Education, Children and Young People Committee
Scottish Retail Consortium submission December 2021
Scottish Retail Consortium submission on Skills Alignment with Business needs December 2021
Scottish Retail Consortium
SRC Response to the Education, Children, and Young People Committee Inquiry into Skills - Alignment with Business Needs
About SRC
1. The SRC’s purpose is to make a positive difference to the retail industry and the customers it serves, today and in the future.
2. Retail is an exciting, dynamic and diverse industry which is going through a period of profound change. Technology is transforming how people shop; costs are increasing; and growth in consumer spending is slow.
3. The SRC is committed to ensuring the industry thrives through this period of transformation. We tell the story of retail, work with our members to drive positive change and use our expertise and influence to create an economic and policy environment that enables retail businesses to thrive and consumers to benefit. Our membership here in Scotland and across the UK comprises businesses delivering £180bn of retail sales and employing over one and half million employees.
4. In addition to publishing leading indicators on Scottish retail sales, footfall and shop vacancies, our policy positions are informed by our membership and determined by the SRC’s Board. We also provide a suite of training and development course for retailers and their staff, covering leadership development, specialised programmes and certified learning, details of which are available at: https://www.brclearning.org.uk/ . We also support the Young Person’s Guarantee.
General Comments on Skills and Apprenticeships
5. Retail is Scotland’s largest private sector employer, and the industry has a strong record on improving skills. Retail invests the equivalent of £1,100 in training each employee every year, and developing our workforce is a vital part of the industry’s evolution. from on-the-job training and mentoring, right through to apprenticeships and formal qualifications. The industry is dynamic and changing, and new jobs are being created in retail such as digital artworkers, online merchandisers and app development, customer loyalty programmes, logistics and warehousing, even personal stylists and event management. The sector is meritocratic and provides great opportunities to progress and rise through the ranks.
6. Current policy is hindering rather than facilitating that essential investment. Scottish retailers have contributed around £50 million into the UK Government’s Apprenticeship Levy in the last Parliament but have received little tangible support in return.
7. The last five years have seen a 44% fall in retail modern apprenticeships(1). Few retailers have been able to access the Flexible Workforce Development Fund due to the restrictions put in place by the Scottish Government. Indeed, a recent Parliamentary question (2) found retailers had only accessed £294,630.75 from the fund in 2020-21 out of a total of £13,245,135.48 – that’s just two percent.
8. Furthermore, retailers are required to devote more and more of their training budgets towards training staff to implement public policy, most recently with the changes to the covid-19 regulations but also in recent years in relation to regulations on the selling of alcohol, knives and tobacco etc.
9. We believe there are a number of steps the Scottish Government could take to improve the status quo, and highlighted this in our February 2021 retail manifesto for the Holyrood election:
a. Scottish Government should publish transparent figures each year at the Budget which show how the Scottish revenues of the Apprenticeship Levy have been spent.
b. Provide practical support to encourage greater digital skills in the economy
i. This should include engaging retailers and suppliers with specialised skills such as data science, but also look to increase the overall digital literacy across the workforce as the economy evolves.
c. Reform the Flexible Workplace Development Fund so businesses are able to access a much higher portion of their Apprenticeship Levy contributions through the fund, rather than just the £20,000 cap that currently applies. Businesses should be able to access support through the fund for multiple sites rather than the current single site restriction.
i. Ministers should consider using the fund to subsidise training for retailers who are implementing Scottish Government public policy initiatives
10. We also believe there is a need to make the Retail Modern Apprenticeship Frameworks more flexible and to ensure they stay relevant to a fast-moving retail environment. Funding should be available for older workers who would benefit from Apprenticeship Training.
Specific Responses to the Committee’s work on the alignment of skills provision between the education system and the needs of businesses
11. Retail remains a significant employer of young people straight out of education as a sector which can offer employment at a large number of levels dependent upon the skills and abilities of the worker.
12. It’s worth noting many of the attributes to be successful in the industry are not directly academically skills based. Core employability skills such as the ability to work with customers, to deal with a wide variety of tasks, and to be prepared to constantly adapt in a fast-moving environment are absolutely as important as previous skills training to retailers. Of course, these are skills which can be honed both before and during employment, but there are rarely metrics which can provide insight to that before employment.
13. There is currently no skills pathway for academically less successful pupils when entering into retail. Those young people who have achieved the right qualifications can enter onto retail Modern Apprenticeships, but there are no foundation MA’s in Scotland.
14. We would also note that the current retail MAs have struggled to keep pace with the changes within the industry, especially as omni-channel retail in store becomes more crucial. We would also note the significant rise in demand for workers in the logistics and distribution elements of the industry – as the recent travails in recruiting HGV drivers demonstrate.
Scottish Retail Consortium – December 2021
References:
1. https://www.skillsdevelopmentscotland.co.uk/media/46765/modern-apprenticeship-statistics-quarter-4-2