Tag Archives: skills

New life for old homes: the potential of retrofitting social housing

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by Ian Babelon

How can social housing retrofits help tackle the cost-of-living and climate crises that are currently exercising the minds of landlords, householders, tenants and governments? In this, blog post, Ian Babelon looks at the potential of retrofits for making homes more energy efficient and for futureproofing the built environment.

The benefits and costs of retrofitting

Around 38% of all homes in the UK were built before 1946. As a result, the UK’s housing stock is not only the oldest, but among the most poorly insulated in Europe, leading to higher energy bills and a lower quality of life. At the same time, UK homes account for over 66m tonnes of direct carbon emissions, undermining government decarbonisation efforts.

On many different levels, making Britain’s housing more energy efficient makes sense. Estimates by the UK’s Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) suggest households could save £220-400 in energy bills per year. In addition, retrofitting homes can address fuel poverty, provide decent homes, reduce public health costs, and help deliver decarbonisation targets.

But energy efficiency requires investment. Insight shared by the Greener Futures Partnership shows that it could cost between £13,000 and £25,000 to bring a social home to EPC (energy performance certificate) band C. This does not take into account training and skills requirements to retrofit homes, nor the significant variations in property condition, fabric type, fluctuating costs of construction materials, retrofit design choices, scheduling of renovation works, and availability of construction labour with the right skills. Retrofitting social homes at scale therefore requires working on multiple fronts at the same time.

The cost of not retrofitting

The 2022 Cost of Living Crisis in Scotland report by the Scottish Government shows that as many as 35% of households in Scotland may be fuel poor. In England, figures for 2022 by DENSZ indicate that fuel poverty affects 13.4% of households.

The consequences of fuel poverty are wide-ranging. The annual cost of treating health conditions associated with cold, damp homes in England amounts to £1.3 billion. Poor housing also affects mental health, can impair children’s learning opportunities, and puts older people at greater risk of strokes and other severe health conditions.

A 2021 National Housing Federation report showed that the UK’s social rented sector has made great progress in tackling fuel poverty (64.3% of housing association homes already have an EPC rating of C or above). But the study also underlined how much more needs to be done. An additional £36bn of investment is required, said the report, to bring the remaining 39% of housing association homes up to a C rating, as well as installing heat pumps and other clean heat technologies in all 2.7 million homes.

Financing challenges and solutions

Social landlords also face significant costs for remediation and building safety improvements that hamper their efforts to retrofit homes and meet national energy efficiency targets. As DESNZ rolls out the second wave of the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund, the NHF has called for long-term funding certainty so retrofits can pick up the pace.

Fortunately, more financing opportunities are becoming available for social landlords looking to make their properties more energy efficient, as reported in a report by the Green Finance Institute. These include local climate bonds, leaseholder finance and insurance-backed ‘comfort plans’, such as the Energiesprong approach, which can pay for insulation measures with energy and maintenance savings.

Fabric first…

It pays to insulate homes before investing in complementary measures such as renewable energy generation or smart technologies. This ‘fabric-first’ approach is an attractive alternative to the large up-front investment costs for deep, ‘whole-house’ retrofits that may be prohibitive for social housing landlords.

Incremental retrofit approaches can combine initial fabric improvement with scheduled upgrades, such as replacing gas with energy-efficient electric heating and hot water, installing air-source heat pumps (ASHP) or introducing smart home devices.

Strategic planning is essential to avoid piecemeal interventions that might prove more costly and less effective over time. The Social Housing Retrofits for the Future report commissioned by the Greener Futures Partnership highlights the need for cross-sectoral collaboration to tackle technical, financial, legal and customer engagement requirements simultaneously by providing extensive evidence from across Europe and the UK.

LETI, a volunteer network of over 1,000 built environment professionals, has published a Climate Emergency Retrofit Guide for use by social housing landlords, designers and contractors. The guide provides an engaging infographic overview as well as guidance for a range of home archetypes.

… Or building from scratch

Are all poorly performing homes worth retrofitting? So-called ‘hard-to-treat’ and ‘hard-to-decarbonise’ homes (about 2% of all social homes) can be very costly to upgrade. LETI provides a decision aid to determine whether one should retrofit or build anew, to be used in conjunction with other guidance.

A key aspect of this decision is to differentiate between embodied carbon (carbon emitted in making construction materials and during actual construction) and operational carbon (emissions produced during occupancy). All things considered, it is usually more worthwhile to renovate and reuse homes than to knock them down and redevelop them.

Beyond retrofitting

As performance increases to meet sector-wide energy-efficiency targets, designing for and monitoring air tightness will become increasingly important to help achieve decarbonisation.

High-performance standards such as Passivhaus ENERPHit are premised on sound air tightness and ventilation to guarantee thermal comfort while reducing energy costs. The Passivhaus Trust provides resources and case studies to help councils, ALMOs and housing associations deliver energy-efficient retrofits and new builds, along with a recent evidence-based research report that makes the case for whole-house, low-carbon retrofits.

The next frontier for retrofitting social housing at scale lies in neighbourhood-wide retrofits that could appeal even more to green finance but would require commensurate public-private partnerships and coordination.

Final thoughts

Overall, retrofitting social housing is a win-win for everyone involved. It is good for the environment, the economy, and the people who live in social housing. The up-front costs can be substantial, but the long-term benefits should make these investments cost-effective.

The social housing sector has clearly been taking action to deliver more energy efficient homes, and it’s working with residents, contractors, local authorities and other stakeholders to ensure that the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund succeeds.

Challenges remain, notably concerns about skills shortages. But the prize of warmer homes, affordable energy, a better quality of life and a cleaner planet is well worth the effort of overcoming these obstacles.

Ian Babelon, UX Researcher, Idox

A longer version of this article is available for subscribers to The Knowledge Exchange Information Service. To retrieve it from our online database, use the reference number: B67199.

Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash

Further reading: more on energy efficient housing from The Knowledge Exchange blog

Media and information literacy: navigating a complex landscape

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By Hannah Brunton

UNESCO’s Global Media and Information Literacy Week 2022 takes place from 24-31 October 2022 under the theme of “Nurturing Trust”, giving governments, educators, information professionals, and media professionals the chance to discuss and reflect on critical issues that the world is facing in relation to misinformation and disinformation, and the challenges of navigating the online environment.

What is media and information literacy?

Media and information literacy (MIL) is defined by UNESCO as “an interrelated set of competencies that help people to maximise advantages and minimize harms in the new information, digital and communication landscapes”.

Previously, media literacy (ML) and information literacy (IL) have been treated as distinct concepts, with ML focusing specifically on media engagement, and IL referring in a broader sense to information skills such as search, discovery, access, analysis, and management.

In the early 2000s, UNESCO united the concepts under the umbrella term of media and information literacy (MIL), and while there is still some debate among ML and IL experts about whether this is the best approach, it is generally accepted that there is value in grouping them together to develop holistic policies and initiatives.

The UK’s Media and Information Literacy Alliance (MILA) have chosen also to treat the two concepts as one. They define MIL as “the ability to engage fully with media and information in people’s connected daily lives…engaging with media and information safely and healthily, critically and actively, with positive social consequences”.

Key MIL competencies include the skills and abilities to find, critically evaluate, interpret, manage, create, communicate, store, and share media and information, both online and offline.

Why is it important?

With rapid technological developments in recent decades and the exponential growth of media and information online, it is vital that people are equipped to navigate this increasingly complex landscape. MIL is therefore becoming a growing priority for key stakeholders including librarians, teachers, policymakers, media professionals, and youth organisations.

UNESCO estimates that 60% of the global population are internet users, and as this number grows and social media becomes an increasingly powerful tool, it is vital that people across the world can recognise potentially harmful content and prevent its spread.

MILA and UNESCO have highlighted concerns about the spread of misinformation and conspiracy theories around Covid-19, the climate crisis and violent extremism, and have warned that the spread of such misinformation threatens to weaken social unity, undermine democracy, and erode trust in government and the media on a global scale.

Increased access to online environments has led to a blurring of the lines between consumers and producers of information. As it becomes easier to create and share content online, it becomes increasingly difficult to effectively evaluate such content, distinguish between reliable and unreliable sources, and form balanced and informed perspectives.

The skills associated with MIL are crucial to addressing these issues, and there is a clear case for MIL initiatives that help people to develop these skills as a part of their lifelong learning. Being able to understand where information comes from, identify ‘fake news’, recognise bias, think critically about different perspectives, and create and share media responsibly, can encourage greater civic engagement and empower individuals and communities to create positive change.

MIL initiatives and resources

UNESCO are leaders in the global MIL arena in terms of influencing policy and strategy. Their Media and Information Literacy Alliance (distinct from the UK’s MILA) was set up to facilitate strategic partnerships and networks among the global MIL community and is open to all organisations and individuals.

UNESCO have various MIL-related publications including their MIL Policy and Strategy Guidelines, the MIL Curriculum aimed at both educators and learners, the Global MIL Assessment Framework for assessing country readiness, and the MIL Cities framework aimed at key stakeholders in the development of MIL at the city level. The MIL CLICKS campaign has been designed to encourage individuals to critically evaluate information before sharing it online.

In the UK, MILA was launched in response to the government’s Online Media Literacy Strategy, which was published by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) in July 2021. DCMS have since launched their Media Literacy Programme Fund which is intended to award grants for UK media literacy initiatives.

MILA have recently published the MILA Framework, a draft Information Literacy Impact Framework and a guide focused on disinformation around the Russian invasion of Ukraine. They have also launched a ‘Disinformation Step by Step’ MOOC (massive open online course) for educators, librarians, teachers and journalists, and have previously delivered free webinars during 2021’s Global MIL Week.

Building a media and information literate Scotland

Last month, CILIP Scotland ran an afternoon of online sessions on Building a Media, Digital and Information Literate Scotland, as part of their series of online Autumn Gatherings.

The event included a presentation on UNESCO’s MIL initiatives by Sheila Webber, Director of the Centre for Information Literacy Research at the University of Sheffield. Webber discussed the scope and impact of UNESCO’s work on MIL, noting the value of their publications and initiatives while highlighting the need for stronger partnerships and communication between stakeholders at the global level.

A panel discussion took place on issues around MIL for young people in Scotland and included a conversation about ‘Maddie is Online’ – a project aimed at developing MIL among pre-teen children through a video cartoon series addressing key challenges of the online environment.

The event also included a presentation on Ofcom’s ‘Making Sense of Media’ project, which involved in-depth research on the current state of media literacy in the UK and pilot initiatives promoting MIL among underserved communities.

A session delivered by Dr Ann Wales from the Digital Health & Care Innovation Centre discussed the ‘Information for Wellbeing’ course which was recently developed with NHS Scotland and the Scottish Library and Information Council (SLIC), to equip library staff with skills to help users find trusted health and wellbeing information. Dr Wales emphasised the importance of literacies in enabling engagement and influencing national policy change.

Final thoughts

There is a clear need for focused efforts to develop MIL and enable people to engage effectively with media and information. As demonstrated by the work of UNESCO and MILA, collaboration and strategic partnerships are key, and initiatives like Global MIL Week offer a valuable opportunity for the international and cross-sectoral communication needed to coordinate the global effort to ensure MIL for all.

Further reading: more about information, media and digital skills on the Knowledge Exchange blog:

Skilling up: the case for digital literacy

Social media: does it influence political participation?

Assessing information quality: sorting the wheat from the CRAAP

Reaching out: tackling loneliness in older people

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As we’ve previously reported, loneliness is a growing epidemic with significant consequences for many groups in society. One of these groups is the elderly – loneliness has been seen to affect around 10-13% of older people, and has been found to increase the risk of premature death by 30%.

Making connections

Creating relationships and connections is an important way of tackling loneliness, and the Rural Services Network has highlighted some good examples of bringing people together

These include “Village Agent” schemes, which link people in rural areas with advice and support services for independent living. Another initiative –  the “Rural Coffee Caravan Information Project” – specifically targets rural areas of the country, where there may be fewer opportunities to meet through shopping, meeting for food or simply seeing other people. This project allows older people to meet at a caravan where they are given coffee, tea and homemade cakes, as well as providing information on helpful services.

Along these lines is also the “Talk Eat and Drink” (TED) project launched in 2015, which was initially funded by the Big Lottery’s “Fulfilling lives: ageing better” programme. This allowed older people to become involved in activities such as ‘Sing For Your Supper’, ‘Fish and Chips Friday’ and a Sunday pub lunch, which not only enabled people to bond with others, but also ensured that they were being fed properly, especially if they were struggling with cooking at home or getting food for themselves.

Artistic endeavours

Another way to tackle loneliness in older people is through the arts. A report from the Baring Foundation has found that it is important for older people to have a range of activities and opportunities to connect them to others; the arts can be effective not only in keeping people in touch with others, but also in helping with health-related issues like dementia.

The arts exemplifies the principles behind ‘five ways to wellbeing’: connecting, being active, learning, taking notice and giving. Being able to create things allows older people to use their minds and skills to express themselves. They can also have enhanced self-confidence from the feeling of doing something for themselves.

Organisations such as Arts4Dementia and Artz (Artists for Alzheimer’s) have been able to help people living with dementia, including help with their co-ordination and wellbeing. Other companies like Spare Tyre use theatre to create multi-sensory productions, while the Library Theatre Company in Manchester delivers sensory workshops for people living with dementia which provide fun with props and music.

One of the biggest issues with this form of help is that the arts tend to be overlooked by local authorities and therefore don’t have enough funding. However, Manchester City Council, has been working to make their city more ‘age friendly’ and in particular to provide cultural activities for older people.

There have also been examples of “arts by prescription” where GPs have referred patients to arts projects to improve their mental health. This is part of the wider ‘social prescribing’ approach which our blog has previously covered.

Everyday skills

Other forms of tackling loneliness in older people include helping them develop skills through, for example, volunteering. Projects such as Touchstone in Yorkshire allowed people to self-refer themselves, or be referred through GPs and Age UK, where they could learn practical skills with other older people. 91% of those taking part felt they were more involved or connected with their community, and 86% felt they had more confidence to meet people.

Another programme by the charity Open Age, in London, created opportunities for older people to keep up with the performing arts, physical activity, digital skills, lunch groups, and trips. While these did cost money, they were only £1 an hour and were pay-by-session and drop in, which made it slightly more accessible. However, even these small amounts may be out of reach for those already struggling to make ends meet.

Final thoughts

Overall, there seems to be a range of activities and opportunities for older people to not only meet others and form connections, but learn new skills they can utilise for themselves.

However, it’s important to remember that older people are not a homogenous group, and no single approach will work for everyone. But as long as careful thought goes into ensuring that the needs of older people are at the heart of initiatives to tackle loneliness, the chances of success will be all the greater.

Photo by leah hetteberg on Unsplash 

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STEMming the flow: the impact of coronavirus on the STEM workforce pipeline

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It is well recognised that the UK faces a shortage in STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) skills, and that at current projections, this gap in skills and knowledge is only going to grow in the coming years.

Before the coronavirus pandemic, in recognition of this impending skills deficit, there had been a drive from across those sectors involved in STEM skills development (IT development, cyber security, life sciences and engineering, to name but a few) to encourage more people to consider STEM careers, whether as a first choice for young people leaving school, or as an opportunity for older adults looking to retrain in another discipline.

However, as with many things, the pandemic has set these efforts back, and now employers and trainers face an even greater task to ensure we can meet the skills needs for a digital, green and globally competitive economy.

Encouraging interests in STEM from an early age

Children and young people have seen first-hand the vital work that sectors such as life sciences and medicine have on our day-to-day lives during the pandemic. However, in the UK we still struggle with uptake of STEM subjects past GCSE/NAT5. And the number of those with career aspirations to move into STEM sectors is also not growing at the rate that will be necessary to meet future need.

Engineering UK published a report in 2021 which looked at the provision of information and support to children in English schools and colleges on careers in STEM subject areas. The report found challenges and barriers to engaging children in STEM subjects, including a lack of staff time and a lack of funding to offer specialist training. In addition, the report highlighted challenges around career advice and options for future career development, which were linked to a lack of employer engagement, and a lack of visible diversity and equality within the sector, which put some learners off.

Another challenge to encouraging the uptake of STEM subjects, is high quality teaching, teacher recruitment and the perceived standard of qualifications on offer.  In addition, there is a growing problem of STEM teacher shortages and a lingering perception that apprenticeships offer an ‘easy’ alternative to higher education.

A 2020 report also published by Engineering UK found that a lack of knowledge about relevant STEM educational pathways can discourage young people from pursuing engineering careers. In 2019, just 39% of young people aged 14 to 16 said they ‘know what they need to do next in order to become an engineer’ – and this figure has remained fairly static over time.

The report also emphasised that key influencers such as parents and teachers need to be supported so that they, in turn, can advise young people. The report highlighted that fewer than half of STEM secondary school teachers and under one third of parents surveyed for the research express confidence in giving engineering careers advice, with both groups reporting low levels of knowledge about engineering.

Photo by Kateryna Babaieva on Pexels.com

Supporting diversity and equality within the sector

Last year, a report from the All Party Parliamentary Group on Diversity and Inclusion in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths, looked at diversity in the STEM workforce.  It highlighted that, despite efforts to make the sector more equitable and more accessible for people from different backgrounds, the pandemic has exacerbated existing inequalities and, in some instances, has actually made the levels of inequality worse.

Similarly, a white paper from STEMWomen published in 2021 and updated in 2022 found that 60% of the women surveyed felt their future career prospects in STEM have been affected by the coronavirus pandemic. There was a growing feeling of uncertainty and lack of confidence in the jobs market, with a proportion of female STEM students saying that they are now looking for any job rather than one within their preferred industry.

Figures from WISE published in 2019 found that, in 2019, for the first time, one million women were employed in core STEM occupations, with an estimated 24% of the STEM workforce in the UK now female.  And UCAS data provided by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) showed that 35% of STEM students in higher education in the UK are women. There are a number of initiatives which have been developed to try and encourage greater diversity within the sector, particularly among women and girls and in particular those who are disabled or from BAME backgrounds.

Stemettes is an award-winning social enterprise working across the UK, Ireland and beyond to inspire and support young women and young non-binary people into Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths careers. The project has a number of innovative programmes designed to encourage young women and girls into STEM careers through workshops, networking and mentorship schemes, and has helped 40,000 girls realise their STEM potential since its launch in 2013.

A silver lining?

One of the changes to emerge from the pandemic is the number of adults considering re-training or upskilling in STEM or digital disciplines like cyber security. Many people were forced to leave their jobs during the pandemic, being made redundant or choosing to leave and re-train to help improve their future job security.

Since the pandemic, there has been growing interest, particularly in “tech and digital” job roles – according to research by IT jobs board CW Jobs. More than one in five of all workers say they have undertaken tech training since spring 2020, and more than half of non-tech workers (55%) have considered making the transition into the sector since the pandemic.

In October 2021, the UK government rolled out 65 short and modular courses at ten Institutes of Technology across England, aimed at helping to upskill working adults in their local areas. The courses will cover subjects including Artificial Intelligence, Digitisation of Manufacturing, Digital Construction, Agricultural Robotics, and Cyber Security, to be delivered through a combination of classroom and online learning to support flexible study.

However research from the University of Warwick has also shown that attracting people to the sector, and keeping them there are two very different things; a large proportion of STEM graduates are likely to never work in the sector, and there may be more movement out of high skill STEM positions by older workers than in other sectors. The skills of those already in the sector and the development of those existing skills to meet the demand – and where possible even pre-empt future skills shortages – is going to be as important as attracting new talent.

Final thoughts… mending the “leaky” STEM pipeline

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of STEM skills in a wide range of areas, and the wider agenda to drive a green recovery from the pandemic will rest, in part, on the sustainable and consistent development of a STEM talent pipeline over the coming years, to produce individuals with the skills and knowledge to drive green and digital growth. Other labour shocks, like the impact of Brexit, which has led to a re-location of many people from the Continent with STEM skills, or who worked in the sector directly, are contributing to the high demand for skills in the sector. All of which makes the importance of attracting and retaining people in the sector greater than ever.

The leaky STEM pipeline, – a metaphor which describes how people, particularly women and people from underrepresented groups in the industry, are “lost” from the sector at various points on the route to their chosen career – is sometimes criticised as being over simplistic.  However, it is clear that something needs to be done to help tackle the number of people “lost” from the sector. This could be done by promoting opportunities for everyone interested in STEM and by driving the development of a strong, well-resourced and engaged STEM workforce, drawn from all parts of society and engaged in STEM from the earliest possible opportunity.

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How have health librarians been responding to the Covid-19 pandemic?

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The impact of the coronavirus pandemic over the past 18 months has highlighted the vital role of information and knowledge services in supporting health and social care, public health, and medicine.

Last month’s Annual CILIPS Conference included a presentation about #HealthLibrariansAddValue – a joint advocacy campaign between CILIPS and NHS Education for Scotland (NES) which aims to showcase the skills of health librarians and demonstrate the crucial role of health libraries.

Library and knowledge services in the health sector have faced increased pressures and a multitude of challenges throughout the pandemic as they have continued to develop and deliver vital services and resources to colleagues under unprecedented restrictions and changed working practices. With the demand for trustworthy and reliable health information higher than ever, it is clear that well-resourced, coordinated and accessible knowledge services are essential.

Supporting the frontline

Throughout the pandemic, the work of health librarians has been vital in supporting frontline workers including doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and social workers. Hospital library services have been directly involved in medical decision-making, providing evidence and resources to support patient care and the training of medical staff. As the information needs of the medical workforce have changed through the course of the pandemic, health libraries have had to be fast and flexible to provide time sensitive and urgent information to those on the frontline.

A project undertaken by the NHS Borders Library Service saw the creation of a new outreach service for local GPs, which involved the delivery of targeted current awareness bulletins, resource lists, and Covid-19 research updates, all of which directly informed the provision of primary patient care and helped to keep GPs up to date on emerging knowledge about the coronavirus.

Health Education England’s (HEE) Library and Knowledge team adapted their services to meet changing workplace needs, ensuring 24/7 access to digital knowledge resources, gathering evidence on how to keep staff safe while working, and developing training programmes to support virtual working practices for healthcare staff.

Supporting decision-making across sectors

Health librarians have played a major role in informing the UK’s pandemic response at a national level, aiding public health decision-making and facilitating partnership working across sectors.

Librarians from Public Health Scotland’s (PHS) knowledge services have worked closely with PHS colleagues to coordinate Scotland’s response to the pandemic. Their work included the creation of daily Covid-19 updates for PHS’ guidance teams, distributing the latest and most relevant research on key topics, and adapting these updates in line with PHS’ changing priorities (for example as their focus shifted from virus transmission to vaccine efficacy). Librarians at PHS have also been involved in creating evidence summaries to support specific Covid-19 research projects, such as an investigation into the relationship between Covid-19 and vitamin D. The evidence gathered by knowledge services helped PHS to formulate their response on the issue and make national recommendations relating to vitamin D intake.

On 12 July 2021, PHS launched their Covid-19 research repository, which is managed and maintained by the library team and collects, preserves, and provides access to Scottish Covid-19 research. This project aims to support policymakers, researchers, and the public by bringing together Scotland’s Covid-19 research in one place and making it easily accessible for all who need it. It is also aimed at reducing duplication of effort, which health librarians had recognised as a concern during the pandemic.

Similarly, Public Health England (PHE)’s library aimed to tackle the duplication of effort across England by creating their ‘Finding the evidence: Coronavirus’ page which gathers emerging key research and evidence related to Covid-19 and makes it accessible in one place. Many resources on the site are freely available and include a wide range of resources including training materials, and search and fact checking guidance.

Health libraries have also been informing decision-making across the social care and third sectors, with NES librarians facilitating digital access to research and evidence via the Knowledge Network and Social Services Knowledge Scotland (SSKS), and providing training and webinars to help users make the most of such services. NES librarians have been involved in partnership working with organisations such as the Care Inspectorate, SCVO, and Alliance.

Keeping the public informed

A key challenge for health librarians during the pandemic has been in dealing with the information overload and spread of harmful misinformation around Covid-19.

Library and information professionals have had a key role to play in providing trustworthy information to patients and the public, helping people to make informed choices about their health and wellbeing. As previously mentioned, librarians have helped agencies like PHS to deliver clear, meaningful, and authoritative guidance to the public, as well as making up-to-date and reliable Covid-19 research centralised and widely accessible to the public.

The World Health Organization (WHO) emphasises the importance of health literacy in enabling  populations to “play an active role in improving their own health, engage successfully with community action for health, and push governments to meet their responsibilities in addressing health and health equity”. Health librarians have been at the forefront of efforts to promote and improve health literacy during the pandemic.

NES’ knowledge services have been delivering training and webinars to health and social care staff on how to improve people’s health literacy, and health librarians working with HEE have created targeted Covid-19 resources for specific groups such as older people and children and young people.

Final thoughts

Clearly, the work of health librarians has been crucial to the UK’s pandemic response and recovery so far, and advocacy campaigns like #HealthLibrariansAddValue are central to highlighting this important work and demonstrating its impact.

Looking forward, it is clear that innovative and high-quality knowledge services will be essential in a post-pandemic world as they continue to aid recovery, promote health literacy and support the health and social care workforce. As set out in HEE’s Knowledge for Healthcare framework, investment is required at a national and local level to build expertise and support the digital knowledge infrastructure which will be required.

Further reading: more on health from The Knowledge Exchange blog

Close to home: getting to net zero means decarbonising the UK’s housing stock

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Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash

Two years ago, the UK became the first major economy in the world to pass a law pledging to bring all greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050. Achieving net zero means balancing the amount of greenhouse gases we emit with the amount we remove, and it’s a critical factor in tackling climate change by reducing global warming.

But, according to the government’s independent adviser on tackling climate change, the UK will be unable to meet the net zero target without the near-complete elimination of greenhouse gas emissions from 29 million homes. 

The necessity: why buildings need to be decarbonised

In 2014, emissions from domestic properties accounted for 34% of total UK greenhouse gas emissions. A combination of high energy prices and improvements in energy efficiency brought that figure closer to 19%. But those reductions have stalled, and because the UK’s building stock is one of the oldest and most energy-inefficient in Europe, the need to decarbonise is even more urgent.

The benefits: environmental, health, economic

While achieving net zero is one good reason for making our buildings more energy efficient, decarbonisation offers further dividends.

Energy efficient homes are cheaper to run, reducing the levels of fuel poverty that affect millions of households. They can also bring health benefits in the form of healthy air temperatures, lower humidity, better noise levels, and improved air quality.

In addition, a nationwide programme of decarbonising buildings could make a vital contribution to the recovery of the economy from the coronavirus pandemic. A recent inquiry by the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee  (EAC) found that investing in energy efficiency alone could create 34,000 full-time jobs within the next two years. In the longer term, energy efficiency investment could support an estimated 150,000 skilled and semi-skilled jobs to 2030.

The problems: high costs, skills uncertainty and a “disastrous” insulation scheme

The UK government says the cost of decarbonising homes is between £35 billion and £65 billion. But the EAC believes that this seriously underestimates the cost of upgrading the energy efficiency of homes. With 19 million homes in England requiring energy efficiency installations, this could cost £18,000 per home, even before the installation of a heat pump.

Another area of concern is skills. Brian Berry from the Federation of Master Builders told the committee that every tradesperson in the country needs to be upskilled in retrofit techniques in order to secure overall competency in the supply chain:

“We need to upskill people in the building industry because there is a need to understand how their skills interrelate to one another. You cannot just pick out one bit of this. It has to be seen holistically, which is why I think there needs to be a national retrofit strategy, a clear political direction and a commitment to reducing carbon emissions in our homes.”

The EAC was also outspoken in its criticism of the government’s flagship home insulation scheme. The Green Homes Grant was launched in 2020 to offer £1.5bn in subsidies for insulation and low-CO2 heating. However, only 6.3% of the money has been spent, despite exceptionally high demand.

The committee said the scheme was rushed and poorly implemented, and described its administration as “nothing short of disastrous.” Just six months after its launch, the scheme has now been scrapped. Instead, energy saving upgrades and low carbon heating will be delivered to homes through local authorities in England.

The recommendations: strategies, incentives and insights from overseas

There’s no shortage of suggestions for driving decarbonisation forward. The EAC has called for a government strategy for the next decade to give industry and tradespeople time to upskill and to give households the right signals to invest in energy efficiency. The committee also recommends that VAT on the labour element of refurbishment and renovations is reduced to 5%, a measure also supported by the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors.

It’s also worth looking at ideas from overseas. In February, research by the University of Edinburgh reviewed the heat decarbonisations policies in nine European countries. The report highlights particular progress made by the Nordic countries in decarbonising buildings’ heat supply and in making greater use of electricity as a potential future source of low-carbon heating.

The solutions: putting promises into practice

While the challenge of decarbonising homes may be daunting, a growing number of housing providers are taking steps to cut emissions from domestic properties.

The Welsh Government has provided £20m in funding for Optimised Retrofit. Through this scheme, 28 social landlords can retrofit homes and test the ways heat and energy are produced, stored and supplied. If it’s successful, the scheme could be the model for decarbonising all of Wales’ 1.4 million homes by 2050.

Last month, Sutton Council launched an energy-efficiency programme to transform draughty properties with high energy bills into net zero carbon houses which are warmer and cheaper for residents. The programme is based on a successful Dutch initiative known as Energiesprong (energy leap). In the Netherlands, 1300 net zero energy refurbishments have been completed, and a further 500 are being built. The initiative involves insulating the external walls and roof areas, replacing windows and doors and installing new solar panels to power a new central heating and ventilation system. Sutton is the first London borough and the latest UK housing provider to adopt the programme, which has already been taken up in Nottingham and Maldon.

Many housing associations are at the start of their journey to net zero, but a National Housing Federation survey has shown that two thirds of social housing landlords have started planning to make their homes greener and warmer. Three quarters (74%) of survey respondents expect to retrofit homes in 2020-21. A similar proportion (73%) expect to retrofit homes in 2021-22. However, the survey also reported that lack of finance and continuing policy uncertainty remain major obstacles to decarbonising homes. That’s important, particularly given the cost of decarbonisation of social housing – £104bn by 2050.

The future: decarbonisation begins at home

Local authorities, housing associations, and the construction industry are all keen to transform existing homes into greener, warmer places to live in. At the same time, residents – especially those having to make the choice between heating or eating – need to be taken out of fuel poverty. And, as we’ve seen, achieving net zero will only be possible by making the nation’s housing stock more energy efficient.

With so much riding on decarbonisation of domestic properties, the need for more funding as part of an ambitious policy approach is clear. As the UK prepares to host the critical climate change talks in Glasgow this year, there has to be a better understanding that tackling the climate emergency starts on our own doorstep.

Further reading from The Knowledge Exchange blog on housing and energy efficiency

Building sights: how offsite construction could help solve the housing shortage

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“Offsite construction” by psd is licensed with CC BY 2.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

Long waiting lists, high rents, thousands sleeping rough, millions living in insecure or unsuitable homes and a generation of young people priced out of the market: these are the hallmarks of the UK’s broken housing system.

In England, the government is committed to building 300,000 new homes a year by the mid-2020s. But in 2019, the number of new homes amounted to 170,000 – fewer than half of which were affordable homes. It’s a situation that is almost certain to get worse. Housing analysts have suggested that the restrictions caused by the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 will mean a 30% reduction in homes delivered.

Local authorities are rising to the challenge of the housing crisis. Between 1999 and 2002, councils delivered just 60 new homes as a consequence of central government housing policy. But in recent years councils have been returning to housebuilding in large numbers. A 2019 RTPI report found that:

“…more than two thirds of local authorities are now involved in directly delivering housing and local authorities are delivering homes in numbers not seen for 20 years.”

In the same year, The Guardian newspaper highlighted some examples of council housing projects:

“Bournemouth is building housing above many of its surface car parks, and has won planning awards for the results. Wigan is transforming tricky former mining sites with an exemplary programme of housing for older people. Exeter has one of Europe’s largest Passivhaus schemes underway, while Liverpool is developing rent-to-buy homes.”

Going modular

But if councils are to succeed in their efforts to deliver more affordable, low carbon housing, they will need to change the way homes are built. Increasingly, prefabricated modular construction is being seen as a way to meet some of the demand for new housing. Built offsite in factories, with fittings included, prefabricated housing offers comfortable, well-insulated homes that can be constructed more quickly than traditional building. Offsite construction can deliver a modern apartment block in half the time that it would take to build using traditional methods, which means that units for sale or rent can start making money more quickly.

An article in the 12 November 2020 issue of MJ magazine reported further benefits, noting that:

“…these homes are delivered with up to 40% less carbon, fewer defects, and less disruption to neighbourhoods where sites are located. Once completed the fact they are made in a factory is not obvious to the passer by or occupant, it is just great housing, beautifully built, with low running costs.”

A shortage of skilled labour presents another reason why the old ways of building homes need to change, as a 2016 review of the construction market highlighted:

“We will not have the labour force to deliver what the country needs by working in those ways, and those ways will not create enough added value for clients or suppliers to allow construction firms to prosper, and make those investments in our people and performance.”

The report demonstrated that prefabricated housing can make a significant difference to satisfying demand:

“Tokyo alone is able to build nearly the same number of homes per year that the UK delivers nationally. This is purely due to the reliance on a different delivery model for single family homes which benefits from the mass market cultural acceptance of pre-manufactured modular housing.”

Housing the homeless

Further evidence that modern methods of construction can work well has come from a project in Cambridge, where six modular homes were installed on a temporary site to house local homeless people. A report by the Cambridge Centre for Housing & Planning Research noted that residents were impressed with the design, space and quality of the modular units, and were keen to be involved in efforts to build a thriving community.

The Cambridge project is especially important in the light of the UK’s large number of rough sleepers and ‘hidden homeless’. In March 2020, more than 14,000 homeless people were housed in England as part of the ‘Everyone In’ initiative to take rough sleepers off the streets during the first wave of the pandemic. The programme was hailed as one of the leading successes of the government’s coronavirus response, but it ended in May and has not resumed during the current lockdown.

The future is modular?

So, could modular construction offer a solution to the UK’s housing shortage? Recent research published in the Journal of Engineering, Design and Technology set out to compare the traditional approach with modular construction, and to assess whether a shift in construction systems offers the potential to alleviate the UK’s domestic housing crisis. The study stressed that more research was needed to provide greater certainty about how modular methods could be more effectively grafted onto the current UK construction practices. However, the authors concluded that:

 “…modular construction promises strategic solutions to the lack of affordable housing currently experienced in the UK.”

In the meantime, recent developments suggest that the prefabricated housing sector seems to be going from strength to strength:

  • A 20,000 sq ft unit will be the manufacturing site for a new modular housing company in Durham, with plans to produce 1,000 modular homes a year.
  • A modular housing developer owned by Ikea has signed a 750-home deal with a housing association in the south of England.
  • Planning consent has been granted for 185 homes to be located in Bristol after they are shipped in from a factory in Yorkshire. Half of the homes will become part of the city council’s affordable housing stock.

The numbers of prefabricated homes are still too low. But if this trend continues, offsite construction might start to have a bigger impact on the UK’s housing shortage. The days of bricks and mortar could be numbered.

Further reading
More from The Knowledge Exchange blog on modern methods of housing:

Changing government, changing society: what now for public innovation?

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Image: CC Ross Findon via Unsplash

States of Change is an independent, global non-profit organisation which focuses on supporting and promoting learning around public innovation. During June, they hosted an online festival, bringing together practitioners, academics and policymakers from around the world in conversation. The recordings of all the sessions are still available online and in this blog we reflect on some of the discussions.

In the UK, we’ve seen over the last decade the growth and mainstreaming of government-supported initiatives, such as the network of What Works centres, and innovation centres such as Y Lab in Wales.

We’ve also seen the high profile introduction and use of agile methods and service design approaches, such as in the Government Digital Service and Gov.UK.

The question remains, however, how to build capacity for innovation at all levels of government and the public sector. To be successful this requires public sector managers and employees to be supported to develop the skills, mindset and culture that enables innovation.

We’ve written before on this blog about the transformational approach to public sector innovation in countries such as Singapore and Estonia. And during the States of Change Learning Festival there were some great discussions on international experiences. Of particular note, given the current UK Government’s stated desire to reform the civil service, was a webinar on How Singapore Learns, which explored how the Singapore government had, over a number of years, developed capabilities for forward thinking, openness to new ideas and agility.

From ideas to practice

Charles Landry, famous for developing the concept of the creative city, participated in a discussion during the festival on what being creative at an organisational or system-wide level actually means. He noted that what the current pandemic has done to generate urgency and a sense of focus within public sector systems, which may have included toying with small tweaks to bureaucracies, or taking an innovation approach built on numerous small-scale pilots or projects.

There were also sessions looking at tools and methodologies for public innovation, such as behavioural science and public innovation labs. And a discussion between Aarathi Krishnan and Panthea Lee highlighted the need for those working in government to recognise their own privilege. Questions such as “whose voices are we hearing and who is out in the cold?” and “who’s in the room when we ‘imagine’ new futures and how are we making the future just and equitable?” may seem challenging but they are necessary in order to build a different and better future.

How governments think

Another thought-provoking session was a conversation between Geoff Mulgan (Professor of Collective Intelligence, Public Policy and Social Innovation) and Aaron Maniam (Deputy Secretary in the Singapore Government) on how governments “think”. Mulgan highlighted two challenges for government that have been brought to the fore during the pandemic. Firstly, there is a need for new skills and transparent communication about the use of competing and often contradictory knowledge in decision making. Secondly, there’s a need for a new ecosystem of data governance, which would offer protection and public trust about the use of personal data by government. Interestingly, the session also highlighted the differing use of metaphors and language to describe the role of government. How ‘government’ is talked about shapes our view on what it could and should do. For example, is government a brain, or a war machine, or a facilitator, or a steward for future generations?

Evolving public innovation

The COVID crisis has forced rapid advances in how governments observe, make sense of patterns, use models and plan big interventions. They’ve had to make use of data of all kinds, draw on complex scientific advice, and mobilise local and national systems – all while maintaining public trust and compliance.

As we move into the recovery planning phase, there is now a need for medium-term and longer-term visions on how every policy area could be different in the future, from health to social care to education to transport to urban planning. This use of the imagination has traditionally been seen as the specialist realm of futurists and horizon scanners. It also requires strong storytelling, to create confidence and acceptance of change. Whether governments around the world are able to leverage new visions, will determine whether the rapid changes we have seen in response to COVID-19 will lead to genuine positive transformations or ultimately just a return to the status quo.

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Further education: happy-ever-after for the Cinderella sector?

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“It has, I believe, been an old complaint among many concerned with the technical side of education that that part of education has been the Cinderella. Well, the Government is determined that even if there was any truth in that in the past, there shall be none in the future.”

That forthright pledge came, not from a politician in our own times, but from the president of the board of education in 1935. Almost a century later, further education (FE) is still struggling to break away from its position as an overlooked and under-resourced Cinderella sector.

The importance of FE

FE matters in many ways to many people. Through FE, individuals can get a second chance to obtain qualifications, equip themselves for higher education, and improve their employability or chances of promotion, as well as enjoying countless health and wellbeing benefits.  Employers look to FE  to provide a workforce with the skills they need. So many of the services we rely on today depend on people who learned their skills in FE colleges, from car mechanics to care workers, hairdressers to housing managers. Not incidentally, the wider economy benefits from the improved productivity, increased tax-take and knowledge transfer that FE delivers. In spite of all these benefits, FE colleges attract less attention and funding than schools or universities, and their impact is not so widely recognised.

The Cinderella factors

In 2018, researchers from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education identified six key issues affecting FE policy in England:

  • English FE is not defined clearly and stably;
  • the strength and continuity of FE colleges have been undermined by multiple and changing funding sources and funders, frequent government reviews and frequent substantial policy changes;
  • increasing numbers of college lecturers are employed on zero hours contracts;
  • mergers and closures have undermined colleges’ community and employment functions;
  • competition among the multiplicity of private bodies awarding FE qualifications is leading them to make their qualifications easier to attain;
  • cuts in FE funding have greatly weakened colleges, leaving them under-resourced.

The hardest-hit service

As the Ontario study noted, funding is a key factor in the precarious position of FE in the UK, something echoed by further research. An independent review of post-18 education, led by Philip Augar, reported that in 2018 English universities received £8bn in government funding to support 1.2m undergraduates, while just £2.3bn was allocated for the 2.2m full and part-time students aged over 18 in further education.

A further report, published by the Institute of Fiscal Studies  found that over the last decade further education and skills spending for young people and adults received the largest cuts across all areas of education spending.

The House of Commons Education Committee has also identified FE as the hardest hit part of the education sector:

“Participation in full time further education has more than doubled since the 1980s, yet post-16 budgets have seen the most significant pressures of all education stages. Per student funding fell by 16% in real terms between 2010–11 and 2018–19 – twice as much as the 8% school funding fall over a similar period.”

Witnesses contributing to the Committee’s investigation were in no doubt that FE has been hit harder than other parts of the education sector because it doesn’t have the ear of politicians in the way that schools and universities do. As one contributor put it:

“…there are more votes in schools than colleges.”

Remedies and recommendations

The Augar review observed that there is a powerful case for change in the FE sector, and made a number of recommendations to improve the quality, capability and capacity of England’s FE college network, including:

  • a national network of colleges should be established, with a dedicated capital investment, and the integration of small, local colleges into groups;
  • full funding should be provided for all students participating in study for levels 2 and 3 to remove barriers to social mobility and productivity;
  • the reduction in the core funding rate for 18 year-olds should be reversed;
  • Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) funding rules should be simplified, and government should commit to providing an indicative adult education budget;
  • the government should invest in the FE workforce as a priority;
  • FE colleges should have a protected title, as universities are entitled to.

The Augar recommendation that £3bn should flow to colleges, along with a one-off £1bn capital funding boost for the national network underlines the need for government to take further education seriously. As things stand, FE is still awaiting a definitive government response.

FE in the rest of the UK

Scotland
In Scotland, where FE colleges provide around 71 million hours of learning to over 242,00 students each year, financial pressures are increasing. A 2019 Audit Scotland report noted that Scottish colleges are operating within an increasingly tight financial environment. It reported that 12 colleges were forecasting recurring financial deficits by 2022-23. The report suggested that there is scope for the Scottish Funding Council to work with individual colleges and their boards to improve financial planning and to achieve greater transparency in the sector’s financial position. More recently, research by the principals of Scotland’s two largest colleges reported that FE boosts Scotland’s GDP by £3.5bn a year.

Wales
The 2016 Hazelkorn review made recommendations for post-compulsory education in Wales, including a new Tertiary Education Authority to distribute funding to universities and colleges, and to shape the vision of the post-compulsory sector. The review also recommended that education policy and institutions should be more focused on Wales’ social and economic goals. The Welsh Government has accepted the recommendations.

Northern Ireland
Six regional colleges, operating across 40 campuses, are the main providers of technical and vocational education in Northern Ireland. In 2016, the Northern Ireland Executive reviewed FE, resulting in a strategy with nine themes covering areas such as economic development; social inclusion and delivery. It includes a commitment to, in partnership with the colleges, review the funding model to ensure that it supports and incentivises colleges to deliver the strategy. With the resumption of the devolved assembly in Northern Ireland, the hope is that the government can work with the FE sector to meet the challenges of funding and the needs of the economy.

Cinderella no more?

Further education is the backbone of the UK’s efforts to meet the country’s growing skills gap, and may hold the key to improving productivity and social mobility. But OECD figures show just 37% of men and 34% of women participate in further education (compared to averages of 49% and 44% respectively across other industrialised countries). Clearly, more needs to be done to help FE level up.

Earlier this month, in his first Budget, Chancellor Rishi Sunak confirmed the Conservative Party’s election manifesto commitments for FE, including £1.8bn for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to upgrade college buildings. There are also high hopes that more money will be delivered to FE in the autumn spending review.

The FE sector has welcomed the change in approach. Following the Budget speech, the Association of Colleges chief executive David Hughes said: “Today showed a clear shift in attitude towards technical and vocational education, after a decade of neglect.”

It might still be too soon to forecast a happy ending for the Cinderella sector, but the signs are that FE is coming in from the cold.

Further reading from The Knowledge Exchange blog

“Talent without Limits”: the impact of apprenticeships in Scotland

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by Scott Faulds

Over the past six years, Skills Development Scotland has been working to increase the number of people starting apprenticeships across Scotland. Recent statistics have revealed that they are on track to meet their target of 30,000 new apprenticeship starts by the end of the financial year 2020. The provision of apprenticeships has been a key element of the Scottish Government’s youth employment strategy , which highlights the government’s belief that apprenticeships are an excellent opportunity for young people to gains skills, experience and a qualification while in employment.

This week (2nd March to 6th March) Skills Development Scotland has launched Scottish Apprenticeship Week 2020, with the theme “Talent without limits”, designed to celebrate the benefits apprenticeships bring to businesses, individuals and the economy. This blog will explore the impact of apprenticeships on business, education providers and young people in Scotland. It will also consider the benefits of work-based learning, graduate apprenticeships and workplace diversity.

Work-based learning

The availability of good-quality apprenticeships allows those who may not be interested in pursuing further education an alternative route in which to gain a formal qualification whilst gaining experience in the world of work. This is known as work-based learning, which is widely considered to be beneficial to the apprentice, education provider, employer and the wider economy.

According to research conducted by the European Training Foundation, workplaces where employees are constantly learning new skills tend to be more productive, more profitable and have lower staff turnover. A recent survey conducted by Skills Development Scotland found that 83% of modern apprentice employers agree that apprenticeships have improved productivity, whilst 79% said that employing apprentices improved staff morale.

Additionally, work-based learning has been found to improve the job prospects of learners, allowing them to build relationships with employers who may offer them full-time positions on completion of their apprenticeship.

The development of apprenticeship programmes allows employers and education providers to develop a close working relationship, which enables a better understanding of the skills required by the labour market. This allows for the creation of educational programmes that are more relevant to the demands of all employers, not just those who operate apprenticeship schemes. As a result, the skills developed by apprentices will be directly relevant to the skills required by the labour market. This could potentially improve the likelihood of securing a job following the completion of an apprenticeship. Thus, it can be said that work-based learning features benefits for apprentices, education providers, business and the wider economy.

Skills, growth sectors and graduate apprenticeships

Apprenticeship schemes provide the government with an opportunity to improve the collective skill base of Scotland by encouraging the development of apprenticeship opportunities in key sectors and areas which have the potential to generate economic growth. For example, analysis conducted by Oxford Economics has found that there will be a 4% growth in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) related roles in Scotland from 2015 to 2027. This equates to the creation of approximately 42,600 skilled jobs.

Therefore, it is of no surprise that the Scottish Government has been focused on trying to increase the number of apprenticeship opportunities available in STEM roles. In the past year alone, four out of ten modern apprenticeship starts, and the vast majority of all graduate apprenticeship starts, have been in STEM occupations.

Traditionally, securing a STEM role would require a formal qualification secured via an academic route, which can often be costly and take up to four years. Research conducted by Ekosgen has revealed that there has been a decline in the number of pupils studying and passing STEM-related subjects at schools and a decline in STEM enrolments in Scottish colleges. As a result, the traditional academic route in which to secure a STEM role may not be able to produce enough STEM-qualified individuals to meet the demands of industry.

In order to meet the demand for skilled workers, Skills Development Scotland has worked with industry and education partners to develop graduate apprenticeship schemes. These apprenticeships offer people the opportunity to gain up to a Master’s degree qualification in subjects such as civil engineering, data science and software development. The development of this model of apprenticeship has been praised by organisations such as PwC, Aegon and Universities Scotland, as a vital way in which to develop a highly-skilled workforce that will meet the demands of the growing STEM sector.

Diversity and equality

A key theme identified by the Scottish Government within their youth employment strategy is the need to develop clearer routes into apprenticeships for those from previously under-represented groups. The strategy explicitly discusses the need to increase the number of apprenticeship starts from minority ethnic communities, young disabled people, looked after children and a desire to improve the gender balance of apprenticeships (particularly those in male-dominated sectors).

According to Skills Development Scotland’s recent Apprenticeship Equality Action Plan, efforts to improve under-represented groups’ access to apprenticeships have had mixed results. Over the past four years, the number of disabled and BME (Black and minority ethnic) individuals starting modern apprenticeships has risen year on year. However, 72% of modern apprenticeship frameworks continue to have a gender imbalance of 75:25 or worse. This is particularly prevalent within the construction sector where only 2% of participants are female. Additionally, there has been a slight decrease in the number of care experienced people starting modern apprenticeships. Therefore, it is evident that whilst some progress has been made at improving the diversity of individuals starting an apprenticeship, there is still work to be done, particularly when it comes to improving gender balance.

Recent research has highlighted that diversity is essential for organisations who are looking to foster a culture of sustainable innovation. As previously discussed, future jobs are likely to be created in innovative STEM-related sectors, and therefore the need to improve under-represented groups’ access to apprenticeships will be vital to ensure that the quality of the Scottish workforce is able to meet the demand of growing innovative industry.

Final thoughts

In summary, the provision of apprenticeships has had a great deal of impact across Scotland. From developing the skill base of Scotland’s workforce to helping to improve the relationship between industry and education providers, the impact of apprenticeships goes far beyond providing young people with access to work-based learning and a formal qualification.

However, work still needs to be done to improve under-represented groups’ access to apprenticeships. Diversity has repeatedly been shown to increase workplace creativity and performance. Both of these traits will be critical in ensuring that Scotland is able to develop a workforce that can meet the needs of the innovative industries set to experience growth in the future.  

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