Michael Woodgate considers what went wrong for Skills for Logistics (SfL) with the sector skills council having this month announced it was set to close.

So farewell then, SfL. It prospered when government funding was plentiful, but its inability to convince people to pay for its services proved fatal.

At the beginning, SfL’s reason for being was simply ‘to be a sector skills council’ at a time when these were being rapidly established across the industrial landscape.

But, once this valuable status had been secured, there was an almost immediate feeling of ‘now what?’

Consistently poor leadership, at both executive and board level, ensured this question was never properly asked, let alone convincingly answered.

The challenge SfL faced, right from the start, was the lack of a significant vocational skills problem in the logistics sector.

It takes five days to train a new lorry driver and the lead time to full competence can be measured in weeks, rather than years.

A functioning market works well to deliver basic training in things like fork lift driving, truck driving and operating ancillary equipment.

The technology used for tracking consignments and warehouse picking is well-designed and easy to use.

At the higher level, the UK has well established universities like Aston and Huddersfield that turn out world class logisticians.

The irony is that the logistics sector does have skills issues to address, just not the ones SfL chose to focus on

But SfL chose to behave as if the opposite was true.

In a bid to raise the profile of the sector it started talking about “logistics craft” and set about creating “solutions” for the supposed shortage of these skills.

These solutions — the Interactive Stairway, the Logistics Guild, the Foundation Degree — constituted little more than answers desperately searching for questions. Each one had thousands spent on it with no discernible return.

The irony is that the logistics sector does have skills issues to address, just not the ones SfL chose to focus on.

Firstly, and most obviously, there are significant opportunities to improve levels of English and maths across the industry, among middle and junior management as much as anywhere else.

When it was set up, one of SfL’s core remits was to address this issue, yet in its 11 years of existence it did virtually nothing in this area.

Secondly, while the industry is awash with instructors and assessors, there is a shortage of people who can teach.

The Logistics Academy was established to raise the quality and quantity of teaching in the sector. But this also had absolutely no sense of direction and closed down without having generated a penny of commercial income in its short, troubled life.

But the biggest issue facing the sector is that it is not that good at managing people.

A skilled workforce depends for its existence on effective recruitment and effective management.

Searching for “training solutions” while ignoring the need to manage people well is a tempting and easy path to take, but ultimately a futile one.

None of this is particular to logistics, nor does it require a “sector solution”.

What’s needed are well-run organisations, where progressive workplace cultures and practices enable people to do their jobs well.

But all SfL’s attempts to attract new blood into the sector focussed on the shortcomings of the recruits, the training and perceptions of the industry — not once was an admission that perhaps employers needed to up their game.

Had this admission been made, SfL would have finally unearthed a question for which they would have been in a strong position to answer.

With Business Link disappearing into cyberspace, and the relevant trade associations focussing on compliance issues, there is a real need for business support to the logistics sector.

Not to design its supply chains, or train its fork lift drivers, but to manage its people better.

If, at the same time, workforce English and maths skills had been developed as well, the logistics industry would increasingly be made up of well-run organisations staffed by people able and willing to learn.

Such a sector would, I suggest, have few serious skills gaps or shortages.

The government has said more research was needed before it could take its apprenticeship funding reform plans any further. Lynne Sedgmore considers where this leaves the sector — and the programme.

The announcement from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills on apprenticeship funding reform clearly illustrates a setback for government.

The statement that its commitment to ‘putting employers in control’ of apprenticeship funding is ‘non-negotiable’ seems to obfuscate with strong words the fact that neither of its two options for routing funding directly to employers are any longer on the table.

Beyond the words of the formal statement, Skills Minister Nick Boles spelt it out even more clearly at this week’s Education Select Committee — he doesn’t want to “go off half-cock” again.

It is also worth noting that what is now being described as ‘non-negotiable’ is the aim of ‘putting employers in control’ of funding and not routing funding directly through them.

In other words, not only are the preferred options ruled out, but other means to the same end may have been ditched as well.

This is good news and reflects what colleges, independent learning providers (ILPs), commentators and, most importantly, very many employers have been telling Whitehall all along — managing public funding is an unwelcome extra task for small businesses not a valuable reward.

It is good news when a policy based more on ideology than evidence is sent back to the drawing board. It gives grounds for hope that those who understand the practicalities on the ground may be listened to more carefully in the future. But this misconceived policy has led to a wider raft of unfortunate consequences.

The major casualty is the apprenticeship system itself which now remains in a further period of limbo. Apprenticeships are the centrepiece of skills policy, yet all those who have to make it work on the ground have now to go forward without any clear idea of the longer term funding arrangements for the sector.

The major casualty is the apprenticeship system itself which now remains in a further period of limbo

Uncertainty about rates, mechanisms and even vital matters like employer cash contributions would be unsettling at the best of times, let alone when apprentice numbers are falling and when the practices behind previous headline growth have been called into question.

Yet this continuing instability is not the worst problem. The most damaging aspect of this whole affair is that the focus on how to route public funding to employers has distorted the entire debate about employer ownership.

Developing apprenticeships risks being seen as a matter of chasing state subsidy rather than building a competitive business. Offering apprenticeships is now positioned as a public service rather than a business investment supported by government. This has been reinforced by the disproportionately large funding of the current trailblazer schemes.

Almost nobody disputes the idea that apprenticeships should be led by employers — an apprenticeship is a contract of employment and to be viable must meet employers’ needs. To help develop employer ownership in a true sense, therefore, the government needs to step back and let local solutions flourish. As providers work harder and harder to engage more employers in delivery, the routing of public funds has only served as a distraction.

There is a simple, if radical, solution to apprenticeship funding. Employers could be told that any apprentice (or perhaps any within an approved age range) can receive up to a maximum period of off-the-job training free at a college or approved training provider of their choice. After that it’s up to them. They won’t have to manage or account for public funding, bother about staged or outcome payments or complicate their PAYE returns.

Colleges and ILPs will be left to teach and firms will be left to run their businesses and train their staff. Mr Boles told the Education Select Committee that finding a solution to apprenticeship funding to suit everyone was possible and could be simple. Here we propose a practical solution to his problem.