Skills council leader urges sector to bolster recruitment practices
03 December 2008
The new 14-19 diploma in public services will help to solve the sector’s problems with recruitment and an ageing workforce, delegates at this year’s National Public Sector Skills conference were told.
Neil Fletcher, diploma development partnership lead on employer engagement and higher education for Skills Plus UK, the sector skills council that represents local government, said the public sector faced recruitment problems and skills shortages as increasing numbers of an ageing workforce retired.
He said that employees were on average 10 years older than the private sector and it was often difficult to attract younger staff. “Public services have to move fast to bolster their recruitment practices,” he warned.
But he said the diploma in public service, due to be rolled out in 2010, would provide a new route into the sector for young people. Employers would benefit from the workplace skills gained by diploma students, which combines theory work with practical experience.
“Its introduction is likely to reduce recruitment problems and staff turnover, and enable skills gaps to be filled more easily. The intention is that, with more people coming through the system and learning by engaging with the employment market, they will be better prepared for entry into work,” he said.
Fletcher added that many of the traditional routes into public services for school leavers had disappeared through increased outsourcing of entry-level jobs in areas such as facilities management, catering and IT.
He admitted that young people did not always see the public sector as an exciting career choice, which added to recruitment problems. There was still an opportunity to change the diploma’s name to help attract more young people “if people think of something more sexy”, he added.
Fletcher said the new diploma, designed by employers, was “really demanding” and covered everything from finance and budgeting to PR and HR. He said those who had completed the course, which includes compulsory work experience and project work, would be better prepared for the workplace than those with A-levels.