Public Policy
May 01 2004
by Roger CoweBudget headlines were all about civil servants facing the axe from business-style efficiency programmes, especially the merger of Customs & Excise with the Inland Revenue. One spin-off could be a pool (maybe a reservoir) of highly-trained clerical and managerial workers - although it is questionable how transferable their skills are.
Skills and "upskilling" are the main themes of the Budget for Briefing readers - confirming Gordon Brown's obsession with productivity and employability.
Of course some people argue that the famed productivity gap is actually due to measurement methods. But so long as Brown is in Number 11, it will drive much of Treasury thinking. In any case, both businesses and communities will benefit from improving the skills of people who have found it difficult to get jobs.
This year's Budget contribution is a cocktail of minor innovations and tentative steps, some of them building on previous measures or announcements, which collectively seek to build partnerships between business, local authorities, government agencies and other players that can influence skill levels. The Fair Cities idea is one example, and the business growth incentive is also intended to stimulate local authority partnerships with business.
The main element is the New Deal for Skills announced (like most of the Budget these days) in the pre-Budget report. Jobcentres will be required to give greater priority to helping people who are out of work acquire the skills needed to make them more employable. This latest New Deal will also give employees a single point of contact to access learning. Jobcentres will also be expected to work more closely with local information services so that people can connect training needs with employability.
The Chancellor also announced the next stage of the Employer Training Pilots which will begin in the autumn and bring coverage of this free training scheme to more than a third of the country.
There were also special measures aimed at young and old people and minority ethnic communities - the typical collection of micro-interferences which makes the Chancellor the "tinkerman" (Claudio Ranieri) of politics.
All this emphasises the importance of employment and training policies in corporate responsibility. Many companies have a strong record of employee-related community activity such as volunteering and mentoring, and there has been increasing action on diversity. But few have really examined how their recruitment and training practices affect disadvantage. These Budget measures should stimulate more companies to examine how all their HR practices - from recruitment to retirement - affect the communities they recruit from and work in.
BUDGET HIGHLIGHTS- New Deal for Skills: including extension of the Employer Training Pilot scheme, which gives employees paid time off and free training, as part of a package giving a guarantee that every adult will be able to gain level 2 skills (equivalent to five good GCSEs)
- Fair Cities initiatives: will support the creation of employer-led partnerships between local employers, public bodies, providers and minority ethnic communities. The aim is to design initiatives which will improve employment of local minority ethnic communities in these areas. Due to start in three areas from July
- Business growth incentive scheme for local authorities: will allow councils to keep a portion of increased business rate revenues. The idea is to give them an incentive to work with businesses on local economic development. The scheme will begin next April and councils are expected to benefit by £150m in the first year, rising to £450m in 2007/8