. The Financial Skills Partnership (FSP – formerly the FSSC) had already used focus groups to gain union input into the development and maintenance of their award-winning Directions careers advice service, and realised that the toolkit approach could be as useful to reps in the finance sector as to those in science-based industries. The resultant toolkit went live during the summer of 2010. Despite having a very different appearance to that of Cogent, it is an equally effective and valuable resource for union reps. The Cogent toolkit can be accessed directly from Cogent’s home page, and the FSP one is under ‘products and services’ on the main page menu bar. See page 15 for the website addresses.
Unions and Sector Skills Councils
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Using National Occupational Standards (NOS) to develop a grading structure
Since 2008 the media and entertainment union, BECTU, has been working with the employers’ association, the Society of London Theatre (SOLT), to reward skills and responsibility through a redesign of the grade structure for jobs in commercial theatres in London’s West End. Although there are some large theatre companies and world famous institutions such as the Royal Opera House, the National Theatre etc., many theatres closely resemble SMEs and microbusinesses. Typically there is a small core of full-time staff supplemented by casual staff, freelancers and often volunteers. There are often productions that bring many of their own staff with them when a show runs at a particular theatre. Many of the larger theatres and theatre companies have their own in-house training programmes but
I n a sector with few recognised qualifications and a culture of informal recruitment, these are exciting developments made possible by a spirit of collaboration across the sector.
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there are limits to the effectiveness of this form of CPD. The Sector Skills Council, Creative and Cultural Skills, and its National Skills Academy have been supportive of the discussions between BECTU and SOLT as it fits the strategy of using NOS and now the Qualifications and Credit Framework (QCF) to enable in-house training to contribute towards nationally recognised accredited qualifications. The objective is to develop a suite of broad occupational grades based on an understanding of ‘skill’ as a combination of technical competencies, autonomy/task discretion and responsibility for people and processes. The technical competencies and responsibilities are based on relevant NOS, while the autonomy reflects the professional standing and trust accorded to individuals to be able to work unsupervised and to manage their own work processes. As the grades are described by reference to NOS (and later QCF) it then becomes possible to design qualifications and groups of qualifications and other evidence of skill known as ‘Skills Passports’ – that are faithful to the NOS and match against the new grades. Some of the qualifications and passports may become forms of ‘licence to practise’ if the industry agree. Early achievements include the new National Riggers Certificate developed by the Professional Lighting & Sound Association (PLASA) becoming the standard
evidence of competence in live events and arenas. BECTU, PLASA and SOLT with the support of the NSA are now looking to develop a National Flying Certificate for theatre workers. BECTU is in discussion with IOSH to develop a safety passport to help freelance members establish competence for safety when applying for work. In a sector with few recognised qualifications and a culture of informal recruitment, these are
exciting developments made possible by a spirit of collaboration across the sector, the engagement of the SSC and the existence of updated and relevant NOS. There are huge strides yet to be made; the NOS need updating, colleges need to know what courses to run and the SOLT/BECTU talks have some way to go and there are many hurdles to cross – but the process has begun.
Unions and Sector Skills Councils
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World Skills UK environmental science competition
A World Skills UK environmental science competition has been developed by Prospect members who work for the British Geological Survey (BGS). BGS is part of the Natural Environment Research Council, which has a mission to increase knowledge and understanding of the natural world and to tackle the 21st century’s major environmental issues such as climate change, biodiversity and natural hazards. Jacqui Henderson, then Chief Executive of UK Skills, was keen in 2007 to develop a competition that would both break new ground and tackle major challenges facing the UK economy and industry. With support from Baroness Margaret Wall, a partnership was forged between Sector Skills Councils, UK Skills
and unionlearn, co-ordinated by Prospect and with support from Stemnet. The competition quickly achieved high-level support, with the UK Minister for Skills and Apprentices stating that the competition “ … offers the potential to significantly raise the profile of the skills that we will need in order to move towards a low-carbon economy. We need to be able to support the growth of skills in important and strategic sectors of the economy and I believe skills competitions can play an important role in this …” The challenge was to translate expressions of support into delivery. A steering group was formed, involving all project partners and including four SSCs: Semta, Cogent, EU Skills and Lantra. It has three main tasks, which are to: •
I n essence, the competition involves students and apprentices working in small multi-disciplinary teams to devise the ‘best’ combination of energy supply for a purposedesigned, generic island, for the next 30 years.
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design a competition that is challenging, visually attractive and high quality
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raise sponsorship to run the competition
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attract teams to participate in it.
In essence, the competition involves students and apprentices working in small multi-disciplinary teams to devise the ‘best’ combination of energy supply for a purpose-designed, generic island, for the next 30 years. They need to analyse information and data to produce a report and present findings as well as completing a practical
challenge to produce a source of smallscale energy production. The competition was successfully piloted in Nottingham in 2009 with support from the TTC Trust Fund, Semta, Natural England and Cogent. The 2010 competition final was sponsored by the Welsh Assembly government, Semta and Cogent SSCs and took place at Pembrokeshire College. The winning team of apprentices, employed at Chevron, were joined by others from across the UK and the Netherlands. Prospect won the World Skills UK 2010 Partner of the Year award for the union’s work in this sphere and, most importantly, a chance to take the competition to the international World Skills competition to be held in London in October 2011. The steering group is currently working very hard to raise the sponsorship needed to take this competition to the next level.
Unions and Sector Skills Councils
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Research and development: labour market information
In 2008 unionlearn, Skillset and Skills for Health worked in partnership to: •
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find out the level of labour market information (LMI) that is required by union learning reps (ULRs) identify the best ways for ULRs to access sources of LMI on behalf of their members.
Researchers were surprised to discover that, in addition to their main role of giving information and advice about training courses and qualifications, 40 per cent of respondents to an online questionnaire reported that their members wanted advice on career planning, 29 per cent responded to enquiries about skills shortages, and 18 per cent about sector trends. The survey clearly demonstrated that there is a role for SSCs to play
T he survey clearly demonstrated that there is a role for SSCs to play in supporting the work of ULRs.
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in supporting the work of ULRs although, at that time, only 24 per cent of respondents identified SSCs as information sources that they used. One of the recommendations arising from the research was that, in order to make LMI more accessible, there should be guidelines or criteria developed for producing web pages and briefing documents for ULRs, in particular for those without access to online facilities. Even though project funding has not yet been sourced for this work, the SSCs have taken on board the need for clear and concise information, suitable for any users of LMI, with the production of a series of ‘bite-size’ LMI factsheets, accessible at www.advice-resources. co.uk/Resources/LMIBitesize/LMI+Bitesize.htm
Unions and Sector Skills Councils
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The justice sector – work in progress
PCS is working on a joint project with Skills for Justice, the Sector Skills Council covering employers, employees and volunteers working in the justice, community safety and legal services sectors.
Weller Photo: Simon
 The project is to conduct a survey of the skills and work experience held by people who are at risk of redundancy. This will help the SSC and the union to identify the skills held by this group and any development or assistance they may need in order to secure employment. The union will be able to use this information to negotiate with the employers for them to provide appropriate training and development.
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Further information
SSC
Contact number
Trade Union board member
Asset Skills
E: enquiries@assetskills.org T: 01392 423399 W: www.assetskills.org
pending
Cogent
E: info@cogent-ssc.com T: 01925 515200 W: www.cogent-ssc.com
Dai Hudd (Prospect) Tony Burke (Unite)
Construction Skills
E: call.centre@cskills.org T: 0344 994 4400 W: www.cskills.org
Allan Ritchie (UCATT) John Allott (Unite)
Creative and Cultural Skills
E: info@ccskills.org.uk T: 020 7015 1800 W: www.ccskills.org.uk
Christine Payne (Equity)
Energy and Utility Skills
E: enquiries@euskills.co.uk T: 0845 077 9922 W: www.euskills.co.uk
Kevin Coyne (Unite)
e-skills uk
E: info@e-skills.com T: 020 7963 8920 W: www.e-skills.com
Leslie Manasseh (Prospect)
FSP
E: info@fssc.org.uk T: 0845 257 3772 W: www.financialskillspartnership.org.uk
John Earls (Unite)
GoSkills
E: info@goskills.org T: 01216 355520 W: www.goskills.org
Gail Cartmail (Unite)
IMI
E: imi@motor.org.uk T: 01992 511521 W: www.motor.org.uk
Tony Murphy (Unite)
Improve
E: info@improveltd.co.uk T: 0845 644 0448 W: www.improveltd.co.uk
pending
Lantra
E: connect@lantra.co.uk T: 024 7669 6996 W: www.lantra.co.uk
Nigel Titchen (Prospect)
People1st
E: info@people1st.co.uk T: 01895 817000 W: www.people1st.co.uk
pending Unions and Sector Skills Councils
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SSC
Contact number
Trade Union board member
Proskills
 E: info@proskills.co.uk T: 01235 833844 W: www.proskills.co.uk
Steve Sibbald (Unite) Allan Black (GMB)
Semta
E: customerservices@semta.org.uk T: 0845 643 9001 W: www.semta.org.uk
Hugh Scullion (CSEU)
SkillsActive
E: skills@skillsactive.com T: 020 7632 2000 W: www.skillsactive.com
pending
Skillset
E: info@skillset.org T:020 7713 9800 W: www.skillset.org
Christine Payne (Equity)
Skillsmart retail
E: contactus@skillsmartretail.com T: 020 7462 5060 W: www.skillsmartretail.com
Trish Deeny (USDAW)
Skills for Care and Development
sscinfo@skillsforcareanddevelopment.org.uk T: 01133 907666 W: www.skillsforcareanddevelopment.org.uk
Skills for Care
John Boggan (Unison)
Childrens’ Workforce Development Council
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Jon Richards (Unison)
Skills for Health
E: office@skillsforhealth.org.uk T: 0117 922 1155 W: www.skillsforhealth.org.uk
Bob Abberley (Unison)
Skills for Justice
E: info@skillsforjustice.com T: 0114 261 1499 W: www.skillsforjustice.com
Kim Burridge (PCS)
Skill for Logistics
E: info@skillsforlogistics.org T: 01908 313360 W: www.skillsforlogistics.org
Robert Monks (URTU)
Summit Skills
E: enquiries@summitskills.org.uk T: 01908 303960 W: www.summitskills.org.uk
Richard Clarke (Unite)
Unionlearn
The Alliance of Sector Skills Councils
General enquiries about SSCs: Ann Joss ajoss@tuc.org.uk 020 7079 6945
General enquiries about SSCs:
Apprenticeships: Fred Grindrod fgrindrod@tuc.org.uk 020 7079 1367
Katie Nurcombe Katie.Nurcombe@sscalliance.org Qualifications: James Holyfield James.Holyfield@sscalliance.org
Published by Trades Union Congress Congress House London WC1B 3LS Tel 020 7636 4030 www.tuc.org.uk Published in March 2011 Design by Rumba Printed by Precision Printing
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