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Final Report
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Chapter 3. Skills for what?76. The Team decided early on in its work that it needed to take a broad view of the skills that were relevant to its remit. This chapter sets out briefly our view of what those skills are. 77. The skills people have affect every aspect of their lives, including in particular their prospects in the labour market, but also their capacity to understand, take part in and contribute to the wider society in which they live; their status within that society; their sense of self; the quality of their relationships with other members of their family and their local community; and on their ability to give their children effective support in school, in the transition from school to work and in further learning. Basic Skills
78. The basic skills of literacy and numeracy are the essential underpinning for all others. They were defined in the Moser Report (see box)(9) as:
The Moser Working Group was appointed by the Secretary of State in June 1998. A Fresh Start proposes that the Government should launch a National Strategy to reduce the number of adults with low levels of basic skills.
As part of the National Strategy, the group has recommended that the Government should commit itself to the virtual elimination of functional illiteracy and innumeracy.
In addition to the accepted participation target for 2002, the group recommends that:
The aim is to reduce by half the number of functionally illiterate adults of working age by 2010. This means lifting some 3.5 million adults out of functional illiteracy over this period, and a similar number for numeracy.
A key objective is to encourage and help younger people, and by 2010, the aim should be that 95% of 19 year olds have adequate levels of literacy and 90% adequate levels of numeracy.
To enable this to happen, the group made 21 recommendations under ten headings which are:
The system of provision proposed by the group will make it possible to achieve the proposed targets only if each year from 2002 on average 450,000 people pass the threshold for literacy, and a similar number for numeracy. This compares with, say, less than 70,000 a year under present arrangements.
To get a flow of 450,000 people to cross the key threshold, the total number enrolled needs to increase from the 500,000 planned for 2002 to some 750,000 by 2005.
To achieve the National Strategy proposed in the report, the group recommends that Local Learning Partnerships should have a key responsibility for improving adult basic skills. It recommends that they should be required to produce 3 year action plans for adult basic skills education and that these should be developed with the help of the Basic Skills Agency.
At national level there the group recommends that there should be a National Adult Basic Skills Strategy Group, chaired by a Minister, to advise on all aspects of the National Strategy.
79. People with literacy and numeracy problems are likely to find it very difficult to improve their skills in other areas. They are up to five times more likely than others to be unemployed and, if they are in employment, are more likely to be poorly paid. The following table(10)
shows the distribution of annual earnings for people with different levels of literacy and numeracy.
Literacy Numeracy
Skills for work
80. To play an effective role in the labour market, people now need a formidable portfolio of skills. A number of long-established trends mean that the demand within the economy for individuals with higher levels of skills - and a greater aptitude for handling risk - is steadily increasing
81. The key trends include a shift towards a more service-oriented economy and away from traditional manufacturing; increasingly volatile and unpredictable career patterns for individuals; new technology; increased international competition; and de-layering and "flatter" structures within firms(11). We saw evidence of the effects of significant economic change in each of the four study areas we visited. While it was most starkly obvious in the former coalfield areas of Peterlee and Hemsworth - where the main source of employment for men has simply disappeared in the past few years - it was also evident in Hackney, which remains a severely disadvantaged area despite being a stone's throw from the City of London.
82. The skills individuals need to access the labour market and to maintain their position within it include the basic skills of literacy and numeracy and increasingly competence with information technology as well as occupationally-specific skills that can help to secure long-term employment. They also include more generic work-related skills - like communication, teamworking and problem-solving - also defined as "key skills" - that are increasingly demanded by business or which are critical if people are to market themselves effectively to employers(12). There are well-established definitions of the general skills that are most relevant to employment.
There is a reasonable consensus around the key skills that are most essential to be effective members of the workforce. Originally developed by the National Council for Vocational Qualifications, the list includes:
Specifications exist for each of these skills, describing each in terms of five levels, extending from the equivalent of GCSE to first degree.
83. Demand from employers for key skills is strong; some recent changes in the labour market have reinforced that demand and mean there is a higher premium on, for example, competence in IT or inter-personal and communication skills.
84. Consequently, there is a reasonably good correlation between people's possession of these skills, their likelihood of being in employment and the probability of that employment being well-paid. For example, employees who are able to use a computer derive a significant wage gain(13); and young men with low levels of basic numeracy are much more likely to spend prolonged periods out of employment(14). It is worth adding, however, that this correlation between skills and employment is not always very evident to people from disadvantaged communities, who may feel that, whatever employers say about rewarding skills, they themselves are on the receiving end of "postcode" discrimination on the basis of where they live or - worse - racial discrimination.
85. In particular, the general correlation between the possession of higher skills and success in the labour market does not hold good where ethnic minority people are concerned. People from ethnic minorities are generally no less well-qualified than white people (see table) and are more likely to be involved in further or higher education yet, for most ethnic minority groups, their presence in the labour market does not reflect that.
Proportion of adults qualified to NVQ level 3 by ethnicity in England(15)
86. Describing the skills an individual possesses defines only their basic "employability assets". But the relationship between skills and work is far from being a directly instrumental one. Put more simply, the possession of certain skills does not guarantee that an individual will get a job, still less one of the quality that those skills might be thought to justify. Other factors are equally important in determining individuals' employability (see box).
A study(16) conducted last year for the DfEE found that individuals' employability - their capacity to gain employment and to maintain themselves in it - depended on
87. This analysis is important because it makes clear that any strategies to help people from disadvantaged communities to become more employable cannot focus only on "equipping" them with the right skills, however these are defined. The ability to deploy and present skills, and the possession of qualities like self-confidence and self- discipline also matter.
88. These - and in particular self-confidence and self-discipline- are also exactly the skills and qualities that are needed for people to make a success of self-employment, a field in which socially disadvantaged people are of course significantly under-represented. Wider social and economic changes - for example the end of "jobs for life", more flexible working patterns and the greater distances many people need to be prepared to travel to work - all mean that the ability to navigate "risk" or to be enterprising are particularly important. 89. Because socially disadvantaged communities can for historical reasons be inward-looking and isolated, they are also qualities that people who live there are particularly likely to lack.
90. There are, of course many exceptions to that general statement and many people in disadvantaged communities are, because of their experience of life in often difficult circumstances, extremely resourceful. Skills that people possess that can not be readily accredited - or which do not fit a conventional mould - are, however, all too frequently not recognised or valued.
Skills for life
91. The skills that people have - or lack - have an importance that goes over and beyond their utility in helping to secure and maintain employment. Skills also have a critical impact on:
92. Together with poverty and unemployment - to which the factors listed are themselves significant contributors - these are among the most important kinds of disadvantage experienced by people who live in the areas we were asked to study. People who suffer from all of them often feel isolated and without hope - they are "socially excluded" in the fullest possible sense.
93. There are some separately identifiable "life skills" - for example parenting and caring - that are directly relevant here. But, for the most part, the Team does not believe a clear line can be sensibly drawn between "life skills" that might help people reduce or avoid the kinds of disadvantage listed above and the "employment skills" discussed earlier in the chapter. In reality, the same sets of skills are relevant in both contexts.
9. Improving literacy and numeracy - a fresh start, 1999
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