Organisations - not government - found responsible for skills shortages

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January 21, 2011

Organisations – not government – found responsible for skills shortages

Management & Leadership skills both lacking but government policy is not the solution

Share your opinion on my LinkedIn question

A new report suggests that whilst Management skills and Leadership skills are amongst the highest and most detrimental skills shortages, the responsibility to improve training and development is an organisation's; the government should not "intervene".
As someone who has seen huge effectiveness of the Train to Gain government initiative (in particular the Leadership and Management grant), I would tend to disagree with this idea.
Train to Gain is due to come to an end this financial year and I know that applications in the south-east should be in by the 11th of February. Other initiatives such as the Right to Request Time to Train are also being reviewed with more information expected this month, although only having been in place since April 2010. A particular government policy the report is critical of is the backing of certain adult training programmes over others (such as apprenticeships) which could limit employer choice.
Of course many government initiatives can waste money and even successful schemes could result in organisations claiming for training funding that they'd have paid for anyway. The report suggests that the government should abandon flawed policies and instead its role should be to create the best possible business environment. The conclusion is that both the ability and responsiblity to identify and implement effective training and development lies in the employer's hands.
I would suggest that government policy on training and development can have a highly positive effect and am interested to hear others' views - what are your thoughts?
Also see the original IoD report and my summary of the findings.