BIS skills reforms to create 50,000 new Apprenticeships next year

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) has called on the government to create a “dynamic and efficient skills system” to meet the international standard.

BIS outlined its vision for the future in a 20-page Structural Reform Plan, with a set of actions and milestones to be met by the new government.

Vince Cable, Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, hopes the reforms will help to “create a highly educated workforce which equips people with the right skills to meet new challenges”.

Structural Reform Plans are a key tool of the new coalition government in order to make departments such as BIS accountable for the implementation of the reforms set out in the coalition agreement.

The reforms set out in BIS’s plan are designed to take power away from Whitehall and putting it in the hands of communities.

These reforms would replace the old system of targets and micromanagement, in order to meet a competitive skills base.

BIS has established a set of five action plans which have already been set in motion.

The Department has called for the quality and scope of Apprenticeships to be increased, and for 50,000 new places to be made available – a target they hope to meet by April 2011.

It is also calling on the government to explore other training measures to get Britain working; the reform of adult and community working; for colleges to be set free from direct state control and for other further education quangos to be abolished. BIS has set a target for reduced bureaucracy to be in place for colleges by August next year.

The plan also encourages greater employer investment in skills to support work-based training and greater involvement in the content of further education courses,

Mr. Cable added: “In order to help secure a sustainable recovery, we will use our resources and policy levers to support effective public and private investment in capital, infrastructure, higher education, science and innovation which are all crucial to creating growth and being economically competitively.”

Click here to view the consultation document.

Mark Astley

(Pictured: Vince Cable, Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills)