The Leitch Review will report its conclusions and recommendations to the Government in 2006.

A brief overview of Skills in the UK: The long-term challenge:

• The UK has a strong economy and world-leading employment levels, but its productivity trails many key comparator nations; poor skills are a key contributor to this problem as well as having wider impacts on social welfare.
• Over the last decade, the skills profile of the working age population in the UK has improved.  For example, the proportion of adults with a degree has increased from a fifth to over a quarter of the population.
• Despite these improvements, the UK still does not have a world-class skills base:

  • over a third of adults in the UK do not have a basic school-leaving qualification – double the proportion of Canada and Germany;
  • five million people have no qualifications at all;
  • one in six adults do not have the literacy skills expected of an 11 year old and half do not have these levels of functional numeracy.

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Equality and Diversity: Age Discrimination in Employment and Vocational Training.
From 1 October 2006, new laws protect workers from age discrimination. The Employment Equality (Age) Regulations make it illegal for employers to discriminate against employees, trainees or job seekers because of their age and ensure that all workers, regardless of age, have the same rights in terms of training and promotion.

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The network is made up of 25 Sector Skills Councils [SSc] covering 85% of the entire workforce. Uniquely they are employer led, independent sector- based and UK-wide, and therefore best placed to understand your needs.

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