New Skills Push Unlikely to Boost Productivity
22 July 2024
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In the Media
Tom Clougherty quoted in ITV News
19 July 2024
In the Media
Economic Theory
11 November 2024
Responding to Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s launch of Skills England, Professor Len Shackleton, Labour Market Expert at the Institute of Economic Affairs, said:
“Skills and training are always seen as key to productivity, though what is holding us back is often excessive regulation and incompetent government interference.
“We revamp our training system every few years as governments change. The assumption is always that we know best; governments have failed previously but this time it’s different. And there is always the element of generals fighting the last war; bemoaning a shortage of engineering apprenticeships, for heaven’s sake.
“It would certainly be worth scrapping the apprenticeship levy, a failed policy. And indiscriminate subsidies to university courses need to be ended. But another top-down talking shop seems unlikely to achieve very much. Successful real businesses will make their own arrangements and send second-raters rather than top executives to meetings, which will be dominated by public sector attendees. Documents and policy statements will be prepared by consultants with no skin in the game. They will draw heavily on DEI rather than practical experience and common sense.
“Despite the bustle and the new appointments on generous salaries, it’s unlikely much will be achieved. In five or six years time there will be another reorganisation as another newbie administration thinks it has the key, a process which has been going on for at least sixty years.”
ENDS
Notes to Editors
Contact: media@iea.org.uk / 07763 365520
The mission of the Institute of Economic Affairs is to improve understanding of the fundamental institutions of a free society by analysing and expounding the role of markets in solving economic and social problems. The IEA is a registered educational charity and independent of all political parties.
“Skills and training are always seen as key to productivity, though what is holding us back is often excessive regulation and incompetent government interference.
“We revamp our training system every few years as governments change. The assumption is always that we know best; governments have failed previously but this time it’s different. And there is always the element of generals fighting the last war; bemoaning a shortage of engineering apprenticeships, for heaven’s sake.
“It would certainly be worth scrapping the apprenticeship levy, a failed policy. And indiscriminate subsidies to university courses need to be ended. But another top-down talking shop seems unlikely to achieve very much. Successful real businesses will make their own arrangements and send second-raters rather than top executives to meetings, which will be dominated by public sector attendees. Documents and policy statements will be prepared by consultants with no skin in the game. They will draw heavily on DEI rather than practical experience and common sense.
“Despite the bustle and the new appointments on generous salaries, it’s unlikely much will be achieved. In five or six years time there will be another reorganisation as another newbie administration thinks it has the key, a process which has been going on for at least sixty years.”
ENDS
Notes to Editors
Contact: media@iea.org.uk / 07763 365520
The mission of the Institute of Economic Affairs is to improve understanding of the fundamental institutions of a free society by analysing and expounding the role of markets in solving economic and social problems. The IEA is a registered educational charity and independent of all political parties.
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