David Lammy - GoSkills Vision for Passenger Transport
Sadlers Well, London - 24 April 2008

"Achieving the UK's Ambition for A World Profile on skills by 2020"

Good afternoon everyone.

I'd like to start by looking at how far we've already come towards meeting our skills ambitions for 2020. And, as you would expect from the minister for skills, I am very proud of what we have achieved so far.

Over the last ten years, we've worked hard with you and other partners to help more people prosper through learning. And we have genuinely made progress. Almost three-quarters (74%) of working-age adults are now qualified to at least level 2. We are well on track to hit 90% by 2020 and to go beyond that. And our focus on apprenticeships is paying off.

I could add that FE success rates - once a national scandal - have improved out of all recognition and that we have exceeded our Skills for Life targets by a quarter of a million (1.75m target 1.5m).

Over 2,500 employers have signed the Skills Pledge, guaranteeing that they will improve the skills of millions of employees.

Train to Gain has engaged around 70,000 employers and that has helped hundreds of thousands of learners to get on to programmes.

These rather dry statistics represent millions of people's lives changed for the better. And they are a testament to the hard work of employers, education providers and staff themselves.

I don't forget either the contribution of the growing army of Union Learning Reps - now 18,000 strong - who are doing so much to help get the skills message across to the people who need to hear it most.

They are making a real difference to the lives of working people up and down the country. Helping them to learn new skills or update existing ones - giving them a real stake in the future.

Today we are here to talk about how we can build on that progress and improve the skills of transport workers.

Transport

those of us here today who live or work in London we have seen during the London mayoral race, transport is an issue that people feel very strongly about - especially here in the capital where three million journeys are made on the Tube each day, comprising more daily passengers than are carried by the entire national rail system. Passenger usage is growing overall and so the number of transport staff is also expanding.

We in Government often talk about social mobility, but you provide the physical mobility that underpins it. Your staff are on the front line of transport delivery, helping millions of people - many of whom might otherwise be unable to access key services and jobs every day.

I met with Nick Steel, recently appointed Chair of Go Skills, and Peter Huntingdon the Chief Executive in my office last week. One of the issues we discussed was how diverse a sector passenger transport is in reality. The sector is made up of a number of industries, each of which has its own specific skills needs. If you talk to my ministerial driver - Ernie - his circumstances and skills needs might vary quite considerably from the driver of the no. 279 bus I take to my surgery in Tottenham, the cabin crew when I fly to the U.S or indeed the traffic safety analysts that work for Haringey Council.

But the sector overall is faced with a number of uniform challenges - challenges which cannot be met without investing in education and training. That's what today is all about and what that fantastic 'Skills Pledge' bus outside is all about.

There are three broad skills challenges that you need to address:

First, the customer challenge. There are more customers and they are demanding more. Providing a safe and reliable journey is essential, of course. But these changes are also happening against a backdrop of increasing personalisation. People want the transport sector to help them juggle their busy lives. And that leads me on to the second challenge: technological advancement.

Technology imposes its own demands for new skills. Road pricing and oyster cards are based on huge technological innovations. So is satnav. And so are all the improvements to traffic management and signalling systems that passengers don't see but which are helping to ensure that they arrive safely and on time.

The application of new ideas and technologies is crucial to our economic success and to making our country more sustainable. Technology can help us to address challenges such as the growing pressure on natural resources; a rapid increase in the old age dependency ratio; and the ongoing threat of international conflict and terrorism.

But only if we have the skills to keep pace with these changes.

The third challenge for the sector is globalisation. The prosperity of the transport sector is linked very closely to the UK's economic prosperity. The more goods we produced, the greater the demand for transport to move those goods. The sector's prosperity therefore reflects, to some extent, that of the wider economy. Not only that - Sir Rod Eddington's influential report argued convincingly that good transport links are essential to our continued economic growth: both for our economy and to support an increasingly vibrant domestic tourism sector.

For example, competitors and spectators from all over the world will be visiting the UK for the 2012 Olympic Games. We want them to enjoy an experience that brings them back to the UK again and the efficiency of the transport system, and the skills of the people they encounter will be critical to their enjoyment.

The answer to these three challenges is in the title of today's conference - we need a relevant, demand-led skills provision that helps employer and employee alike. To achieve this we need to work together - government, local transport planners, transport users and operators, academic and research organisations, environmental groups and Go-Skills.

In the travel and transport industries there are comparatively few large employers but a very large proportion of SMEs and self employed drivers and driver trainers. We have allocated £90m to enable 60,000 small and medium sized businesses to identify how skills training would grow their business and profitability.

As many of you will be aware, it's often harder to get SMEs and the self-employed to invest in their own training or that of their staff, but that is something this Government is very much committed to tackling.

According to most measures, the transport workforce has a lower level of qualifications than the UK average. But the proportion of workers holding sector-specific qualifications like safety certificates and LGV licences is much higher than average. I think that matters a lot, because these people know the value of working towards a qualification that will help them secure work or perform at a high standard.

But the people who work in the transport sector are still less likely than average to receive training on or off the job. Meanwhile, a lack of skills is holding back the sector's move to more high quality products and services - both generic skills such as team working and customer handling - and also specific technical skills.

Most travel and transport jobs require at least level 2 and there is a significant basic skills requirement. But as the GoSkills strategy recognises, the sector also needs skills at higher levels for engineers and for transport planners as well as to enable the transformational leadership that is essential to surmount the challenges posed.

Lord Leitch proposed that our skills mission statement should be:

• for businesses: economic success, productivity and profitability; and
• for individuals - progression in their careers, the chance to get a rewarding job and provide for their families better.

Leitch's conclusion is that we have to shift the balance of intermediate skills from Level 2 upwards to Level 3.

I think that concept of shifting the balance is an important one. I want it to be a common-sense assumption among people and their employers that if Level 2 is a springboard to better things, then Level 3 is more of a trampoline.

Level 3 is the breakthrough stage in terms of the level of knowledge and understanding it represents. It is the essential bridge between the basic skills that everyone needs to play a productive part in society and the high-level skills that people need in order to aspire to better paid, more rewarding careers.

Billions of pounds are being lost each year through not developing our workforce to have world-class skills. To remedy this, we need increased and smarter investment in skills from employers, leaders and managers.

That's why I'm delighted to see on today's programme a number of employers who have a fantastic story to tell about how they are investing in staff to increase morale, productivity and retention. And in the case of Flybe, we have an employer that has taken on degree awarding powers and is now able to offer bespoke, QCA accredited qualifications rather than having to outsource education and training.

Challenges

My challenge to each of the separate industries represented here today is this:

I want you to sign the skills pledge of course - get inside that bus and sign up. But I also want you to take a long hard look at your business and try to think creatively about boosting the skills of your staff and training the trainers. GoSkills and Train to Gain can help you to devise commitment mechanisms on skills which work for you and your industry.

For our part, we're working to ensure that the training and qualifications on offer become progressively better suited to your needs. For example, as the GoSkills strategy points out, there is a need to modify and develop Apprenticeships Frameworks, particularly with regard to encouraging smaller and medium-sized enterprises to take on more apprentices.

Indeed, we need to make sure that there are straightforward progression routes for all industries; through Foundation degrees, apprenticeships and 14-19 diplomas in Engineering and in Travel and Tourism. Learn more about these initiatives and get involved with their development; because that's the only way we will get greater alignment between industry demand and the supply of training.

The opportunities are there. Unprecedented support is available to businesses and people who want to embrace the skills challenge. You currently have a real opportunity to make improvements and real changes once-in-a-generation chance to make things better for your sector and those who work in it.

So don't waste it. Thank you.