City Voices: A City & Guilds Podcast

Lifelong Learning: The Key to wealth creation.

• City & Guilds • Season 1 • Episode 5

Share episode

Send us a text

In partnership with the Lifelong Education Institute, City & Guilds recently published its Productivity report, ‘Making Skills Work’, which included research revealing that a significant number of working-age adults and senior business leads identified skills gaps which hampered productivity gains, and did not feel they had the skills required to meet future industrial challenges. 

To explore the role of lifelong learning in helping people remain employable and productive at all stages of life, host Bryony Kingsland interviews Kirstie Donnelly MBE, CEO at City & Guilds, to discuss a range of themes around this topic, in an episode including: 

  • Potential changes to the Lifelong Learning Entitlement 
  • How employers can work with training providers to boost skills development 
  • How regional differences in access to skills can be addressed 
  • The challenges and opportunities represented by developments in the job market, including AI and Green Skills 
  • Expectations for the government’s new Industrial Strategy and the role of Skills England

 With the rise in requests for information on questions such as ‘Why is lifelong learning important?’, ‘What does lifelong learning mean?’, ‘How can strategies for skills development and lifelong learning enable career progression?’, and ‘How will lifelong learning benefit you?’, this episode provides key takeaways for listeners. 

For further information about the material quoted in this episode visit:

Listen today, or watch on YouTube.

For more episodes from the Navigating the UK skills Challenges series click here.

Want some free merchandise? Courtesy of the series, simply write a review on your favourite podcast platform. (such as Spotify or Apple Podcasts) Once done, confirm your details directly from your listening device, click 'Send us a text' above the episode summary to enter the prize draw. Please note: This offer applies to UK residents only

Kirstie Donnelly MBE:

As we know, there are so many people in this country who don't have the skills to stay employable or even become employable, and so, for me, lifelong learning is about that bridge from when you maybe have left education. Whatever your experience has been good, bad or indifferent I do see lifelong learning as being about staying lifelong employable and, at the end of the day, skills lead to wealth creation in some form or another, which then lead to people having better lives.

Bryony Kingsland:

Thank you for joining us today. Today we have with us our CEO, Kirstie Donnelly. The reason that we're interviewing Kirsty is because City Guilds has recently published a productivity report and what we found from that report and our surveys and our discussions with them is that a large quantity of working-aid adults and senior leads in business in the country think that we do not have the skills in our current workforce to increase productivity and meet the coming skills needs of the fourth industrial revolution going forward. We're also going to be discussing some of the government changes that have come out of the budget, because the government has said that they're going to put back the lifelong loan entitlement for a further year. Now that could be a good thing, it could be a challenge, but I'm going to be asking Kirsty what her thoughts are on that. So welcome, kirsty.

Kirstie Donnelly MBE:

Brownie, my goodness, we're obviously going to cover a lot of ground, so I'm really looking forward to the conversation and thank you for having me in our lovely City and Girls podcast lounge. Lovely to be with you. Let's see where we take the conversation why is lifelong learning so important?

Kirstie Donnelly MBE:

well, brian, it's a great question, because, you know, for me, lifelong learning is the bedrock of why, from when we start learning right through to when we stop when is that, you know, the whole cradle to grave?

Kirstie Donnelly MBE:

Because lifelong learning is the opportunity to stay lifelong employable. Now, obviously, when we're learning it's five and six, and seven and eleven and so on when maybe not thinking about our employability at that moment in time that much more is about the role that education plays in starting to open up the choices that, as adults, we're then able to go on and take advantage of if we're lucky. But, of course, as we know, there are so many people in this country who don't have the skills to stay employable or even become employable, and so, for me, lifelong learning is about that bridge. From when you maybe have left education, whatever your experience has been good, bad or indifferent, lifelong learning is there to provide that opportunity to enable people to carry on learning throughout life. Ultimately, though, I think, in the context of the conversation we're having, I do see lifelong learning as being about staying lifelong employable, and, at the end of the day, skills lead to wealth creation in some form or another, which then lead to people having better lives. Yeah.

Bryony Kingsland:

Okay, so we've recently published our productivity report and as part of that research, we surveyed over a thousand leaders and over 2000 people, and there were some really interesting stats that came out of that. A sizable majority of the senior decision makers 74% said that building their workforce's skills is crucial for boosting productivity, but they also a lot of them spoke about the fact that automation the new digital age, the fourth industrial revolution is having effect on workforce needs and workforce skills needs, but the government seemed quite heftily concentrated on school and pre-16 and 16 to 18. But we've got a massive workforce at the moment and we're, I think, 14th in a list of about 30 countries.

Kirstie Donnelly MBE:

Yeah, that's probably about right.

Bryony Kingsland:

So, from the point of view of lifelong learning and how we're going to address this, what do you think the government should be concentrating on, taking into account the fact that we've just put back the lifelong loan entitlement for a further year as part of the budget announcement last week?

Kirstie Donnelly MBE:

Yeah, no look there's a lot to unpack in there, bryony, and I don't disagree with you. Look, the simple fact is we are lagging behind our European counterparts in terms of productivity and in terms of other measures as well. I think look, if I was being optimistic for a moment, we have got a new government. It's a change in 14 years, I think, genuinely, I think this Labour government have come into power wanting to believe that skills are a fundamental bedrock to productivity and to the productivity problems that we face as a country. However, you are quite right, they do need to almost put some money where their mouth is, to use that again, rather crude expression. And we heard the budget last week and look, there was £300 million talked about for further education. How exactly and what that will transpire into, let's wait and see. Yet when you set that against the 2.3 billion for education, it does, to your point, rather skew the picture a little bit, and I think part of the problem is I do think this Labour government has understood how important skills are. The fact that you know Skills England is going to be very focused on how to create those join-ups between different government departments, the fact we've got the Migration Advisory Board looking at skills, the fact you've got the Industrial Strategy out for consultation at the moment, where they clearly do talk about the important role of skills. You know, for me it's the first time in 14 years, I feel, that we've started to have a government that really does want to connect up the dots. The problem is, if skills pay the bills, who's going to pay for the skills? And that is something that I think we still need to see how that is going to play out, and some of this will be how the government with all of us in the ecosystem for that matter how we can get more creative with the funds that are already available, and what I mean by that is if the government would at least lighten up on some of the more stringent policies of the previous government, and if we could have some more flexibilities around the growth of schools levy and we could understand what they were going to be used for, and if we could maybe, once and for all, address the maths and English question inside apprenticeships and some of these other problems that, let's be honest, have been thorny and have been around us for a number of years now. I think there's quite a lot we could do with an existing funding as well as then trying to maximise on getting as much new money into skills as possible.

Kirstie Donnelly MBE:

But you know it isn't just the government problem. You know employers do have to also put their money where their mouth is too. We go out a lot, don't we? And we hear from employers who are doing amazing things. Look at the work we do for the Princess Royal Training Awards, where every year we get to see the best in class employers who are really making an impact in terms of the investment. But generally speaking, we are lagging behind from our European counterparts in terms of how much employers do invest in training skills.

Kirstie Donnelly MBE:

So back to your lifelong learning entitlement point. I think the trick here for the Labour government and they've got a fantastic opportunity to do this is to create a tripartite culture between the individual, the employer and the state, and then try and understand where each of us we're all learners, we're all participating in some shape or form in our lifelong learning. So what is it the state puts in, what is it employer contributes and ultimately, once us as individuals we can see the value of investing in our skills because we can see the direct correlation between progression and career enhancement, then I think more and more individuals will invest. So it was disappointing to hear lifelong learning entitlements get pushed back another year. Is that because this Labour government has started to listen to some of the fundamental flaws that existed? And if that is the case and they're genuinely taking the time to rethink it, then great, let's rethink it. Let's design it so it works to give many more people opportunities that they ordinarily wouldn't have.

Bryony Kingsland:

That would be amazing, wouldn't it? Because there are some fundamental flaws in the offer at the moment that will probably cause more social immobility than social mobility.

Kirstie Donnelly MBE:

Yes, definitely.

Bryony Kingsland:

And that's yeah, that's definitely something to address. Interestingly, you mentioned employers and I think that's really key. One of our last podcasts that we haven't actually published yet was from an employer and a provider that are working together. What was really clear during the discussion with those two guests was about the collaboration that they are doing working together, and one of them is a construction employer and the other one is a construction provider and they're collaborating on a joint workshop, with the employer putting money into the workshop with the tools and the plant that they've got to have, because that's extraordinarily expensive, and the provider providing the skills and the learning Ordinarily expensive, and the provider providing the skills and the learning, and you can see how in the future, that would work.

Bryony Kingsland:

But they're only able to do it at a certain level because the adult skills budget and the apprenticeship budget only provides a certain amount, but they were both saying that actually, the more senior skills at levels four and five are what's going to be needed in the future, along with the digital skills, and you could see that the lifelong learning entitlement could achieve that with the approach that you've just mentioned about a more tripartite way of working.

Kirstie Donnelly MBE:

Well, we're all investing, exactly, With everybody investing.

Bryony Kingsland:

Yeah, so what can employers do more?

Kirstie Donnelly MBE:

Yeah, look, I think that's great. It's really heartening, isn't it, when you get to hear those examples, and I think you'll find you know, across the country and in different regions, there's lots of that happening now. I think there is much more a kind of grassroots, bottom-up movement starting to happen, and I think the role of MCAs actually Moral Combined Authorities is another important part of knitting all of this together. So for me, it's about what can the government at the centre do to relax policies that currently exist and free up the funding in the way that we've just been talking about? And then, how can we really get employers at the local, grassroots level working with as you've already used in your example providers to sort of join up that skills system at a local level?

Kirstie Donnelly MBE:

I mean, one of the things our productivity report showed us is the difference that can happen. I think was it something like 36% of people in the East Midlands are less likely to be aware and have opportunities to 65% in London, yes, so again, we're seeing those regional divides when it comes to accessing skills coming out all the time. So I think employers getting actively engaged at a local level, making themselves known in the local community as being an employer who wants to bring in local talent and I have this saying you know it's not just my saying, it gets used quite a lot that talent is everywhere. You know you can find talent everywhere, in all sorts of corners, and with brilliant people who are coming from very diverse backgrounds. The problem is, opportunities aren't, and what we've got to do is unlock those opportunities so that talent can come through. And that means employers having to think quite differently maybe about some of their own recruitment practices, some of the way they think about the training they offer, so they can fish in a richer, more diverse talent pool.

Bryony Kingsland:

Yes, yeah, it's interesting actually, because I was talking to Nora from our foundation team the other day with the impact report that they've done, and she was talking about the productivity and also lifelong learning as being a two-fold issue. We were talking about the fact that there's a current workforce that needs skilling up, needs upskilling because they've got to meet the changes that are happening because of automation, digitalization, fourth industrial revolution, but actually, whilst that's not happening, it's almost creating a blocker for the younger generation to get onto the career ladder and move up, because the current workforce are not moving up as fast.

Kirstie Donnelly MBE:

Yeah, they're not moving on.

Bryony Kingsland:

and up yeah, moving on as fast on and up as fast as they could do, because they're just not getting enough training.

Kirstie Donnelly MBE:

Yeah, that makes sense.

Bryony Kingsland:

Yeah, and their whole theory of change was realistically, you've got to be able to do both things at the same time. So you've got to upskill the top workforce as well as upskill the new ones coming in to create that movement and create that productivity.

Kirstie Donnelly MBE:

So one of the things that I think you're really touching on there, brian, I think is really important Look and I think we can be very proud at City and Guilds that we do that which is measure longitudinally how skills contribute the social and economic value, the return on investment. If you want to say about skills Because I think that's the big argument out there with employers and the government is, show us the evidence. And I think there is so much evidence now to show how there is a direct correlation between if you invest in skills, you will increase productivity, between if you invest in skills you will increase productivity, that, in turn, will increase people's ability to wealth creation, whether that's the employer creating more productivity and therefore wealth for the organisation, or indeed paying the wages for the people who are working for them. So, therefore, the fact we have a theory of change model that allows us to measure, through the lens of society, the impact we have on society, the impact we have on people and the impact we have on organisations, I think is quite unique because we're able to look at that through those different lenses. And I would say, more and more organizations need to be thinking about how they adapt and adopt a theory change model so they can really evidence, both shorthand and short term, but also longitudinally, the impact they're seeing from investing in the skills.

Kirstie Donnelly MBE:

Let's take an industry like an electrician market. Once upon a time, before we had the EV market, an electrician was an electrician, you did domestic or you did buildings. Now an electrician will be an electrician and they can be an EV fitter. So how do you create these dynamics where those core fundamental skills are still there and needed, but then how we add on and enhance with these newer skills.

Bryony Kingsland:

Yeah, absolutely. If you're enjoying this podcast, great. Don't forget to subscribe to it on your favourite podcast platform and leave a review. It would be greatly appreciated. Now back to the episode.

Bryony Kingsland:

Okay. Industrial strategy what's your thoughts on the industrial strategy and what the government are going to do with it and what it means? We've been talking about local skills improvement plans for a long time because we did that analysis and it showed us a lot of what employers are asking for and a lot of what the needs are. I get the distinct impression the industrial strategy is going to replace that. Do you think it's going to replace that, or is it going to be something that's going to add to that knowledge and background data and the basis of what the skills needs are now and three years in the future, which is what LSIPs did?

Kirstie Donnelly MBE:

Yeah, I mean, I hadn't actually thought about it as a replacement strategy for LSIPs. You're probably right, I think. The industrial strategy for me I said it earlier, didn't I that in the context of this government. The good news for this government is they clearly want to join up and they clearly see the industrial strategy as being incredibly key to that joining up. Actually, interestingly, I think it's probably one of the first times I've ever seen it in a government consultation document. They actually taught themselves about actually having a theory of change model to measure impact through an industrial strategy.

Kirstie Donnelly MBE:

So for me again, that was a big first, yeah, so that was a big first and I think how the industrial strategy then works into Skills England and how that can provide the data and the insights to join up the employer perspective on what skills are needed for both the short, mid and long term, and then how Skills England can coalesce around that to make sure that at local and regional levels the supply and demand meets, I think we can only take that as a very positive step forward. However, it does rather come back to one of your early points it still will need funding, and I think that's always going to be the challenge here.

Bryony Kingsland:

I think that's one of the key issues, isn't it? I mean there's actually, if you think about it. I mean we've known for several years that not so much now, because I think the adult education budget, when it's devolved down to local levels, is actually used much more effectively than ever was at a national level, where every single year for about three or four years before devolution, colleges were giving back masses of the adult education budget because of the restrictions around eligibility, because these restrictions around what it could be used for.

Bryony Kingsland:

So the money is actually there. It's getting used much more effectively at a regional level. But but we've still got masses of the country probably about 55% of the adult skills budget, which sits nationally, which has still got that eligibility criteria and all those restrictions providers to work with employers to develop courses and programs to specifically meet those employer needs. That's only 3% in the adult education budget and yet we're still giving lots of it back. Why not flex it up to use 25%?

Kirstie Donnelly MBE:

of it Exactly and I think that's what I meant before. So, although I'd be the first to say over the last what 10, 11 years, we know, don't we, that over a billion pound has been taken away from the tertiary market. There's no getting away from that. Now, whether or not we can fully replace that, probably unrealistic to think. But you're absolutely right Just by being more creative, joining up the dots, unflexing some of those restrictions, we can open up existing funds to more available pockets and areas of the country where we need it, and also rethinking the models and constructs of learning. I mean, we haven't really touched yet on AI, but none of us really know yet just how AI is fundamentally going to shift the way we live, we learn, we work, but in a positive sense.

Kirstie Donnelly MBE:

I think AI, used well and used constructively, it can fundamentally change the rhythm, the swim lanes in which people learn yeah, you know, learning's a journey and people will stop and start it at very different points and they'll have very different abilities in terms of how they learn and what skills they learn and when. And therefore, if we can create a system that isn't dictated to by guided learning hours, it means come on what. What way is that to create a kind of flexible, agile workforce that we need today? So, if we can really unleash the power of AI and flex up some of those existing policies and funds, then I think we could really start to create some magic. But we have to be quite brave about that and all of us in the system, in the ecosystem, almost, you know, not be a little bit like turkeys voting for Christmas.

Kirstie Donnelly MBE:

We don't want to keep things the same, but I have to think quite differently about the pace and the place of when learning and skills are taught and delivered and supported and drive something quite positive through that agenda change. So how long do you think it will take? Goodness me Gosh, what a question. So how long do you think it will take? Moment where we go? We fought there, but I think you know, in context of what I've just been saying about AI and this government and employers all getting a bit more on board and joining up. I think the next five years we could do some really serious good work in terms of creating a much more cultural approach to our lifelong learning for lifelong employability. But it is a cultural change that we need and we all need to think quite differently about it.

Bryony Kingsland:

It's fundamentally different now, though, isn't it Because of AI? It's such a different way of looking at the world and such a different way of taking on board information and using information. How is the provider ecosystem reacting to it, do you think?

Kirstie Donnelly MBE:

Well, yeah, that's a really good question, and I think it's early days, but I think what we've got to be careful about is disintermediation.

Kirstie Donnelly MBE:

There are going to be people out there that we don't even know yet, let alone the Googles and the LinkedIns of this world and Amazons, who are all going to create their own version of a skills learning marketplace.

Kirstie Donnelly MBE:

So I think we are going to see a quite different ecosystem start to emerge actually, and I think we are going to see a quite different ecosystem start to emerge actually, and I think that's one of the challenges and one of the opportunities for us is how do we think quite differently about the component role any one of us might play in someone's journey the learner journey ecosystem that you as a provider might be trying to achieve, and then really look really hard at where AI could come along and really positively disrupt it, because my advice is, if you don't do it yourself, someone's going to come and do it to you and ultimately, I do believe the power will ultimately be with the learner and they are going to start making some very different choices once there is more in the market for them to choose from because the learners coming through now are going to look on learning and how they learn and how they gain information and gain skills in a very, very different way to people from your generation.

Bryony Kingsland:

Very, it's going to be a very different approach, isn't it? Yeah, you can already see that happening, with people now particularly wanting to go into a classroom all the time.

Kirstie Donnelly MBE:

Yeah, we even see it in our workplaces, don't we? I mean, look, for the first time ever we've got five generations of people working in our workplaces. I mean you could look at that through two lenses. What a brilliant melting pot of, you know, reverse learning and mentoring. But nonetheless that does put a challenge on an employer to think about the different ways that young people respond as they come through. And then the more older, mature workers like our good selves, who want to stay with it, and young but probably have got some of you know, tried and tested practices that we we're not very good at changing. Maybe, maybe we're not, but maybe this is the challenge. Having those five generations in the workplace will help us all think constantly about that need to be agile and constantly changing to evolve really Brilliant.

Bryony Kingsland:

Thank you, Kirsty. Thank you Thanks for watching today. If you enjoyed this podcast, please do write a review on your podcast platform. The first five reviews we spot will receive some City Guilds merchandise. We've got mouse mats and water bottles to give away. Thank you for checking out this episode.

Bryony Kingsland:

Remember to share it with a colleague or friend, Until next time. Goodbye for now.