A better skills future – but not tomorrow

04 November, 2021

Since the turn of the last century, one of the biggest inhibitors to business growth in the UK, has been a shortage of suitably skilled workers with the right work ethic. It’s not popular to say so, and few politicians would dare to say it, but it is a fact of business life. Trade Associations such as the BFPA and its sister associations in the engineering and machinery alliance (EAMA) have been lobbying on this issue for many years, so the recent renewed interest from the Government in finally seeking to openly address this issue, is only to be welcomed.

Acknowledging the problem

It may have taken Brexit driving overseas workers back home and a pandemic of mammoth proportions to catalyse it, but let’s resist the temptation to be cynical. We should celebrate the fact that somebody in Government is finally acknowledging the problem publicly and is seeking to put policies in place to address it. But is it too late? Is the Prime Minister’s utopian vision of a highly paid, highly skilled workforce in a highly productive, low tax economy realistic?

Irrespective of one’s political leanings, we can all agree that it is a positive goal. A better skills future – but not tomorrow The recent Government push into addressing skills shortages in the UK is welcome – but is it too late, asks Chris Buxton, outgoing CEO, the British Fluid Power Association. The BFPA is entirely apolitical and represents its members from all sides of the political ‘polygon’. However, if we are to address the skills crisis, which our members cite every time there is a discussion about the state of business, we do have to remain practical and realistic. Unlike our political masters, we are not trying to garner votes, we are trying to solve a problem for our members.

There is no doubt that a more highly skilled workforce should be rewarded with higher salaries. Given their enhanced skills, one would hope that they would also be more productive, therefore helping their employer to generate more income to fund the increased salary burden (a good work ethic permitting). If a company is generating more revenue, the tax receipts going into the Government Treasury will be higher and this in turn should reduce the pressure to raise taxes, even against the backdrop of enormous debt built-up during the pandemic.

Worthy aspiration

If we are paying lower taxes, we will have more money in our pockets to spend on luxury goods, and in a service-dominated economy such as we have in the UK this can only further increase company revenues and accelerate this wealth generating cycle. It has to be a worthy aspiration and should attract support from all colours in the political spectrum. So, where is the possible flaw in this seemingly utopian ideal? The answer lies in the fact that it relies 100% upon the short-term availability of suitably skilled workers with a good work ethic.

We are back to our opening point. If there is a chronic or acute skills shortage now, even with the best of initiatives – and there are many good ones; The Lifetime Skills Guarantee, T-Levels, The Skills Accelerator Programme, a new Student Finance system, The Skills and Post-16 Education Bill etc – it will still take the order of ten years before it impacts the day-to-day running of UK businesses. Indeed, during that period, industry is being encouraged to invest heavily in these new initiatives, which can only increase costs not revenue. This expenditure is very worthy and a good investment for the future, but the skills crisis is ‘now’, not in ten years and the thought of a highly skilled, highly paid, low tax economy, whilst very uplifting in a world much in need of some positive news, is at best challenging.

BFPA and other EAMA Associations recently commissioned a survey in conjunction with Enginuity and the Gatsby Foundation, into the current skills landscape. The results were many but unsurprisingly, key findings were:

• more than three-quarters of companies have major skills gaps;

• those firms that do not perceive a skills gap tend to be small;

• an exceptionally wide range of specialist skill requirements were identified;

• the most common gap was in digital skills; older workers have many strengths but can be slow to adopt new technology;

• the biggest impacts of recruitment and skills gaps are increased workload on other staff and reduced productivity;

• the most common training was in-house, undertaken by three-quarters of surveyed companies, followed by training from equipment suppliers, used by half the firms surveyed.

• A small number of firms sent staff to their European parent companies for training;

• skills planning tends to be short-term, although one third of companies say they do have a long-term skills strategy;

The report goes on to make some recommendations as to what companies might do in the short term to help address the skills shortage. Interested parties may wish to contact the British Fluid Power Association (BFPA) for further details, but one thing is certain; the well-intended and worthy goals of the current Government skills strategy has to be considered as being a mediumto long term solution and is not a shortterm panacea for prosperity. That will only come from companies making themselves more attractive to the good, skilled and much sought-after employees, in comparison with their competitors.

‘Survival of the fittest’

There will be winners and losers and until there are more skilled individuals coming on to the employment market it will be a case of the ‘survival of the fittest’ and rather too many UK companies needing to ‘get back to the gym.

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