In truth, a considerable amount of progress has been made behind the scenes over the past few months. However, it has taken somewhat longer than expected for the Government to establish the framework by which the Sector Skills Councils are recognised. Hence the delay.
For those SMT readers who are not familiar with the debate, Sector Skills Councils are the all-new, Government-approved bodies – licensed by a new organisation, the Sector Skills Development Agency – which will eventually replace National Training Organisations.
There will be far fewer and better resourced Sector Skills Councils than there were National Training Organisations, designed to place employers at the very heart of policy making on a raft of issues concerning employment, training and competitiveness.
Transition to a Sector Skills Council
Since the announcement of the change in September last year, SITO – as the security sector's National Training Organisation – has made considerable progress in its transition towards becoming a Sector Skills Council, and expects to be one of the first to receive Sector Skills Development Agency approval.
However, fewer Sector Skills Councils means larger sectors, thus the SITO development team has led an initiative to develop a Council for that part of the business services sector interfacing with public policy.
The Specialist Support Services Sector Skills Council – or S5C as it will be known – will initially cover security, safety, parking and cleaning/public hygiene and represent a combined workforce of two million people. It's possible that, as the precise shape of the Sector Skills Council network begins to emerge, the scope of S5C will expand still further to include other industries that will fit within the business-to-business services sector.
Clearly, the business-to-business service community is a large and diverse sector. As such, one of the issues facing S5C is to transform into the new organisation without losing contact with the industries that comprise the broader sector.
SITO will be retained as an operating company of the Specialist Support Services Sector Skills Council, focusing on security, parking and fire industry training issues, with S5C itself providing central services to both SITO and the other group operating
To enable this to happen, SITO will be retained as an operating company of S5C, focusing on security, parking and fire industry training issues, with S5C providing central services to SITO and the other group operating companies. The operation of the S5C Group will be based on a better resourced and more widely focused adaptation of the successful SITO model.
What will the changes mean?
What can the security industry expect from these sweeping changes? For one thing, the improved resourcing and defined Government focus will result in:
- improvements in respect of contact with – and influence on – Government across the UK on behalf of the security industry;
- improved regional representation;
- economic and market research undertaken by professional economists;
- expansion in qualifications and funding activity;
- enhancements in respect of the quality of new resource materials;
- a new membership scheme that provides access to discounts, and free use of occupational standards and market research;
- improved communication and support.
Some of these improvements are already underway. The replacement of the SITO Sales Team with qualified training advisors is improving the level of advice available to the industry. Work is already underway in respect of developing e-learning and e-commerce initiatives, and a specialist communications manager has been recruited to improve our ability at 'getting the message across'.
Work is also ongoing with a view to dramatically expanding access to qualifications and public funding.
A new level of effectiveness
In respect of S5C, the new company has now been registered and a Board of Directors identified. Once the Sector Skills Development Agency has accepted the proposal from S5C, SITO will then cease to be a BSIA company, instead becoming a wholly-owned subsidiary of S5C. Our transformation documents are ready. We're just waiting on the Agency's decision.
Later in the year, S5C and SITO are likely to relocate, moving away from Security House in Worcestershire and the BSIA which have played host to SITO since its creation.
There's no doubt that exciting times lie ahead of us. The fact that the security industry has the opportunity to have so much influence on the future of its own training regime is due, in no small measure, to the high regard in which SITO is held in the wider community.
Source
SMT
Postscript
Raymond Clarke is chief executive of SITO
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