Government consults on low carbon skills

The Government says it recognises that there is already a great deal of activity taking place locally, regionally and nationally to provide the necessary skills and knowledge to support new career opportunities in the low carbon economy.

However, it says it also acknowledges that further effort will be required if these opportunities are to be fully exploited.

The idea of the consultation is to identify what the strategic skills priorities are, and what steps should be taken to deliver these skills.

The launch of the consultation has been welcomed by the TUC, among others. General Secretary Brendan Barber said: “This consultation sets in motion an important debate about how the UK can build its skills base to adapt to a new economic and social environment, with a greater role for low carbon industries and different ways of living and working to reflect the effects of climate change.”

2,500 wind energy apprenticeships will help transition to low carbon economy
He added that the TUC particularly welcomed the 2,500 new apprenticeships in the wind energy sector and the recognition that trade unions have an important role to play in the transition to a low carbon economy.

Along with the 1,000 for the nuclear energy sector, the 2,500 wind energy apprenticeships are a new announcement, but part of a pledge made in the National Skills Strategy last November. In this pledge the Government promised to deliver an additional 35,000 advanced and higher apprenticeships to young adults over two years from September 2010.

“At the time of release, the National Skills Strategy did not specify where any of the 35,000 apprenticeships would go, it just said that they would be focused towards the new industries of the future (like wind and nuclear).” a spokesperson from the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), explained.

Whether all 2,500 potential wind energy apprenticeships are taken up will depend on employer demand.

A spokesperson for RenewableUK (formerly the British Wind Energy Association) suggested such demand could be considerable.

Welcoming both the consultation and the announcement on apprenticeships, he said: “If you look back over the last few months at all the announcements about offshore wind and developments such as feed-in-tariffs (FITs) for small wind turbines, those are just two things that are really going to help with the growth of the industry.”

Until recently, he added, the UK wind energy sector was almost all about electricity generation, but that has changed in recent months, with a number of major engineering companies announcing that they are going to open factories here.

“I couldn’t comment on which part of the industry the new apprenticeships will be given over to, or related to, but clearly, as a result of the last few months in particular, there is now an increased opportunity for some of those apprenticeships to be in manufacturing,” he said.

Anyone interested in contributing to the consultation on skilling-up for the low carbon economy is invited to email their views to lowcarbonskills@decc.gsi.gov.uk .

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