Pipe Up: proud of skills progress, but more is needed

Nick Ellins, chief executive of Energy & Utility Skills:

“Sector employers can look back proudly on a series of achievements initiated in the last year. This time last year, The Energy and Utilities Workforce Renewal & Skills Strategy, released last February, documented how the energy and utilities sector will support UK infrastructure by developing a resilient and sustainable workforce – and much of this has pleasingly come to pass.

For those unfamiliar with the strategy, it was created by the Energy & Utilities Skills Partnership (formed of 29 leading sector employers in summer 2016) and predated the government’s plans to drive skills reform through pan-sector employer groups, which were announced in last November’s Skills Summit.

Themes included the importance of the infrastructure sector, the skilled people needed to deliver it, the ageing workforce and the need for greater inclusivity. And since then it has stimulated initiatives like the Energy & Utilities Independent Assessment Service, which provides high-quality end-point assessment services for nine of the 11 new English standards in our sector.

Elsewhere, another initiative to spring from it, the Skills Accord, promotes structured and sustained investment in technical and operational skills through commitments in procurement practices across the supply chain.

And through Talent Source Network, 20 Skills Partnership employers are now offering hundreds of vacancies, including apprenticeships, on a shared online platform. Leveraging social media and targeted campaigns, Talent Source Network is engaging more diverse audiences and showing achievable routes from entry level roles up to senior management.

The Skills Strategy’s calls to build sustainability and workforce resilience have also since been replicated in policy: Ofwat now recognises the skills an organisation needs to run its infrastructure are a vital part of resilience and stated that “resilience in the round for the long term is a key focus in the 2019 price review.”

Notably, Infrastructure has been retained as a theme in the changes from the 10 Key Pillars in the Industrial Strategy Green Paper to the five Foundations of Productivity in the companion white paper. This white paper has also expanded its remit in addressing an ageing workforce – another Skills Strategy recommendation.

Elsewhere, the Skills Strategy has received recognition from a range of key stakeholders including Ofgem, Ofwat, The Drinking Water Inspectorate, Health and Safety Executive, Energy UK, the Energy Networks Association, Water UK, British Water, Future Water, IGEM, The Institute of Water, the Chartered Institute of Waste Management plus several trade unions.

Although we are proud of all this progress, more investment, political and policy focus is needed on sectors like ours that contribute most to UK productivity, so our work with regulators, government ministers and other key stakeholders continues. Stimulating good outcomes for our customers, colleagues, companies and communities, will do likewise for our economy.”