SITO: more than meets the eye

The UK's 75 National Training Organisations (or NTOs) tend to operate in a somewhat curious environment, stranded somewhere between the industry they represent and central Government. Most are very small organisations – over 50% of them employ less than five staff – that are relatively unknown to their respective industry sectors. Many are also hugely under-resourced.

Employing 35 dedicated individuals and benefiting from a significant profile in the security sector and related industries, SITO

can point to having played a central role in improving the levels of education and training in our sector of the economy. Our role in respect of the provision of standards, qualifications and training is reasonably well understood, but what end users ought to know about and recognise is the work that we do in liaising with Government, Government agencies and the education sector as a whole.

SITO's primary link at Government level is with the newly-formed Department of Education and Skills (DfES). It's the Secretary of State from the DfES who is responsible for granting SITO the role of the NTO within the security sector. What, though, is Government looking for in respect of this approval?

Developing educational standards
First, Government needs to be confident that the security industry's NTO is capable of representing its sector, and has the full support of that sector. Beyond that, there are probably four key roles which Government seeks from the NTO movement: to develop educational standards, develop learning pathways and frameworks, to research, promote and review sector training needs and act as a conduit of Government-produced information on education and training.

Developing educational standards has been a very public part of SITO's activity, of course – producing training standards like those underpinning BS 7499, educational syllabuses for qualifications like the SITO/City & Guilds 1851 for systems engineers or the National Occupational Standards used in N/SVQs.

SITO's future role will centre on continuing to produce new standards for emerging sectors, develop standards for all levels within the framework and keep those standards up-to-date. To this end, we will work closely with the four regulatory bodies for qualifications across the devolved administrations of the UK, including the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority in England and the Scottish Qualifications Authority.

In short, developing learning pathways and frameworks concentrates on the programs that underpin Foundation Modern Apprenticeships, Advanced Modern Apprenticeships and Graduate Apprenticeships (the latter of which are shortly to be launched in the security sector). These frameworks are then used as the basis for both structuring and funding apprenticeship activity at company level.

One of SITO's key roles – often unseen by the industry at large – is liaison with Government and its agencies. Representing the security sector when it comes to training and skills-centred issues – a requirement that can only grow when you consider devolution and the emergence of strong regional representation.

Our role is to quantify the sector, identify short and long-term training needs, advise Government on strategies that may be adopted to tackle these needs and review the impact of any strategies that have been put into practice. The recent report 'Labour Market Information' and soon-to-be-published 'Sector Workforce Development Plans' are key examples.

One of SITO’s key roles involves liaison with Government – representing the security sector when it comes to training and skills-centred issues. This requirement can only grow when you consider devolution and the ongoing emergence of stronger

Acting as a conduit for Government information on education and training is a remit that speaks for itself. That said, the degree of change in the education sector over recent years has been a challenge. A new Government will inevitably lead to change. We have been witness to three devolved administrations, on top of central Government.

SITO also has to work side-by-side with the Home Office (particularly important at this time), local authorities and other NTOs in shaping education and training policy for the security industry. But what about our links with the education sector itself?

Identifying training needs
Some will have you believe that SITO is not only responsible for developing standards and qualifications, but also for ensuring that everyone in the security sector has access to training. The truth of the matter is that the education sector is like most other sectors of the UK's economy – where there is demand, there is usually a supply.

The fact that, say, training for systems engineers is not available in Scunthorpe on a wet Wednesday evening in February is almost certainly due to a lack of demand from both local industry and the populace at large. Where that demand does exist, there will be insufficient numbers to warrant a course.

Our task at SITO is to work with the education sector and the industry itself in identifying those key elements of training that are needed. The development of a flexible range of standards, qualifications and training materials then ensures that there is a ready-made product from which the education sector may draw knowledge. The development of the co-operative network in the systems sector, for instance, has allowed us to centralise demand in such a way that at least six regional colleges in the UK now support engineer training.

Further to that, the development of video, open learning and computer-based training packages are all responses aimed at overcoming the so-called 'supply problem'. Similarly, there can be little doubt that the focus on nurturing in-company training infrastructures in the 'uniformed' part of the security sector has reaped substantial rewards.

Initiatives over the past 18 months have allowed us to make progress towards establishing a number of 'Centres of Excellence' based on colleges of further education. The initiative is currently limited to supporting in-company entry level training in the manned guarding, Cash-in-Transit, leisure and retail security sectors, but it's hoped that increased support will come from the further education sector for additional schemes.

The NTOs' role is changing (more of which in a future edition). SITO has built standards and represented the needs of the security sector. Our strategy of direct intervention, which remains unusual in the NTO movement, has also done much to energise education in a sector not renowned for its work on training.