coach with teenagers seated in sports hall
26/09/2024

Skills England latest – what it might mean for our sector

Following the announcement over the summer about the creation of Skills England, the Department for Education has released an initial report, Skills England: Driving growth and widening opportunities, which provides some insight into what the focus of the new body will be.

Spencer Moore 2024 1920px.jpgHere, Spencer Moore, Chief Strategy Officer at CIMSPA, shares what the report is telling us about the direction of travel for skills development and how the sport and physical activity sector can be at the forefront of what comes next.

“Back in July, one of the first announcements made by the new government was about the creation of Skills England. Anyone who thought this might be a token announcement with little action behind it was quickly proved wrong as an interim chair was implemented and DfE announced the transfer of responsibilities from IfATE to Skills England along with other planned changes to the Apprenticeship Levy.

Undoubtedly, the government is serious about its commitment to skills. In his first speech as prime minister to the Labour Party Conference, Sir Keir Starmer reinforced the role skills development has in economic growth. And with its first report, we’re starting to see where Skills England’s focus is likely to be.

The first thing to say is that while comprehensive, the report isn’t telling us what is or isn’t going to happen in terms of immediate policies. It’s very much setting out what the analysis of the current landscape is, and it is described by the interim chair as doing ‘nothing more than setting the scene’. But what we can see from it is some key themes that will undoubtedly shape the functions, remit and approach of Skills England through the policies that the government adopts.

The great news is that our sector is already making strong strides in many of these areas. But it’s imperative that we demonstrate the immense positive impact that we are making and ensure that as a sector we are a beacon for what great skills development, that meets the needs of employers and communities, can be.

The report details examples of gaps between the skills demanded by employers and the skills supplied by ‘the system’ and sets this as the driver of the work that Skills England will do.

Within the sport and physical activity sector, skills gap analysis has been carried out with over 1,000 employers of all sizes to identify the skills that they need in order to sustain and grow their operations and business. That analysis is being used to help education and training providers shape their provision to ensure that they can deliver on equipping learners with the skills that employers need. This is crucial across both technical and transferable skills. The Skills England report outlines issues in relation to ‘essential employment skills [which] are foundational capabilities that enable the competent performance of tasks across all areas of work’. In our sector, employers commonly report shortages in transferable skillsets such as leadership, customer service, safeguarding and working with specific populations. Through the ongoing development of Professional Standards, the quality assurance of education providers and the Training Academy, the sport and physical activity sector is addressing these skills gaps.

“The great news is that our sector is already making strong strides in many of these areas. But it’s imperative that we demonstrate the immense positive impact that we are making and ensure that as a sector we are a beacon for what great skills development, that meets the needs of employers and communities, can be.”


Helpfully, the report makes clear distinctions in relation to the gaps between the skills that employers need and those that are available to them. We commonly refer to ‘skills gaps’, but actually, there are three distinct issues that need to be addressed, often through subtly different policy and mechanisms:

  • Skills gaps occur when employers feel that their workforce does not have the correct type or level of skill needed to do the job.
  • Skills shortages occur when employers are unable to recruit to a particular vacancy because the demand for the skills needed exceeds the number of individuals with those skills.
  • Skills mismatches occur when the skills that an employer needs are different to the skills that a potential employee has.


Through strong partnerships with quality education providers, the sport and physical activity sector is making strong inroads to addressing all three issues. As well as working with employers to understand their needs and helping learning providers to adapt curriculum to deliver in-demand skills, through work to showcase the breadth and scope of careers within the sector, we’re creating a pipeline of talent with the skills that match the needs of the industry.

The report also explores a reduction in training expenditure by employers, reporting a 19% reduction between 2011 and 2022. Challenges in relation to the pandemic and the economic climate have undoubtedly resulted in employers being cautious about expenditure, including on training. In our sector, we’re showcasing the link between skills development and ROI. For example, a service provider who invests in training to equip their staff to deliver activity for pre- and post-natal clients quickly creates a new revenue stream and income by offering specialist classes. My colleague Natasha Eason explored the benefits of investment in skills in more depth in her blog earlier in the year.

In its manifesto pre-election, the announcement of Skills England and the narrative since, it’s been clear that the place-based approach to skills prioritisation is at the foundation of the government’s plans. The Skills England report reinforces that. It outlines the local level disparity in skills, introducing a local skills dashboard. Through its 31 Local Skills Accountability Boards (LSABs), the sport and physical activity sector is working at a hyper-local level to deliver on local skills needs. The pilot projects referenced in the Get Active government strategy have shown how bringing together stakeholders from across and beyond the sector, as Clare Dunn highlighted in her recent blog, has real impact in ensuring that the skills being developed align with local priorities, whether that be in relation to the local economy, social value or health and wellbeing. For example, where a local health priority such as high rates of diabetes has been identified, learning providers can adapt curriculum to enable people who understand the community to develop the skills needed to deliver activity for that demographic. Service providers can then offer specialist provision because they have skilled employees. This allows health care professionals to refer patients to that specialist provision, and because it’s delivered locally by relatable professionals who are specifically skilled, the impact is great.

The Skills England report also looks to the future, exploring trends that are likely to impact skills needs. There are commonalities identified that are likely to impact all sectors to a greater or lesser extent. Evolving digital skills and AI are a key theme. As a service sector reliant on people, there can sometimes be a perception that roles in sport and physical activity are immune to the need for these skills. However, the fact is that technology has the potential to do some of the heavy lifting of a number of roles within the sector, freeing up professionals to use their skills and resource to deliver greater impact. But we need people with the skills to recognise these opportunities and leverage them.

Other future trends identified in the report relate to specific sectors such as construction and green energy. Ultimately, these sectors need healthy, active individuals to join their workforce before they can even think about the skills that those individuals need. For that, there has to be a skilled sport and physical activity profession to enable those individuals to have and maintain a healthy, active lifestyle.

 


For our sector, looking ahead to future skills needs is essential. That’s the driving force behind the Sport and Physical Activity Workforce Observatory. Bringing together academic research and insight from both within and outside of the sector to create foresight about the long-term skills needs of our sector will enable effective workforce planning and skills development strategies and policies to be developed and implemented.

This builds on the strong foundation of workforce insight work that the sector has already developed. We recognised some time ago that a new approach to identifying and measuring the size and scale of our workforce was needed in order to create an accurate picture that supported employers to make decisions in relation to workforce planning and skills needs. We’ve moved beyond the traditional ‘SIC and SOC’ classifications to establish a truly reflective way of analysing the workforce. This ensures that the sector, through resources such as Data Lens and the Workforce Insights Report, is supported in planning the development of the workforce.

The Skills England report reinforces the planned move from the Apprenticeship Levy to a new Growth and Skills Levy, which will offer greater flexibility on how levy funds can be spent. There is little further detail in the report in relation to what types of training and skills development activity employers will be able to use the levy to fund, other than that Skills England will consult with employers and other key organisations in relation to what “high-value” training should be accessible through the levy.

The sector’s Workforce Professional Development Board and Committees have a key role in informing policy on the value of training and skills development opportunities. We have strong data and examples of where training is delivering high-value impact across a variety of economic and social impact criteria.

What is incredibly positive is that throughout the Skills England report, there is a narrative of consultation and collaboration. There is a reinforced commitment to work with employers and sector bodies to ensure that the ambitions that Skills England and the government have deliver real impact for the sector.

At CIMSPA, we will be working with Skills England and government more widely to demonstrate skills development opportunities that have hugely valuable impact across the sector, not only to individual learners, professionals and employers, but to communities and the wider economy. Our strategy, Releasing the Power of our Profession, sets out how professional skills and recognition in our sector has wide reaching value in terms of economic sustainability, health and wellbeing and social value.

The Skills England report highlights how vital skills are to driving the economic growth that the country desperately needs. It also calls attention to some clear challenges which are impacting every sector, including our own - regional skills disparities, declining investment in training and the need for future-proofing skills development. What our sector is proving is that where there is collaboration on the design of learning and training based on strong insight, these obstacles can be overcome.”

Our strategy

Individual and collective professional recognition for the sport and physical activity workforce.