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Last year’s Leitch report laid bare the acute skills problems facing the UK economy: five million adults lack functional literacy, and 17 million have difficulty with numbers.

As Lord Leitch said in the introduction to his report, without increased skills, the UK will “condemn itself to a lingering decline in competitiveness, diminishing growth and a bleaker future for all”.

His findings are particularly pertinent for packaging, an industry under increased pressure from cheaper overseas competitors.

Dani Novick, managing director of packaging and print recruitment agency Mercury Search and Selection, says: “The general level of training and qualification across UK packaging manufacturers is not great.”

But many manual workers who have come to the UK from Eastern Europe are “extremely well trained and qualified,” she adds.

Meanwhile, Gordon Stewart, head of the Packaging Industry Awarding Body Company (PIABC), says the packaging industry does not have a “great tradition of training”.

The PIABC currently accredits three main qualifications: the Diploma in Packaging Technology, the Certificate in Packaging, and the NVQ Level 2 for Packaging Operators, which has been available for a year.

Although some companies have expressed an interest in the new Level 2, none have so far put their staff on the qualification. Meanwhile, few people take the certificate (there were only nine exam candidates in June 2007), and numbers for the diploma have fluctuated over the past few years.

Advanced ambitions
Stewart also warns that new recruits will generally be offered “precious little” beyond induction training.

However, he says his ambition is to develop an apprenticeship framework for packaging, and the PIABC is also drawing up an Advanced Diploma that should be ready next year.

He says it is required because training in the UK “is not at a high enough level” to compete with major
rivals such as the US, France and Germany, while China and India are increasingly offering advanced training.

Stewart thinks the inclusion of packaging in Proskills (see facing page) could help to improve training across the industry.

Many churches
Although packaging overlaps several sector skills councils – for example, plastics under Cogent, and food and drink firms represented by Improve – Stewart says it is still important that it has a home in the form of Proskills.

“While there’s a diversity of effort, there’s no real focus on the needs of the packaging industry,” he says.

But Packaging Federation chief executive Dick Searle warns that it will be “hard work” to get the industry as a whole to sign up to Proskills, particularly with the plastics industry already represented by Cogent.

“I’m not against the proposal but there are some practicalities,” he says. “I would like packaging to find a home with someone who has some understanding and is prepared to push it.

“The problem is that packaging covers a lot of churches, in different industries with very different skills needs.”

Bernard Rutter, union Unite’s head of learning and skills for the graphical, paper and media sector, says packaging fits in well with some of the other industries represented by Proskills, notably printing.

Rutter, who is also a Proskills board member, says: “We are trying to make Proskills the first stop for employers. The aim of a sector skills council is to help employers find what they need.”

He praises Proskills’ work in developing a strong regional presence but says it has to start selling itself more to the industries it represents.

Rutter is clear, though, that joining Proskills will help packaging to address the challenges highlighted in the Leitch report, which he describes as the “last-chance saloon” for industry.

“Employers go on about the level of skills in youngsters, but lots of the problems with literacy and numeracy are already in the workplace. Unless we deal with that, people won’t progress.”

• The Leitch report is available from www.hm-treasury.gov.uk

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BRECON: A BEACON
Brecon Pharmaceuticals puts training at the heart of its business. The firm, based in Hay-on-Wye, is an approved training centre for NVQs in pharmaceutical packaging.

New staff start by going through a Certificate of Competence, before taking Level 1 and Level 2 NVQs.
Brecon also offers a Certificate of Assured Competence, which aims to show that staff previously assessed through the NVQ system maintain this level of competence.

Des Preece, Brecon’s training and standards development manager, says the firm’s well-trained workforce provides “flexibility of operation”, and that training has a direct impact on business success.

“We are not philanthropists,” he adds. “If we didn’t train we would not get work in the first place.”