Burnham: My vision to fill the skills gap
GREATER Manchester mayor Andy Burnham wants to take control of post16 education in the region so a skills shortage can be met.
It comes as former government minister Lord David Sainsbury told an audience at the Museum of Science and Industry that the UK turns out around 50 per cent more hairdressers than it actually needs – while a lack of skilled workers in the technical areas prized by industry is putting off big companies from investing in cities like Manchester.
There are some 11,500 job vacancies in digital jobs across Greater Manchester and 54pc of employers across the region cannot fill their job vacancies.
Mr Burnham revealed that in his upcoming talks with Tory Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove he would be making a play for his mayoral authority and not Whitehall to decide what students at Greater Manchester’s colleges and sixth forms are encouraged to study and what gets funding.
He is one of two metro mayors – along with Andy Street in the West Midlands – about to embark on talks about a ‘trailblazer’ devolution deal potentially giving him powers beyond any other local leaders outside London.
Boris Johnson says the creation of an economy based on high-skilled jobs is central to his plan to level up the country.
In February as he launched his longawaited Levelling Up White Paper he visited Hopwood Hall College in Middleton, a 6,500 square metre site where learners complete courses such as engineering, manufacturing and construction.
But Mr Burnham told his audience technical education had ‘always the poor relation in Whitehall, whatever people say, it’s never been done properly.’ He added: “It’s never been truly employer-driven at this level as it should be. That’s a real risk to us going forward, because I won’t be able to look those potential investors in the eye and say we can guarantee that talent pipeline for you into your tech company or into your green energy company, and that is a problem.
“So we will be making the case for control of post-16 education, let me just put it bluntly. Because our industrial base is different from the West Midlands, if we can then develop a skill system to support that industrial base and those strengths, as identified by the Greater Manchester industrial strategy, it’s got to follow that if you accept the need for an in local industrial strategy, you must accept the need for a local skilled strategy to support that.”
Despite the booming success of Manchester city centre in recent years and the skyscrapers that now dominate the skyline, Mr Burnham said he fears many children and parents across the wider region don’t know how to get the jobs that might eventually bring them there.
“I speak as a parent myself, and I don’t know what’s available in this city centre today,” he said. “These skyscrapers, that’s an argument to Treasury, they funded this fund that partly unlocked this property. But what’s going on inside there?
“If I’m a kid growing up in East Manchester or Oldham or Rochdale, I think they look at it, and they just don’t know, do they, they can’t see a path from where they are. And that’s something we’ve got to solve. And I think that’s the challenge for us.”