Lord Leitch recently gave evidence to the select committee which is examining progress on his skills review. Matt Henkes took a look at his evidence and found that he is impressed with the speed of change.

In the latest update on his skills review Lord Leitch admitted the government was still facing an uphill struggle hitting the targets set out in his 2006 report but was still impressed with the progress made so far.

Speaking in front of the Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee at the end of April, Lord Leitch highlighted the potential problems the UK might face.

"Many employers are not happy with further education qualifications that are coming through. We have the opportunity to give [them] a stronger voice."

In uncorrected evidence published on the committee website, he said the targets set down in the report for UK skills in 2020 were realistic but would require a lot of action and commitment to achieve. The consequences of not doing so would be severe. "For the fifth largest nation in the world, where we are is unacceptable," he said.

However Lord Leitch was pleased with the government's response to the report so far, despite the fact there were always going to be recommendations which were refused, he acknowledged. "From my very crude calculations, they have accepted delivering about 95%," he said.

"In many reviews, you do the review and nothing happens. Here many things are happening. I am incredibly impressed by the speed at which the government has picked up and gone along with the recommendations."

Boosting IT

Pushed on the report's conclusion that training expansion should be funded by employers, employees and students, he pointed towards eskills, the IT industry Sector Skills Council, as an example of what's possible.

IT industry leaders recognised a need for more graduates, schooled in a curriculum that suited their businesses, he explained. "They got together, pooled their resources and their expertise to work with a variety of universities and have designed particular graduate courses for them," said Lord Leitch. "They partially fund these. This is the way forward for significantly more investment."

The institutional reforms proposed in the document would encourage more employers to get involved in training the population, something that is key to the entire process of upskilling. "Many employers are not happy with further education qualifications that are coming through, he said. "We have the opportunity to give [them] a stronger voice in driving economically valuable qualifications."

The committee questioned the value of the proposed changes to smaller businesses; would they go along with the plan? Leitch said it was down to the sector skills councils to convince smaller employers to take part in schemes like Train to Gain. But many of these councils spend too much of their time "scratching around looking for ways to generate funds," remarked Leitch, and would function better with more generous funding.

Between the government, employers and individuals, no one group of stakeholders could make much of a difference to improving skills on their own, he added. "Unless we start it, we have no chance of achieving it and improving it," said Lord Leitch.

"The recommendations we made in this report in terms of awareness, national careers service; in terms of joining-up employment and skills (which to me is fundamentally important), all have to happen. It has to be the state, the employer and the individual working in partnership to drive this forward."