Response to BIS Skills Consultation
The Crafts Council has responded to the Department for Business Innovation and Skills consultation Skills for Sustainable Growth, read our answers to relevant questions below.
For the full consultation documents click here
Principles for a skills strategy
1. We welcome views on these principles and whether there are others we should consider.
- The Crafts Council welcomes the Government’s position on skills, including craft skills and practical learning, particularly, the repeated recognition from skills and education ministers of the need to shed prejudices associated with vocational and practical learning, of the vital social and economic contribution of skills and the need for diversity in the skills sector.
- Craft sits well within the Government’s emphasis on building a skills system which responds to the needs of the economy and choices of employers and learners.
- Craft is a substantial player within the creative industries, growing more rapidly by employment than any other sector. Nearly 35,000 people work as contemporary craft makers in the UK, and the whole craft sector contributes£3bn to the UK economy each year. Largely made up of self-employed makers and owners of SMEs, the sector has a significant role in the UK’s future economic landscape.
- The craft sector has a number of characteristics noteworthy for Britain’s new industrial landscape. It is fastest growing amongst the young, which means it is well placed for further growth. New research commissioned by the Crafts Council shows that craft graduates are successful, entrepreneurial and socially mobile.
- Investing in craft has significant spill-over effects into other creative industries and beyond. The recent Crafts Council report Making Value Craft and the economic and social contribution of makers shows craft makers contributing to sectors from film and fashion to health and architecture and partnering manufacturers in new commercial products.
- We welcome the recognition that developing skills generate wider social, community and individual benefits, including social mobility and justice. Craft is well placed to respond to the social and community objectives of the skills strategy, with craft projects assisting in job creation and social inclusion in less affluent areas. As just one example, the Xtravert programme, set up in 2009 and funded through the European Social Fund, is a training programme to help young people in the South West who are not in education, employment or training to develop carpentry and business skills. With an emphasis on craftsmanship the programme provides young people with the chance to build new skills and begin a career for themselves, with craftsmanship skills.
- Finally we welcome the emphasis on FE and apprenticeships which can diversify routes into the craft sector and capitalize on its potential.
2. How can we further simplify the skills system, including the number, roles and responsibilities of the many organisations working in the system?
- Creative & Cultural Skills is the Sector Skills Council responsible for the craft sector. There have been a number of significant changes in approaches to skills and Creative & Cultural Skills has been instrumental in delivering a stable and coherent approach to skills in the creative sectors. Although we support simplification of the skills system, a body with specialist knowledge of our sector plays a vital role.
3. In view of the current fiscal deficit, what areas of public investment in skills could be reduced and where could private investment be increased? What are the main constraints on changing the balance between public and private investment and how could these be overcome?
- Although we recognise the need for savings throughout government, investment and return need to be rethought in a more complex way in relation to cultural industries such as craft.
- Cultural industries typically operate on mixed funding models. Public investment commonly supports the developmental and research aspects of the sector which in turn stimulates the growth and commercial end. Cutting public funds could thus halt growth and the main opportunities for the development of skills. Recent and anticipated cuts in public funding for culture, and associated potential declines in philanthropic giving through loss of leverage, will reinforce the need for funding for skills in the sector.
A respected and credible training offer
4. How could the Apprenticeship programme be improved? What can be done to increase the proportion of apprentices progressing to Level 3 and beyond? What and how should employers contribute to Apprenticeships?
- It can be difficult for young people to find routes into creative sectors, and we strongly welcome support for a range of routes into the cultural sector.
- The apprenticeship system provides one possible pathway, and typically works well in sectors with a preponderance of large-employers and less well in sectors comprising smaller organisations. The model needs to be more flexible to take into account the structures of different sectors, including the cultural sector.
- Craft businesses are typically sole enterprises or SMEs and representatives have expressed concerns that the apprentice model will not be financially viable for craft makers.
- Public funding remains a vital stimulus. We believe more should and could be done, both by the sector and by government, to encourage private investment in the creative industries. However, there will be a lengthy education process on both sides before private development capital is readily accessible to the creative micro-businesses that characteristically bring about the greatest innovation and before they develop the capacity to access it. Even then, public funding is still likely to be the main stimulus for the highest risk and most innovative R&D.
7. How should we ensure that training leads to real gains in skills, knowledge and competence and not just the accreditation of existing skills?
- In the craft sector unaccredited work based learning commonly takes place in the form of work placements, particularly at post degree level.
- The formalization of work placements would provide structure and recognition for existing training with no requirement to invent a new infrastructure.
- However, the skills system should prioritize gaining skills over accreditation. The accreditation of qualifications through NVQs has been too focussed on gathering evidence of competencies rather than gaining relevant skills and too dependent on individual assessors.
- The craft sector typically comprises micro-businesses and SMEs which lack the capacity to train and fund placements. It requires external, and probably public, support to facilitate training that can unlock the economic potential of the sector (and see Apprenticeships above).
10. How can we better promote enterprise education in further education colleges and throughout the training system?
- Research shows that further integration of business and entrepreneurial skills to match artistic skills is needed in creative and cultural courses at all levels, equipping graduates with the right skills for the sector; specifically knowledge of how to run a business alongside practical skills. This is currently provided after HE/FE education by specialist organisations including the Crafts Council’s own national programme, but needs to be better addressed within Higher and Further Education through more focus and better teaching at this level. See the Crafts Council’s report Creative Graduates, Creative Futures.
- Reintroducing craft in the school curriculum would contribute towards the supply chain for craft apprenticeships, helping to unlock the potential of the sector.
Helping individuals and employers choose the learning they want
13. We welcome views on how best to ensure employers are able to shape the skills system to meet their needs.
- We believe that an employer led skills council, such as Creative & Cultural Skills is an effective way to deliver the right skills to the sector.
- However, skills should be delivered not just in terms of employer needs but the needs of the sector as a whole and should take into account the spill-over effects across sectors described below (question 15).
14. We are interested in views on what more might be needed to make the system responsive to employer needs.
- See above
15. Which qualifications have most value for employers and learners? Which do not have value? How do we evolve the Qualifications and Credit Framework so that it focuses on the former and removes the latter?
- Craft makers in the UK commonly rely on multiple income streams, for example combining teaching, consultancy and making, in portfolio careers.
- There is also significant potential for interdisciplinary working with craft skills and recent research has identified the spill-over effects of CCIs into other sectors including manufacturing. The Crafts Council’s own research report, Making Value, provides a wealth of evidence illustrating this argument in the specific case of craft.
- Training that helps craft makers understand the market and recognise the diverse contexts/collaborations in which their skills can be applied is particularly valuable, as it can assist makers in developing different income streams and sustaining their practices.
- There has also been a Government focus on up-skilling in training. In the craft sector, makers commonly leave formal education courses with very high levels of technical and practical skills but less business and market knowledge. Recognition that there is a value in acquiring lower levels of qualifications that diversify the skills of learners would also be valuable in our sector.
16. How can we improve the accessibility and quality of careers information, advice and guidance services for adults?
- The Government facility, Connections Direct, is only available to people up to the age of 19 (or 25 for adults with learning difficulties or disabilities).
- It is harder for adults to access free careers advice, this is especially relevant to adults who wish to retrain.
17. We welcome views on the vision for lifelong learning accounts, and their potential usefulness.
- Many makers come to craft as a second career through FE and other routes and we welcome measures that encourage adults to engage in learning and provide them with careers advice, especially given the current shortage of carers advice for adults and for people wishing to change field as is frequently the case in our sector.
- The Crafts Council has a strong track record in this area and we work with hundreds of professional makers every year. Our new Professional Development Programme, Collective, which is a portfolio of five continuing professional development programmes, helps craft makers to develop their work and business skills throughout their careers.
Giving colleges and training organisations the freedom to respond
19. We welcome views on our planned measures for simplification and freeing colleges and training organisations.
- We believe that FEs should respond to the needs of users and the local community and be market driven.
- We support the introduction of a system which is accountable to users although this model could be difficult for delivering sustained and consistent assessment as previous users will not necessarily maintain a long-term evaluating role with an FE and are likely to move on when they finish study.
- We also support providing FEIs with greater freedoms to shape their own curriculums.
21. What mechanisms could we use to hold colleges and other training organisations to account for their performance in responding to employers’ needs and for prioritising training that adds real economic value?
- Colleges that serve employer needs could be established, but we urge that the economic value of training should not be prioritised entirely at the expense of socio-cultural benefits that are of equal importance in a balanced civil society.
Encouraging a more productive workforce
26. We welcome views on ways in which businesses can be encouraged to increase the UK’s leadership and management capability to create better run and more highly performing businesses.
- In the craft sector, the Craft Leadership Network, funded through the Cultural Leadership Programme is proving to be an effective way to develop leadership potential, increase networking and build the leadership capacity of craft organisations.
- This type of career development programme needs external funding as these organisations do not have the capacity for training of this kind.
Reinvigorating adult and community learning
27. How could we encourage the development of productive partnerships with third sector organisations?
- Such partnerships need to be nurtured locally, and between individuals in the first instance. With our own train-the trainer” programme, Craft Club, we know that a) a successful cascading effect is more likely to result from early face-to-face rapport, and b) for successful partnerships to occur, we need to spend time understanding the needs and circumstances of the potential link organisation. This confirms existing theories of the ambassador model as an effective method for initiating and developing partnerships, where ambassadors are fully briefed/trained in project goals and mechanisms, and crucially also bring their own understanding of context and delivery into the mix.
28. We welcome views on new ways that colleges could be used to support the community.
- The Crafts Council’s Firing Up programme, which aims to rekindle interest in ceramics in schools, uses ‘clusters’ developed around HE institutions and colleges to tap into regional centres of excellence. The HEIs are an invaluable professional resource as well as a source of technical know-how and a venue for training and events. The aim is to incrementally develop long-term, sustainable relationships between (in this case) local secondary schools, HEIs, creative practitioners and cultural venues. The cluster is bonded through face-to-face events and CPD and also an online network, where regular contact is maintained. A coordinator manages and, where necessary, troubleshoots the relationships and individual partners. As far as we are aware, this is a new approach for the sector and, as such, has attracted substantial funding from two major charitable foundations.
29. How could adult and community learning be reinvigorated? We especially welcome ideas for how businesses and others could be encouraged to engage in supporting local community learning to help create local ownership and momentum.
- We believe in participatory learning, whereby all the talent and skill available in our communities is made accessible as a resource. The establishment of social networks is now a vital facilitator in the exchange of skill, knowledge, expertise and ideas. Our own Craft Action Network offers this facility to a spectrum of skilled and passionate individuals (ranging from ‘amateur’ to ‘professional’ to ‘academic’) to highlight their interests and broker new collaborations and working relationships.
(1) Schwarz M and Yair K (2010): Making Value: craft & the economic and social contribution of makers London, Crafts Council.
(2) Hunt W, Ball L and Pollard E (2010): Crafting Futures: a study of the early careers of crafts graduates from UK higher education institutions London, Crafts Council.
