UK – 7th October, 2008 -  A National Skills Academy for IT, announced today and due to open in 2009, will bring together an unprecedented, sector-wide collaboration of employers, educators and stakeholders to meet the skills needs of the IT workforce.

Information technology (IT) skills are critical to the growth of the UK economy. There are currently over a million IT professionals in the UK, with 141,000 new recruits needed every year. The IT industry is predicted to grow at five times the rate of the workforce as a whole and recent research suggests that optimising the ICT capabilities of the UK economy is worth as much as £35 billion a year.

Karen Price, Chief Executive of e-skills UK said: “e-skills UK is delighted to be working with employers across the sector to get the skills academy off the ground. It offers a unique opportunity for employers to take collective responsibility for the skills and accreditation of the IT workforce, with innovative development programmes and qualifications that are valued by the sector. I believe this will play a major role in helping the UK become a world leader in IT in the coming years.”

Peter Butler, Head of Learning for the BT Group, said: “BT’s engagement with the National Skills Academy is based on the premise that by collaborating with other employers we can take a significant step in ensuring that the sector develops the skills of its people in order to remain competitive in a global economy. We are delighted that the government has acknowledged the important role that the IT and Telecoms sector plays in the success of UK PLC and is supporting the further development of the National Skills Academy. We are looking forward to working with e-skills UK on this exciting agenda.”

Skills Secretary John Denham said: “Now, more than ever, we need to develop innovative training that inspires and empowers a new generation to realise their ambitions. A new National Skills Academy for IT will help build a world-beating workforce that will improve productivity and competitiveness – not just among new recruits but within the existing workforce.”

The National Skills Academy for IT will focus in particular on accelerating the productivity of new recruits into the workforce, addressing the training needs of the existing IT professional workforce, and enabling the workforce to achieve external recognition of skills.

Through the skills academy, employers will have access to high quality, cost-effective programmes, and be able to source training and internationally-relevant qualifications from trusted providers. Employers will be able to share proven training across the sector and have their own training accredited. Providers of education and training will find it easier to understand and respond to employer demand, and individuals will be able to achieve accreditation and more easily access valued training and qualifications.

In March 2007, the then Minister for Tourism, Shaun Woodward MP launched the National Skills Strategy (NSS) for the hospitality, leisure, travel and tourism sector in England.

The strategy called ‘raising the bar’ set out a Ten Point Plan to raise the skill levels of the sector’s current and future workforce. As the title suggests it also alluded to the massive opportunity that hosting the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games presents for the sector.

Hospitality, leisure, travel and tourism is a large, exciting, diverse and dynamic sector. It has a global reputation for quality and innovation which are richly deserved. However, the sector could be achieving much more if employers were able to recruit the right people with the right skills and that they could hold on to a highly skilled workforce. This is what the strategy aims to achieve. There are no easy answers, but what the ten point plan presents is a clear strategy to tackle existing challenges and raise the skills and performance of the sector.

Hospitality, leisure, travel and tourism is a large and growing sector currently employing nearly 1.4m people in England. The sector is made up of 14 industries; these vary in size with the largest industry – restaurants employing over 430,000 people and the smallest – youth hostels just over 1,600. England accounts for 83% of all sector employment across the UK.

There are approximately 155,958 individual hospitality, leisure, travel and tourism establishments in England of which a third are pubs, bars and nightclubs and an additional third are restaurants. Small and micro businesses are predominant with 76% of establishments employing fewer than 10 people. However, in terms of the workforce the industry is highly polarised. For example, in hospitality 45% of employees work for 280 employers and another 45% are employed in small and micro businesses.

The sector is hugely important for the economy. In 2005, it accounted for 3.5% of the UK economy and was worth approximately £85bn. In 2005 the UK ranked fifth in the international tourism earnings league behind the USA, Spain, France and Italy.

Sector performance is being undermined by a poor skills record:

• 54% of managers do not possess the minimum level of qualification required for their position
• 63% of employers believe their staff’s customer service skills are not sufficient to meet their needs
• 40% of chefs do not possess a qualification at level 2, the minimum required to prepare and cook from scratch
• High labour turnover is resulting in a chronic recruitment crisis with 70 percent of recruitment being undertaken to replace existing staff
• Conservative estimates suggest that we are annually losing 590,640 people or 30% of the workforce
• This costs the sector £886m a year
• By 2012, the sector would have lost 4.1m people costing the sector £6.2bn.

Learn Skills has sellected the Hospitality Sector as one it will focus on to deliver quality web-based training in order to upskill and improve retention rates among staff.  As in Ireland, the Hospitality sector is essential to the success of the economy as a whole and web-based training can delivery increased value and consistency of delivery to both employees and management with the Hospitality sector.