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This video is a transcript of a discussion about skills policy, particularly in the context of the UK, focusing on its implications for education and the labor market. The speaker, likely a policy expert, elaborates on the following key points:

1. **Definition of Skills Policy**: Skills policy involves government actions to enhance education and training for individuals over 16, fostering their success in the labor market through programs like apprenticeships and higher education.

2. **Communication of Skills Policy**: The discussion contrasts the technocratic framing of skills policy with more politically charged areas like taxation and welfare, emphasizing that shifts in educational structures profoundly impact people's lives and societal inequality.

3. **Growth vs. Inequality Trade-Off**: The dialogue elaborates on the long-standing debate in economics about the trade-off between promoting economic growth and reducing inequality. Investing in skills can enhance productivity but may not necessarily align with efforts to support disadvantaged individuals.

4. **Apprenticeship Levy Discussion**: The Apprenticeship Levy, which imposes a tax on large employers to fund apprenticeships, is criticized for allowing employers to focus funds on upskilling already qualified workers rather than entry-level apprenticeships. This video is leading to calls for reform to reserve funds specifically for lower-level apprenticeships to widen opportunities.

5. **Reforms in 16-19 Education**: Ongoing discussions about reforming vocational qualifications (like BTECs) in favor of more rigorous T levels bring concerns about reducing choices for less academically inclined individuals, potentially exacerbating inequality.

6. **Call to Action for Policymakers**: The speaker urges policymakers to recognize the political implications of skills policy, advocating for transparency regarding how decisions affect societal opportunities and the importance of engaging in discussions about the trade-offs involved.

Ultimately, the conversation emphasizes the need for a more nuanced understanding of skills policy as not just a technical issue, but one deeply rooted in political values and social justice.

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Skills policy is simply government taking action

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to help provide education

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and training for young people and adults.

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Um, you know, typically to try

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and enhance those skills, so

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that they can succeed in the labor market within the uk.

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You know, this targets the skills system, the kind of broad,

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set of education

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and training that those over 16 have access

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to further education, higher education,

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workplace training in the form

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of things like apprenticeships,

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continued professional development

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and other forms of adult and lifelong learning.

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And this is delivered in all the places

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that people are familiar with, colleges, universities,

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but also by independent TRA training providers who are,

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playing a big part in apprenticeships.

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We talk about things like tax cuts

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and welfare policy, right?

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I think people automatically think about political values.

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They think about, you know, we wanna cut taxes

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'cause it promotes economic freedom,

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or it's bad when we cut taxes

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because suddenly you're gonna have more poverty

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and, you know, increasing equality.

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And so in those kind of areas, public discussion is kind

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of really, really obviously aware of the kind

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of political values that go, that are, you know, affected

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by, by these policy areas.

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Within, I think skills policy things are a

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little bit harder to see.

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It's kind of at a second level it looks like it's just

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affecting the structure of education.

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But, you know, when you actually shift the structure

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of education, you shift how people's lives go, right?

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And I think that fundamentally does affect,

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you know, how well they're doing.

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Uh, there are levels of inequality in a society,

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how much the, how much society is growing in terms of the,

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the welfare and the living standards.

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So I think it's just that second level.

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The public discussion hasn't yet always caught up with that.

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That kind of second level of, of detail

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that really actually shows

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that political values are really relevant in skills policy.

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Um, it just often seems very,

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it can seem very technocratic looking at why should we have

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more middle to higher level technical skills in England?

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Well, yeah, it needs a bit more thinking.

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There's a really longstanding discussion in economics,

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political philosophy about, you know,

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growth versus equality as a trade off.

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Um, you know, it's often framed in terms of language

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of efficiency versus equality.

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And we're, we're often given cases, real

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or hypothetical, where we're choosing

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between having a society, we're maximizing the size

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of the overall economic pie, the total economic output

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that we have, but having a lot

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of inequality distributed across the population

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or choosing, more equal pie.

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Where, where, where shares are a bit, the,

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the shares are a bit more fairly, allocated,

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but at the cost that the pie is itself smaller, right?

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And I, I wanted to kind of point out that, you know,

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as in lots of different policy areas,

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this happens in skills policy making.

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Um, skills policy affects growth.

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If you invest in, skills of the population,

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you should hopefully have a more productive,

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higher skilled workforce.

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You hopefully will have one

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where their skills are more in line with

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what employers are demanding, reducing, skills, gaps,

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and, and hopefully driving economic growth.

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It also, those skills policy can also

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impact inequality, right?

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So if you target investments at disadvantaged individuals,

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that's gonna make a big difference

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Because one of the things we know about education is it

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really improves people's lives,

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improves their job prospects, their income

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and their health, their marital prospects even actually.

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So, you know, it, if you invest in people

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who are badly off in terms of the level

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of education they have or their, their background

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with education, they're gonna tend to do better.

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And you're gonna tend to reduce the gaps between them

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and people who are better off.

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But then we have choices to make

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because we don't, we can't fully invest both in all policies

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that would maximize growth and all policies

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that would reduce inequality.

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When it comes to skills, we're, we're in a real world.

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We have limited resources.

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We need to kind of make some choices.

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Um, and in that world, we, you know,

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we have many different groups

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who are doing really well in terms of their education

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and their background and others that aren't.

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And unfortunately, it may not be the case

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that investing in the groups that are the worst off

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is gonna be the way that mo to most drive growth

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through skills investment, right?

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They, it might not be that maximizing growth

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and maximizing the reduction

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of inequality go together hand in hand.

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And so then we have trade-offs

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and we have to make decisions about which

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values to prioritize.

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Um, some might say maximize growth, you know, if, even if

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that means investing in, you know, people like me

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who have a PhD and giving them the MBAs

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and making them set up new companies

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and making 'em even more well off just so they can innovate.

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But for others that, that might seem crazy, right?

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We should be reducing inequality.

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We should be thinking about social justice

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and social mobility, and any additional money

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that we do have to spare should be going

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towards the least advantage.

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Um, and I think these are really the kind of discussions

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where it's really obvious we need

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to think about political values, but sometimes it's not

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being discussed that openly within the skills policy world.

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I find the apprenticeship levy is effectively a small north

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0.5% tax on, on big employers, in the uk

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and through the kind of funds that are raised by this,

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apprenticeships are funded,

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within the big large companies that are paying the tax,

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but also it's, distributed across, SMEs as well.

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So it's raised in, you know, it's,

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it's, it's raising a lot of money.

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It's raising about over 3 billion

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annually it's been introduced.

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Um, it's now I think, since 2017 it's been in place.

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And you know, the idea really was to

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to fund more apprenticeships,

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and to, to kind of increase workforce skills

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across, across the country.

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Uh, but the issue I guess that has,

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has really been raised in recent, recent years is, is that

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employers have full flexibility to choose

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where this funding is going.

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Is it being spent, which staff

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members are they spending it on?

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Who's going to do the apprenticeships?

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And an increasing number of employers

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and funds, are they're choosing

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to spend their funds on upskilling older,

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more qualified individuals, even really at the top

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of their organization in terms of senior management level,

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with, in particular with things like management

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and leadership, apprenticeships,

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which are really expensive to provide.

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Um, and this is kind of coming at the expense of

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lower level apprenticeships, people

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who are starting at the beginning of their career

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who could really use that initial pathway into a

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company, into a sector.

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And so what we're getting kind of is the reinforcing

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of inequalities that already exist between those people

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who already have lots of, good job prospects and

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or are at the top of maybe the job, the labor market,

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getting more training potentially at the expense given the

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limited budget of those who could really use the training.

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And so this has led to a lot of calls for reform.

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So proposals to kind of reserve some funds

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for this more entry level.

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Um, and, and for people who kind

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of really need the training, maybe from disadvantaged

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backgrounds, there's a whole variety of proposals.

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I've, my actually in a recent report that I wrote,

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my organization is called for, for reserving 50%

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of levy funds for lower level apprenticeships to make sure

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that we have that early career pipeline.

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But I have to admit, there are people

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who don't want that kind of reform.

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There are arguments against that reform.

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And really the, the kind of major argument that I see is

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that flexibility of the kind that employers are given now,

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rather than reserving some for specific types of people

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promotes productivity and growth.

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I think that's the major kind of line that you hear

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because the idea, I think argument goes somewhat like this.

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Employers know what their skills needs are.

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They can maximize the benefit of the funds that they have

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and choose where they're most gonna gain productivity with

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that, with their training budget.

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So if they're choosing to invest in management

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and leadership apprenticeships, that's gonna be

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how they most think, they think

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that's most appropriate to grow their business.

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That's what we should let 'em do.

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That will grow, that will grow the economy.

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And then really the question is,

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well, firstly, is that true?

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And I think there are some empirical debate about that,

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but it is worth saying that the UK is known to have a lack

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of good management skills,

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and there's a good evidence to improving management skills

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in the UK would drive productivity

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and improve and improve the economy.

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So I think that's the first thing to say,

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but really, I guess the core point of what I'm trying

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to say is this is a political value debate

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and we need to be honest and open about that and,

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and say, is it worth us allowing that flexibility

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for employers on the, on the potential

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that maybe it does increase productivity?

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Or do we, do we need to prioritize what, what a lot

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of people might think, which is social mobility and, and,

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and allowing people that entry pathway into the,

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into the workforce so

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that all people have really good opportunities

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to gain the skills that they need and,

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and have a flourishing career.

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And here's really where policy makers need

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to make a decision, and it's gonna have to be informed by

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political value judgment.

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There's an ongoing review of some proposals

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to streamline the 16th

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to 19 year olds technical qualifications landscape.

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Um, and the latest in this is that, there's

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the slow port currently paused,

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but likely to continue potentially defunding of many of

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The existing vocational qualifications called btex.

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A very wide ranging, set of qualifications

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that were used by all kinds of people.

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And the replacement of these, at the same time and,

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and the kind of growth they've been introduced already,

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and they're growing with T levels, which are, are kind

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of more, more, more rigorous, more employer aligned,

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long, typically longer

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and harder, qualification,

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and really the kind of the rationale

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for, for the introduction

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of the T levels, I think makes a lot of sense.

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And a lot of people within the sector have been supportive

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of creating more rigorous, more well-respected qualification

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that will hopefully mean that people

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who do them will have better employment outcomes

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that will better alignment between the employers

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and the skills that are getting

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trained within those qualifications.

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So again, reduction of skills, gaps

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and hopefully in the long run improve productivity, right?

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That's, that's really what I think is being aimed at here.

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But by doing this at the same time as reducing choice

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by cutting out many of the BT techs,

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or at least potentially it's, as I said, it's under review.

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There is a real worry about what this might do

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to marginalize people's prospects.

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Um, because there's a real concern that

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BTS have often been done by those

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who really struggle in education,

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people who've often really needed,

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an initial opportunity to do a qualification

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and then build from there.

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And the qualifications that are getting cut out,

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they're measured as not necessarily they're poor,

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they're measured as poor quality because they're not

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necessarily leading to much better job.

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Job prospects are income levels in the immediate aftermath,

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but that doesn't mean they don't have an important role

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for these people, right?

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Um, that doesn't mean they don't have an important role in

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their lives or, or, or, or building towards something.

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And for some of these people, the T levels as at least

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as we currently see them, look like they're gonna be

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too academically challenging.

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Um, and the worry is that you cut out their, their best

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and only option in order in the pursuit of this new,

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more rigorous and more slim line qualifications landscape.

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Um, and by doing that,

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you risk potentially more marginalized people being

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economically inactive, being not an education and employment

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or training afterwards, often called neat.

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That's for short. And by doing this,

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you risk increasing inequality between the people who

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struggle in education at this phase of their life

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and those who can succeed in these new T levels and,

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and other qualifications like them, like a levels,

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you've got a trade off that really looks like an another

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growth in equality trade off, right?

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Maybe we can grow the economy

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by having a more rigorous qualification system, one

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that, that employers can see, can see the benefit in one

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that, you know, increases higher level skills,

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but potentially this is at the cost of increasing equality

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and more marginalized people in, in the economy struggling,

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to get on that initial ladder through, through,

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through the qualifications, landscape.

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I think you can see here

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that this seemingly very technical area

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qualifications reform between

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1619 raises a really important political value question.

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I, I think really the number one call for action is just

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that if you're in skills policy,

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what you're doing is political and not just technocratic.

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And it's worth us acknowledging that,

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skills policy isn't just showing up on metrics

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that look at GDP and productivity gains, right?

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It really shapes people's lives, right?

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It shapes the education and training they get

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and it shapes how they end up

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doing across their life course.

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Um, and so skills policy is shaping societal opportunities

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and the distribution of those opportunities,

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and we should really acknowledge that.

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Um, when we think about the decisions that are being made

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and when decisions are being made.

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Uh, and I'm, you know,

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I I come from a background in academic political philosophy.

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I, I I'm, you know, I know all the different ways

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that political philosophers would tackle these problems

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using theories and principles to try

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and kind of navigate different trade-offs

12:49.555 --> 12:50.995
between different political values.

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Um, you know, the most famous example

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of this is John Rule's theory of justice.

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And, you know, he, you know, he has a lot

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to say there and, kind

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of gives us an approach looking at, you know, what kind of,

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principles would we, would we,

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decide on if we didn't know to shape our society,

13:07.675 --> 13:09.795
if we didn't necessarily know who in

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that society we were gonna end up being, just

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to keep it, to keep it brief.

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But, you know, I'm not necessarily suggesting

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that policy makers should all become political philosophers

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and that we should, that that's

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what they should spend their days doing.

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There's, there's, there's a reasonable separation

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of roles here, and we're all gonna have

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to have our different focuses,

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but what I do think we need to do is have a bit more

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of an open discussion within skills policymaking about

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where political trade-offs involving different political

13:36.195 --> 13:37.555
values are, are occurring.

13:39.055 --> 13:41.055
O openly acknowledging that, being honest

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and open about that and the decisions

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that we're kind of favoring.

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Um, and just encouraging a much more open discussion around

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that between politicians

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and civil servants when they're making decisions.

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But also just the wider group of, of people

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who are invested in trying to shift skills policymaking.

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Uh, I certainly am one of them.

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I work with many others who are, who are doing the same.

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So I think really it's a call for an open acknowledgement of

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what we're doing is political

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and that we should, let's be honest about that and, and,

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and get to that second level thinking through things at

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that political level, not just as a kind

14:12.495 --> 14:14.735
of technocratic what's gonna work most question.

14:14.735 --> 14:17.015
Because what works most depends on what you think

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and depends on your ethical and political convictions.

00:00 - Skills policy is simply government taking action to help provide education and training for young people and adults. you know, typically to try and enhance those skills, so that they can succeed in the labor market within the uk.

00:13 - You know, this targets the skills system, the kind of broad, set of education and training that those over 16 have access to further education, higher education, workplace training in the form of things like apprenticeships, continued professional development and other forms of adult and lifelong learning. And this is delivered in all the places that people are familiar with, colleges, universities,

00:33 - but also by independent TRA training providers who are, playing a big part in apprenticeships. We talk about things like tax cuts and welfare policy, right? I think people automatically think about political values. They think about, you know, we wanna cut taxes 'cause it promotes economic freedom, or it's bad when we cut taxes because suddenly you're gonna have more poverty and, you know, increasing equality.

00:55 - And so in those kind of areas, public discussion is kind of really, really obviously aware of the kind of political values that go, that are, you know, affected by, by these policy areas. Within, I think skills policy things are a little bit harder to see. It's kind of at a second level it looks like it's just affecting the structure of education. But, you know, when you actually shift the structure of education, you shift how people's lives go, right?

01:18 - And I think that fundamentally does affect, you know, how well they're doing. there are levels of inequality in a society, how much the, how much society is growing in terms of the, the welfare and the living standards. So I think it's just that second level. The public discussion hasn't yet always caught up with that. That kind of second level of, of detail that really actually shows that political values are really relevant in skills policy.

01:42 - it just often seems very, it can seem very technocratic looking at why should we have more middle to higher level technical skills in England? Well, yeah, it needs a bit more thinking. There's a really longstanding discussion in economics, political philosophy about, you know, growth versus equality as a trade off. you know, it's often framed in terms of language of efficiency versus equality. And we're, we're often given cases, real

02:03 - or hypothetical, where we're choosing between having a society, we're maximizing the size of the overall economic pie, the total economic output that we have, but having a lot of inequality distributed across the population or choosing, more equal pie. Where, where, where shares are a bit, the, the shares are a bit more fairly, allocated, but at the cost that the pie is itself smaller, right? And I, I wanted to kind of point out that, you know,

02:29 - as in lots of different policy areas, this happens in skills policy making. skills policy affects growth. If you invest in, skills of the population, you should hopefully have a more productive, higher skilled workforce. You hopefully will have one where their skills are more in line with what employers are demanding, reducing, skills, gaps, and, and hopefully driving economic growth.

02:50 - It also, those skills policy can also impact inequality, right? So if you target investments at disadvantaged individuals, that's gonna make a big difference Because one of the things we know about education is it really improves people's lives, improves their job prospects, their income and their health, their marital prospects even actually. So, you know, it, if you invest in people who are badly off in terms of the level

03:12 - of education they have or their, their background with education, they're gonna tend to do better. And you're gonna tend to reduce the gaps between them and people who are better off. But then we have choices to make because we don't, we can't fully invest both in all policies that would maximize growth and all policies that would reduce inequality. When it comes to skills, we're, we're in a real world. We have limited resources.

03:33 - We need to kind of make some choices. and in that world, we, you know, we have many different groups who are doing really well in terms of their education and their background and others that aren't. And unfortunately, it may not be the case that investing in the groups that are the worst off is gonna be the way that mo to most drive growth through skills investment, right? They, it might not be that maximizing growth

03:55 - and maximizing the reduction of inequality go together hand in hand. And so then we have trade-offs and we have to make decisions about which values to prioritize. some might say maximize growth, you know, if, even if that means investing in, you know, people like me who have a PhD and giving them the MBAs and making them set up new companies and making 'em even more well off just so they can innovate.

04:19 - But for others that, that might seem crazy, right? We should be reducing inequality. We should be thinking about social justice and social mobility, and any additional money that we do have to spare should be going towards the least advantage. and I think these are really the kind of discussions where it's really obvious we need to think about political values, but sometimes it's not being discussed that openly within the skills policy world.

04:39 - I find the apprenticeship levy is effectively a small north 0.5% tax on, on big employers, in the uk and through the kind of funds that are raised by this, apprenticeships are funded, within the big large companies that are paying the tax, but also it's, distributed across, SMEs as well. So it's raised in, you know, it's, it's, it's raising a lot of money. It's raising about over 3 billion annually it's been introduced.

05:02 - it's now I think, since 2017 it's been in place. And you know, the idea really was to to fund more apprenticeships, and to, to kind of increase workforce skills across, across the country. but the issue I guess that has, has really been raised in recent, recent years is, is that employers have full flexibility to choose where this funding is going. Is it being spent, which staff

05:29 - members are they spending it on? Who's going to do the apprenticeships? And an increasing number of employers and funds, are they're choosing to spend their funds on upskilling older, more qualified individuals, even really at the top of their organization in terms of senior management level, with, in particular with things like management and leadership, apprenticeships, which are really expensive to provide.

05:51 - and this is kind of coming at the expense of lower level apprenticeships, people who are starting at the beginning of their career who could really use that initial pathway into a company, into a sector. And so what we're getting kind of is the reinforcing of inequalities that already exist between those people who already have lots of, good job prospects and or are at the top of maybe the job, the labor market, getting more training potentially at the expense given the

06:18 - limited budget of those who could really use the training. And so this has led to a lot of calls for reform. So proposals to kind of reserve some funds for this more entry level. and, and for people who kind of really need the training, maybe from disadvantaged backgrounds, there's a whole variety of proposals. I've, my actually in a recent report that I wrote, my organization is called for, for reserving 50% of levy funds for lower level apprenticeships to make sure

06:43 - that we have that early career pipeline. But I have to admit, there are people who don't want that kind of reform. There are arguments against that reform. And really the, the kind of major argument that I see is that flexibility of the kind that employers are given now, rather than reserving some for specific types of people promotes productivity and growth. I think that's the major kind of line that you hear because the idea, I think argument goes somewhat like this.

07:10 - Employers know what their skills needs are. They can maximize the benefit of the funds that they have and choose where they're most gonna gain productivity with that, with their training budget. So if they're choosing to invest in management and leadership apprenticeships, that's gonna be how they most think, they think that's most appropriate to grow their business. That's what we should let 'em do. That will grow, that will grow the economy.

07:35 - And then really the question is, well, firstly, is that true? And I think there are some empirical debate about that, but it is worth saying that the UK is known to have a lack of good management skills, and there's a good evidence to improving management skills in the UK would drive productivity and improve and improve the economy. So I think that's the first thing to say, but really, I guess the core point of what I'm trying

07:57 - to say is this is a political value debate and we need to be honest and open about that and, and say, is it worth us allowing that flexibility for employers on the, on the potential that maybe it does increase productivity? Or do we, do we need to prioritize what, what a lot of people might think, which is social mobility and, and, and allowing people that entry pathway into the, into the workforce so that all people have really good opportunities

08:24 - to gain the skills that they need and, and have a flourishing career. And here's really where policy makers need to make a decision, and it's gonna have to be informed by political value judgment. There's an ongoing review of some proposals to streamline the 16th to 19 year olds technical qualifications landscape. and the latest in this is that, there's the slow port currently paused,

08:51 - but likely to continue potentially defunding of many of The existing vocational qualifications called btex. A very wide ranging, set of qualifications that were used by all kinds of people. And the replacement of these, at the same time and, and the kind of growth they've been introduced already, and they're growing with T levels, which are, are kind of more, more, more rigorous, more employer aligned, long, typically longer and harder, qualification,

09:20 - and really the kind of the rationale for, for the introduction of the T levels, I think makes a lot of sense. And a lot of people within the sector have been supportive of creating more rigorous, more well-respected qualification that will hopefully mean that people who do them will have better employment outcomes that will better alignment between the employers and the skills that are getting trained within those qualifications.

09:43 - So again, reduction of skills, gaps and hopefully in the long run improve productivity, right? That's, that's really what I think is being aimed at here. But by doing this at the same time as reducing choice by cutting out many of the BT techs, or at least potentially it's, as I said, it's under review. There is a real worry about what this might do to marginalize people's prospects. because there's a real concern that BTS have often been done by those

10:11 - who really struggle in education, people who've often really needed, an initial opportunity to do a qualification and then build from there. And the qualifications that are getting cut out, they're measured as not necessarily they're poor, they're measured as poor quality because they're not necessarily leading to much better job. Job prospects are income levels in the immediate aftermath, but that doesn't mean they don't have an important role

10:33 - for these people, right? that doesn't mean they don't have an important role in their lives or, or, or, or building towards something. And for some of these people, the T levels as at least as we currently see them, look like they're gonna be too academically challenging. and the worry is that you cut out their, their best and only option in order in the pursuit of this new, more rigorous and more slim line qualifications landscape. and by doing that,

10:59 - you risk potentially more marginalized people being economically inactive, being not an education and employment or training afterwards, often called neat. That's for short. And by doing this, you risk increasing inequality between the people who struggle in education at this phase of their life and those who can succeed in these new T levels and, and other qualifications like them, like a levels, you've got a trade off that really looks like an another growth in equality trade off, right?

11:24 - Maybe we can grow the economy by having a more rigorous qualification system, one that, that employers can see, can see the benefit in one that, you know, increases higher level skills, but potentially this is at the cost of increasing equality and more marginalized people in, in the economy struggling, to get on that initial ladder through, through, through the qualifications, landscape. I think you can see here that this seemingly very technical area

11:51 - qualifications reform between 1619 raises a really important political value question. I, I think really the number one call for action is just that if you're in skills policy, what you're doing is political and not just technocratic. And it's worth us acknowledging that, skills policy isn't just showing up on metrics that look at GDP and productivity gains, right? It really shapes people's lives, right? It shapes the education and training they get

12:17 - and it shapes how they end up doing across their life course. and so skills policy is shaping societal opportunities and the distribution of those opportunities, and we should really acknowledge that. when we think about the decisions that are being made and when decisions are being made. and I'm, you know, I I come from a background in academic political philosophy. I, I I'm, you know, I know all the different ways

12:44 - that political philosophers would tackle these problems using theories and principles to try and kind of navigate different trade-offs between different political values. you know, the most famous example of this is John Rule's theory of justice. And, you know, he, you know, he has a lot to say there and, kind of gives us an approach looking at, you know, what kind of, principles would we, would we,

13:04 - decide on if we didn't know to shape our society, if we didn't necessarily know who in that society we were gonna end up being, just to keep it, to keep it brief. But, you know, I'm not necessarily suggesting that policy makers should all become political philosophers and that we should, that that's what they should spend their days doing. There's, there's, there's a reasonable separation of roles here, and we're all gonna have

13:23 - to have our different focuses, but what I do think we need to do is have a bit more of an open discussion within skills policymaking about where political trade-offs involving different political values are, are occurring. O openly acknowledging that, being honest and open about that and the decisions that we're kind of favoring. and just encouraging a much more open discussion around that between politicians

13:49 - and civil servants when they're making decisions. But also just the wider group of, of people who are invested in trying to shift skills policymaking. I certainly am one of them. I work with many others who are, who are doing the same. So I think really it's a call for an open acknowledgement of what we're doing is political and that we should, let's be honest about that and, and, and get to that second level thinking through things at that political level, not just as a kind

14:12 - of technocratic what's gonna work most question. Because what works most depends on what you think and depends on your ethical and political convictions.

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