SkillsActive defends its competency

uzma ahmad - 2 July 2009

SkillsActive is one of the leading Sector Skills Council in the UK, consistently rated highly by both the UK Commission for Employment and Skills and its predecessor, the Sector Skills Development Agency.  

We have a number of extremely productive partnership arrangements with government, other sector skills councils and organisations such as Play England and CWDC, and we are fully committed to the development of the children's workforce.  

We strive to consult with employers and play workers to ensure we can evidence the needs of the whole field in our negotiations with government and its agencies to develop the children's workforce. Indeed we believe the sector has come a long way in establishing its professional identity during the time of its partnership with SkillsActive.

Of course we acknowledge there is always room for improvement and we cannot always deliver the degree of change that some parts of the play sector would desire.

We are always willing to listen to concerns and have recently offered to meet with the minority group being organised by Common Threads to understand and seek to address any issues they may have.  So far this has been declined but the offer is still there.

Children's Workforce Development Council comments:CWDC is committed and proud of the strong working relationships we have developed with SkillsActive. CWDC believe that no single individual or organisation can work in isolation. It is only by working in partnership that we can develop our services and ensure that we reach all those who could benefit from them.

Together, CWDC and SkillsActive aim to extend and improve partnership working across the sector to ensure playworkers feel involved in the excellent and innovative projects which improves the quality of life for children and young people across England.

One of the partnership's key priorities has been to increase the number of NVQ Level 3 practitioners within the sector, SkillsActive have played a crucial role in the journey to date and we as a partnership are on course to deliver on the commitments outlined in the Children's Plan.

An employer comments:

I was extremely surprised to receive the e-mail sent by Common Threads.  

I cannot agree with the contents of the e-mail and have to question the ethics of Common Threads in the way it has targeted SkillsActive without any specific evidence to back up their allegations.

I have always found SkillsActive to be a very professional organisation with the wellbeing of the playwork profession at its very centre, and which our organisation is very proud to be a member of.

Heather Heelis

Manager, Pitstop Out of School Club

Brian Cheesman - 2 July 2009

Should we not consider the increasing role of the CWDC as central to the gradual and incremental decline in the role perfomed by SkillsActive over the last few years?

If we are witnessing the demise of SkillsActive as the prominent agency representing the Playwork professions' education and training ambitions \(and the evidence is clearly there to support this argument), we need to consider who will be 'waving the Playwork professions flag in the future?

I suspect the emergent power, both political and financial which the CWDC now possesses would not perceive this to be a necessary and central plank of its development agenda.

I fear the uniqueness that is Playwork, which can be seen in both its practice and body of knowledge are likely to be submerged in the 'one size fits all' broad approach to the children's workforce education, training and qualifications development programme. It would be good to hear from the CWDC on this matter.  

Brian Cheesman. Leeds