I am delighted to be here and to have the opportunity to say a few words.  I am even more delighted to be able to put e-skills UK in the spotlight. 

I think we're all agreed that the introduction of broadband enables new products and services that can transform business and transform our daily lives. 

This applies whether we're a large corporation using technology to drive business change; whether we're a small business creating and delivering innovative content to consumers; whether we're a public sector organisation looking to provide services to a socially diverse set of consumers; or whether we're a school wanting to use broadband to deliver learning right across the curriculum. 

To do all this and realise the potential of broadband we must have the right skills.

We're not doing too badly and we do have some successes.  We have some world-class technology companies in the UK.  And in spite of what you read about off shoring, we're still the overall beneficiary of our relationship with India.  But we need to do more. 

We need to understand the skill sets that IT professionals require in order to develop, design and deliver the systems that are based on broadband. 

Increasingly, that skill set is moving away from a purely technical focus and into a combination of technological and business understanding. 

We still suffer from a gender imbalance in the work force.  Only 20% of the IT professional workforce is female.  That imbalance is reflected right back through the education system into universities and at A-levels and GCSEs.  If we are able only to recruit from 50% of the talent pool to get the professional skills we need then we are not going to be able to compete effectively in the global market place. 

We have some world-class companies in the UK that use technology to change the way they work in order to improve competitiveness and productivity.  The question is, are we scaling that quickly enough? Are we learning from the best? And are we investing enough in the implementation of technology in the small and medium sized enterprises that are the lifeblood of the UK economy?  I'm not sure. 

In schools we have cohorts of young people who all know how to use technology, often without realising it.  You see it as you walk down the street.  They are all using their mobile phone and other portable devices.  So why do we still have a huge disconnect between the skills they use socially and what they learn in the classroom?

Why do young people still say ICT is boring?  Our young people are not learning the things they need to learn in school with the result that they tend to associate their experience of school IT with a career in IT.  As a result we are not attracting the brightest and the best into technology careers. 

We have some fabulous examples in our schools of how broadband is enabling learning.  We have schools that have wireless networks and we have pupils who can access online resources centrally - but we don't have enough schools who are reaching that standard.  We need to do more. 

In terms of our existing workforce, our research indicates that there are currently 20 million people who need to use IT as part of their jobs out of a total workforce of around 27 million.  In fact, 9 out of 10 new jobs now require some kind of IT competence. Yes, there is a huge investment both from the public purse and from employers training  their workforce directly and, yes, we are making progress.   But are we doing it fast enough? 

Are we considering the IT skills needs of those individuals who don't have any qualifications and those who are excluded from mainstream learning?  Are we focusing enough on our older workforce - people who weren't brought up with technology?  Do they need to be given the opportunity to acquire these skills if they're going to continue to be employable in the current workforce? 

We have some great examples of companies that are using broadband to enable flexible any time, anywhere learning - learning that can be delivered in the workplace on a just-in-time basis to support the skills development of employees.  Are we spreading that best practice and are we getting the momentum that we urgently need?

e-skills UK, as Declan explained, is the Sector Skills Council for IT and telecommunications.  We have brought together employers to collaborate on improving the skills landscape in the UK.  We work in partnership with government, our regional partners, education and training providers in order to improve skills.  I think this partnership is already beginning to make a difference. 

We have developed something called Computer Clubs for Girls.  This is an after- school programme that delivers innovative IT-skills learning to girls in the 10-14-age range. 

Thanks to support from the Department for Education and Skills and pilots currently running in Scotland and Wales, the programme is now being rolled out to 3,600 schools - touching the lives of some 150,000 girls. 

The results are inspiring: two thirds of girls who have participated in clubs to date are now prepared to consider a technology related career.  If we could bottle that and take it right through the education system we would address the gender imbalance overnight. 

Another piece of work that we've being doing is looking at undergraduate courses. 

Employers are still recruiting more than 50% of graduates into the IT workforce from degrees other than computer science.  This is because they're looking for interpersonal skills, communications skills and business skills.  They find the technology bit the easiest bit to add. 

So we brought together the people responsible for graduate development from a host of employers, both inside the industry - such as IBM, EDS and smaller technology firms - and outside, such as British Airways, Ford, Astra Zeneca.  After an exciting first meeting they agreed to share their graduate development programmes and to work alongside universities to develop a new curriculum. 

That new curriculum is now being offered in four universities with another eight coming on stream in 2006 and a further eight in 2007.  The course content is a quarter technical, quarter project management, a quarter interpersonal and a quarter business skills.  And that is making those students highly employable and more productive when they enter the workforce. 

We've also developed something called the Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA).  This is a framework of competency statements designed by employers for employers to enable skills development for people who are already in the workforce. I'm delighted that Ian Watmore - who's one of the e-skills UK board members - has decided to adopt SFIA for use in government.

Many other companies now are beginning to look on SFIA as the de facto standard for skills development. 

SFIA enables everybody to talk a common language.  It is a taxonomy that everybody can work to.  We can then align the provision of courses and qualifications to the framework so that people know that the skills development they're buying delivers the skill set that they actually want for their people.

We are also doing some work across the network of other Sector Skills Councils in terms of supporting companies in all business sectors to embed e-learning inside their organisations. 

We have a number of new opportunities coming up.  Many of you will have read the Tomlinson Review of education in schools.  What slipped in alongside the reforms was the development of a series of diplomas for the 14-19 age range. 

Employers have been invited to get involved in the development of these diplomas so that they can seriously influence what goes on in education.  e-skills UK is proud to be leading on the development of the IT Diploma.  The creation of the Diploma is a good opportunity to look at the skills development that we need as a pipeline for young people going directly into the workforce or on to higher education.

I am delighted to be able to announce that, working with the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority and the Learning and Skills Council, alongside employers, we have developed a programme of skills development for everybody in the workforce who uses IT - with a particular focus on those who don't have any qualifications and the older workforce.  We have developed a qualification framework called ITQ coupled with an e-skills 'passport' which will enable every individual to look at the skills that they need for their jobs and then access subsidised training to develop those skills.  That programme will be rolled out from September 2006 and every individual should be able to access it. 

So I think we've done a lot in terms of moving along this journey.  But I don't want to underestimate the job still to be done.  If we're going to realise the full potential of broadband we really need to shift the agenda on to skills development. 

Without the right skills we will never achieve what we need to do in the UK to remain competitive.  We all need to work together on this: government, employers, agencies, universities, schools, further education colleges and the private training sector to ensure that the skills we need to improve prosperity, society and the lives of individuals are the skills we get in the UK.  Thank you very much indeed.
 

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