SummitSkills is moving inexorably closer to the goal of achieving its licence – a goal that has sometimes seemed to move away only slightly slower than SummitSkills moves towards it. However the end does seem to be in sight.
Since my last article, SummitSkills has moved into the Development phase of the process of becoming a Sector Skills Council (SSC). You will recall that there are three phases: the Expression of Interest; the Development phase and Evaluation. Indeed not only has it moved into Development but also out of it into the final phase – Evaluation.
Evaluation culminates with Charles Clarke, the Secretary of State for Education and Skills, granting a licence and the striking out of the words "in development" that have clung to SummitSkills since the Sector Skills Development Agency (SSDA) approved the Expression of Interest last November. While success cannot be guaranteed, the SSDA is now clearly and actively working with SummitSkills to give it a licence.
Development plans
The Development phase culminated on 4 July 2003 with the submission of a 100-page document (accompanied by a further 100 pages of appendices). This set out the reasons that the sector needs a Sector Skills Council (a market assessment), what it is to achieve in its first five years (a strategic plan) and a more detailed 18-month business plan, as well as details of the way in which SummitSkills is to be staffed, governed and will deal with its partners from within the sector and beyond to the various government agencies.
The preparation of the submission had to await the appointment of SummitSkills' chief executive – Keith Marshall – in March and the taking on of further staff in May. It is a document that sets out in considerable detail the work that SummitSkills' three predecessors (NET, ESTTL and BPEC) did so effectively, as well as that which the trade associations and the trade unions in the sector have supported since distant times. It details what has been done, successfully and unsuccessfully, what has been thought of and not attempted, and what the three organisations would have gone on to do had the Government left them alone and let them get on with the job that they were doing so well. It also identifies areas which, by the coming together of the three industrial sectors as one Sector Skills Council, need to be tackled and why.
As I have said, this Development Plan was submitted to the SSDA at the beginning of July and the act of submission "started the clock of Evaluation ticking". To explain: the SSDA requires 12 weeks to undertake its evaluation, which involves a desktop review, consideration by the devolved administrations and the DfES, a due diligence exercise and an evaluation panel. At the end of all this it is expected that the SSDA Board will meet and recommend to the Secretary of State that SummitSkills be granted a licence. Oh were it so easy!
With a clear wind, SummitSkills should have a licence before the end of the year
The evaluation phase
The SSDA has accepted SummitSkillls' submission and has carried out the first of its considerations – the "desktop evaluation". It has made recommendations as to areas in the plan that it feels need strengthening, rethinking or amendment. It has, and this is worth repeating, accepted SummitSkills' development plan and, subject to the changes that it requires, SummitSkills is on its way. However, until the rethink is completed to the SSDA's satisfaction it has stopped the clock.
It should also be clearly stated that the development plan was submitted exactly in accordance with the SSDA's requirements as understood at the time. However, as has so frequently been the case during this long process, the goalposts, or perhaps more correctly the definition of what is or isn't a goal, appear to have moved or changed.
Work is, however, nearly complete on the second draft of the plan and this will be resubmitted and the clock restarted on 3 September. With a clear wind, SummitSkills should therefore have a licence before the end of the year.
There has also been considerable activity carried out alongside the preparation and submission of the Development Plan. I have mentioned the staff, all of whom, except for Keith Marshall, have transferred from NET, ESTTL and BPEC. Currently they number eight and are spread across the country with a temporary administration office in Gateshead. This core workforce will be added to after the granting of a licence has been made as new functions are brought online.
The staff have brought much of the ongoing work of their former organisations, although not all of it quite yet, to SummitSkills. Work has continued in the updating and development of standards and the resubmissions of frameworks required by the various bodies that make up the complicated web of vocational training.
Source
Electrical and Mechanical Contractor
Postscript
Simon Bartley is chair of the SummitSkills Implementation Group.
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