The Sector Skills Council for the places where we live and work
Careers Advice Line 0800 056 7160
01887 829 171
Employers in Scotland have many of the same concerns as businesses in other areas of the UK. Customer care, management & leadership, awareness of legislation and developing literacy and numeracy all feature highly among them.
The key mechanism for identifying how our industries are going to improve the skills of their workforce is through the Sector Skills Agreement. This was completed in August 2007 and contains agreements between employers and stakeholders on how to tackle the skills issues within the sectors.
There are some uniquely Scottish matters. The declining population means in the future there will be a significantly smaller pool of domestic talent upon which employers can draw.
This has already led to the recruitment of workers from outside Scotland. Some are from Eastern Europe and although they often bring valuable technical skills, communication can be a problem. As a result, employer interest in schemes like English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) has grown dramatically. Plus, courses to train and integrate these new recruits are becoming increasingly important.
Against this backdrop, tangible achievements have included the Scottish Property and Housing e-learning network, funded by the European Social Fund. This has delivered free e-learning in housing related topics and courses in presentation and office skills. As part of the network, we are also moving forward with sector specific learning in response to employer demands.
Another area of achievement can be seen in the increasing numbers of people taking up the postgraduate diploma in housing management. This was a course Asset Skills was instrumental in developing and the University of Stirling has reported a year on year increase.
Other areas of employment in Scotland demand specific solutions. The Supporting the Supporters scheme has gone from strength to strength in the two years we have been running the project. It has successfully trained cleaning supervisors how to identify workers struggling with literacy and numeracy. It was well received by firms who released staff to attend the course and now employers themselves are calling for the scheme to be extended.
There are challenges ahead. We need to improve the number of people taking the modern apprenticeship courses and develop qualifications in new areas. We need to publicise careers within our sectors and work with employers, training providers and education establishments to ensure the training available is reflecting the needs of the Scottish employer.
Asset Skills has developed a suite of job profiles that demonstrates possible career opportunities and sources of further information about jobs in housing, property, cleaning, facilities management and parking. The information is Scotland specific and can be viewed here.
