Public and Commercial Services Union

Government Skills

The Government is keen to increase the skills level of the workforce and of its own employees.

The sector skills council for government employees - Government Skills - is responsible for the development and delivery of skills strategy for central government. The two trade union representatives on the Board - Hugh Lanning from PCS and Sue Ferns from Prospect - give the unions a positive opportunity to influence development at national level within departments and agencies. PCS has also been involved in the learning and skills structures that have been set up in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
 

In April 2008 Government Skills published Building professional skills for government, a strategy aimed at developing initiatives to raise skill levels in departments and agencies. Its priorities are:

• Setting professional skills standards for all and linking them to careers
• Strengthening professions to drive the skills standards agenda
• Joint commissioning to meet common skills needs
• Investing in a major expansion of apprenticeships
• Starting and ambitious programme of engagement with the higher and further education sectors.

There are many positive aspects to what the Government as an employer is trying to do on skills, but PCS believes that to date it has been too focused on senior levels and that there are weaknesses and gaps both at a national level and what has been done in individual departments and agencies.
 

The national skills strategies tend to focus on business targets and competitiveness. Within departments and agencies there is an overwhelming focus on the need to meet targets, meet legislative requirements, and increase flexibility, productivity and performance. This often leads to employers focusing on skills for immediate business needs and for the current job rather than on broader, more transferable skills, such as IT, which benefit individuals’ employability in the longer term and equip staff for the future.
 

The civil service unions have been able to influence the Government Skills plans to ensure that greater attention is devoted to Skills for Life opportunities and that apprenticeship schemes are designed to benefit older workers already in government employment rather than just the younger age group that traditionally takes up apprenticeship places.
 

Our current focus at national level is on ensuring that Government Skills’ plans for qualifications and professions provide opportunities rather than barriers for PCS members’ work and career prospects.
 

Departments and agencies are now required to put in place skills action plans that identify the skills needed for present and future business requirements and ensure that their staff have these skills. The overall target of the Cabinet Office for departments and agencies is that “all civil servants have the right skills to meet both their current and future challenges.”

In Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland different skills strategies are in place. Negotiators in UK-wide departments and agencies should seek advice on how the different strategies apply in workplaces in these countries.

Learning as a negotiating issue

Trade unions have been successful in raising learning and skills issues at work and many unions, including PCS, have negotiated improvements to learning provision for their members, even though unions do not at present have a statutory right to bargain on training at work. The TUC has been calling for training to be listed as a collective bargaining issue in the statutory union recognition procedure.

Unions are also calling for the Government to implement measures to enable trade unions to negotiate more collective arrangements such as learning agreements and learning committees.
 

Nationally PCS has been closely consulted on the sector skills strategies developed by Government Skills (GS) and by Skills for Justice (SfJ). PCS has representatives on the Boards of both organisations and consultative machinery exists at national level. Separate arrangements apply in Scotland and Wales where PCS has also participated in developing strategies.

Following the launch of the Building professional skills for government strategy in April 2008, PCS has been working at all levels of the union on developing a consistent approach to bargaining on skills issues to ensure that our members benefit fully from the opportunities presented by the strategy and are protected from some of the threats that could result from it.

The National Executive Committee has agreed that our response to the skills strategy, and in particular to the qualifications element, should be a priority negotiating and campaigning issue, focusing on the dangers of linking pay, capability and performance assessment to qualifications, and of qualifications becoming compulsory for retaining jobs. The union will continue to work with employers across the civil service and in the commercial sector to put in place good learning structures.

A number of briefing events have been held and more detailed guidance for negotiators will be published during 2008.

Key objectives for PCS on learning and skills

General negotiating points

1. Employers should provide fair and equal access to learning opportunities for all staff including targeted intervention for those who need it most
2. Learning opportunities should be of the highest quality 
3. Learning opportunities should be accredited and lead to qualifications to ensure that learning and experience are transferable
4. Learning opportunities should provide transferable skills that assist with personal career development 
5. Employers should help staff achieve a core set of skills which will help with their current job but will also equip them for work elsewhere: literacy, numeracy, communication, IT
6. Employers should give support for literacy and numeracy work
7. Each member of staff should be entitled to a proper learning needs analysis that takes account not only of the organisation’s needs, but the staff member’s needs as well 
8. Individuals should be able to access support for learning that goes wider than the needs of the job – including time, money and on-site facilities
9. Employers should identify and fill gaps in learning provision
10. Career development structures should be fair, open and transparent
11. Operational management should be recognised as a skill and a career path in its own right and managers should have access to training in operational and people management
12. Employers should involve the trade unions, through the learning rep structure, in developing learning and skills policies.

Negotiating on the skills strategy

The investment in Government Skills and the development of a sector skills strategy demonstrates the priority given by government as an employer to skills and reflects the importance of involving unions in this area.

Union involvement at national level in Government Skills is not an alternative to discussion, consultation and agreement departmentally. Employers should be setting up discussions with the trade unions and involving us in drawing up skills strategy action plans.

Action Plan on Skills for Life

Following representation by PCS, Government Skills has developed a civil service-wide action plan on Skills for Life (literacy, numeracy and other key skills). This action plan seeks to:

• Raise awareness of the numbers of staff who do not have level 2 skills in literacy, numeracy or ICT use
• Set up a framework and support for identifying learning needs 
• Make sure that there is sufficient support and provision to meet the demand for learning
• Evaluate and monitor progress.

There will be full union involvement in this strategy which will ensure that lessons learnt from union work in this field are taken on board. Nevertheless there are some points that negotiators will need to raise.

Skills for Life negotiating points

1. Government Skills recognises the key role of ULRs in literacy, numeracy and key skills work. This is an opportunity to develop and reinforce the ULR network, recruit new ULRs and obtain agreement for their initial training and for specific training in supporting skills for life.
2. Departments and agencies should take full account of the differences in definitions and approach in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland
3. Employers should make sure that skills for life screenings are available for every member of staff, together with access to trained and sympathetic support
4. Screenings, assessments and referrals should be strictly confidential, with management only having access to statistical information
5. Screening, assessment and learning should be seen as an entitlement, with paid time off to take part
6. Members should be given paid time off to talk to their ULR not only about this programme but about any form of learning.

Model learning agreements

PCS and the other civil service unions have agreed a Model learning agreement with Government Skills.
The Model learning agreement can be used as the basis for negotiations with employers to establish a learning agreement with each employer.

Model learning agreement negotiating points
Any learning agreement should include the following elements from the Model Learning Agreement: 

1. A commitment by both the union and employer to supporting a range of learning
2. Clear arrangements for consultation and negotiation on learning (eg existing machinery or specially created joint learning committees/forums
3. Commitment by the employer to support the development of union learning reps. They should, as a minimum, fulfil the requirements of the Employment Act 2002 and ACAS Code of Practice in relation to facilities for ULRs, training for union learning representatives (ULRs) etc
4. Employer recognition of the need for the union to have effective structures to support employees’ learning including union learning representatives and branch learning coordinators
5. Time off for staff to talk to the union learning rep, attend promotional events etc
6. Recognition of, and support for wider learning – including time off, fees, and on-site facilities
7. Negotiators can get support in negotiating a learning agreement from PCS Organising & Learning.

Union Learning Rep Strategy and Union Learning Fund projects

In March 2006 the PCS national executive committee endoprsed a strategy for the development of ULRs and structures to support them. PCS also obtained funding from the Scottish and English Union Learning Funds to put in place a national network of project workers to recruit and support union learning representatives. The key objectives of both the strategy and the projects are:

• To use the learning agenda to put in place a network of union learning representatives
• To link the ULRs into their branches and groups through branch learning coordinators, learning committees and other structures
• To make full use of the learning agenda as an organising and bargaining tool
• To embed the union’s work on learning into the mainstream of union activity.