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We have to work with government and the industry to make people realise that the ‘brand’ of apprenticeship is a good brand, a worthwhile brand

This must be one of the most challenging times to become president. Are you prepared for it?

Absolutely. I have served an interesting apprenticeship as senior vice president to our outgoing president, Martin Bailey, and he has been a great help to me over the last year and I know this is not going to be an easy ride. It would be nice to come in and say, ‘I’m going to have a really nice time as president.’ I’m not going to say I’m not going to enjoy it, but there are some serious issues we have to address in the industry. The skills agenda, for example – getting our young people properly trained in sufficient numbers – is one of the key priorities for the future of our industry and the UK economy. The recession has brought a lot of things into focus, things

that many people have never looked at before, even in their own businesses. We’re looking at things in a totally different light because we’ve been forced to. Some decisions are not that palatable; there are hard things that we have to do. But we’ve all got to work together – the electrical industry, our sector partners and the government.

Why is the skills agenda one of your main priorities?

There are lots of challenges. I think the skills agenda is a major challenge at the moment, because of the economic climate. There are lots of young people who are unemployed. But you have to look long term – in 10 years’ time where are our young management and skilled workforce coming from? It’s quite fundamental, it’s not just for this industry. We need them – but so does the government, of course, for the tax revenues. We have to work with government and the industry to

make people realise that the ‘brand’ of apprenticeship is a good brand, a worthwhile brand. This is a win-win, two-way partnership with government, so I would like to see them commit to still give funding to apprenticeships. Our company has been in business over 64 years, and in

that time we’ve employed more than 300 apprentices. So I’m not someone who just sits here and says: ‘You should employ apprentices!’ We’ve done it. The trouble is, at the moment we’re in a very difficult climate, so if you’re going to take an apprentice on, you want to make sure that there is the work for them.

Is there a disincentive for smaller companies to train apprentices?

Some of the larger companies who ran apprenticeship schemes in the past no longer employ many apprentices.

Now, I would like companies to look at their corporate and social responsibility. I accept that in the past our firm has trained for the industry and not just our own company, because often you will train an apprentice and they get head- hunted. If I train an apprentice and another company doesn’t and they want my guy when he’s fully trained, why can’t it be like in football – why can’t they pay me a transfer fee? Somehow, we have to help companies who train; we have

to help fund them. It’s the small companies, the SMEs, that have been doing the training. A lot of the bigger guys now have changed. A lot of them don’t employ anybody. But then you have to look at it another way: they use agency labour. Who is going to train people who are going to become agency labour? They’re living on their past trades. We need hands-on training and for mentors within the

sector to pass on their experience to the next generation. If not, there’ll be a skills gap that will continue to grow larger in years to come. We’re going to need the people we should be training now to train our future young people. Also we have to make the electrical industry more exciting for young people. We need to attract them in.

What would you like to see from government?

The government certainly can do more. Particularly in getting away from the idea that everybody has to go to university, and instead promoting the very good alternatives. You have to get that message to the parents as well – it’s not just the young people. The government has to put more emphasis on

apprenticeship as being a good brand. Yes, there are people that will go to university and come in as student entrants, but you also want your craft people. We want to say to young people ‘come into our sector – you don’t have to go to university. You can come in at craft level, and work your way all the way up to degree level’. We want to show them there’s a proper career progression. But parents also have to understand that this is a

worthwhile career. Let’s be honest, how many people have gone to university and now sit on supermarket tills, with a massive debt? You can earn while you learn being an apprentice. Government has to look and realise we need its help, it

needs our help. It’s a partnership. But then we have to be able to say to government, that if they’re going to help us, we have the people who are going to take apprentices on. And that’s why I’m calling for the whole spectrum of

companies to take on apprentices, and that’s why I’m asking for the larger companies to look at their corporate and social responsibilities.

As the first female president of the ECA, do you feel more should be done to promote the role of women?

We should bring in more women and young girls. We’ve never done that before. So 50 per cent of the population out there have never even looked at our sector as a career choice. And that means there’s a huge amount of talented people we’ve effectively ignored in this sector. I fully acknowledge that there are some successful women

already working in the industry, but I would like girls to come in at any level. We have to make it attractive for them, and to potential employers. There are real economic opportunities for

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ECA Today Summer 2010

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