WHAT ATTRACTED YOUR ATTENTION TODAY?

[Tizer]

This grabbed my attention...some hard facts about the UK skills shortage...
`Skills shortages holding back the UK's economic recovery'
"The UK's chronic skills shortage is hampering productivity and holding back the economic recovery, business leaders believe. Kevin Green, chief executive of the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC), whose members are "on the front line of the UK labour market" as he puts it, paints an alarming picture. "Last year we had nine areas of skills shortages, now we have 43 areas. Every single type of engineering is in short supply, from mechanical to software, civil to electrical," says Mr Green. "In IT, coders, programmers, developers are all in short supply; there's a shortage of doctors and nurses in the National Health Service; and we need about 20,000 more teachers in the UK. "And the situation's been getting worse month-on-month over the last 18 months," he adds. Employers organisation the CBI concurs. "Our most recent survey shows that skills shortages are becoming more acute, and risk acting as a break on our economic recovery," says Rob Wall, the CBI's head of employment and education. "This is particularly true for high-level skills in sectors like engineering, technology, digital, manufacturing and construction."
More here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-30224320

[Thomo]

"This is particularly true for high-level skills in sectors like engineering, technology, digital, manufacturing and construction." This is I believe a problem that has been around for a long time now, in most of the aforementioned skills, a full apprenticeship would have in the past been the norm. Gaining knowledge by further education, whilst at the same time learning the hands on skills on the job or factory floor. Most of the good ones are by now retired and have been replaced by a less well informed workforce. Not minding about getting the hands dirty, or the lower levels of pay attendant to most apprenticeships is now most unpopular, starting at the very bottom and working your way up has been replaced by many who have little or no practical experience. I found it just a tad annoying when in the past I was turned down for a job because I was "overskilled"! in one case it was pointed out that they who were in charge could feel uncomfortable when having to deal with a person who was better at the job than they were. This occurred once in civvy street and several times in the Navy, this in respect of engineering. I was also turned down for the job of assistant manager at the Cross Keys at East Marton due to being more experienced than the incumbent manager. Whilst probably being a little old fashioned I still believe that when the going gets tough and difficult situations develop, experience is what is required, and not diploma's.

[PanBiker]

Never a truer word Peter. I was apprenticed at 16 and spent the next five years on a City and Guilds college course (day release of course), actually a day 9.00am to 9.00pm and then an additional evening 6.00pm to 9.00pm. This was the norm for most lads apprentice schemes. At 21 I was a fully skilled bloke, that grounding allowed me to raise and feed a family. I moved from electronics into IT after 20 years. At 56 years of age my last IT job was considered to be no longer required so I was put between a rock and a hard place with a get out option which paid the mortgage off. I applied for just short of 60 jobs, all perfectly within my gained skill set and experience. I was short listed and given an interview for 1 out of the 60. My skills and 40 years experience were turned down (despite interviewing well (I asked for feedback)) in favour of a young bloke with a degree in Biology, the job was IT servicing based and involved setting up shared servicing facilities for two Yorkshire council areas. It had funding for an initial 3 years with a view to continuation on successful establishment of the infrastructure. I read in the Craven Herald that Craven and Selby councils pulled the plug on the venture 18 months into the contract. Seems like the Biology lad wasn't the best guy for the job after all.

What is on offer now for training of young people is a travesty but the various truncated schemes massage the figures for the statisticians. I know most people who will read this will agree with me so preaching to the confirmed really.

[Pluggy]

Employers don't want experience nowadays, they want youth and fresh ideas. Getting a job in your fifties is close to a non starter these days. After 40 years working for the corporate shilling I decided the best chance of work was self employment. I don't consider it co-incidence that most of my customers are pensioners.

It gives me a good feeling when us 50+ entrepreneurs are given credit for dragging the country out of recession.

[PanBiker]

I did what you are doing now Stephen when I was in my 40's with the addition of network infrastructure installation. You are right of course regarding job hunting in your 50's but it does go against the grain when you know that you could have made a success of the project given the opportunity.

[Pluggy]

I've no regrets Ian, it's water under the bridge. I should have been self employed when I was a young man.

[PanBiker]

I enjoyed my time as my own boss as well but unfortunately could not compete with my landlord who sold the building my workshop was in without telling me. I needed the bench space for mass system building I was doing at the time so it was game over. I had full time employment within a week though.

[Stanley]

See THIS for news that the World food programme has suspended deliveries to Syria. It's a disgrace that the rich nations allow such a basic function to be underfunded.
Re. skills shortage. The problem starts in our primary schools. We don't put the resources into them that is needed to give poorer kids a basic grounding that will allow them to reach higher, sooner. Add to this the death of the old apprenticeship schemes and the attractions of modern leisure which make youngsters reluctant to spend time on further education and the tendency for them to get shunted into non-jobs like burger flipping, shelf stacking and call centre work. They get no chance to discover the joys of 'making things'.

[Bruff]

There are I think more ‘apprentices’ in employment now than there have been for a long, long time. However, the sharp-eyed will note I have put the word apprentice there in inverted commas. Many supermarkets have apprentices, as does the civil service and every coalition MP will have an apprentice in their constituency office. Many other areas of the service sector have apprentices. They are of course nothing like the apprenticeships of old and using the term is frankly an insult to all those who went down that route in the past. If they serve any purpose it is to enable employers to pay less than the minimum wage for shelf-tacking and the like as that’s what your apprentice does these days. There is of course no reason why one couldn’t have an apprenticeship in for example retail – they exist in Germany, where one learns about stock control, profit and loss, customer service, all aspects of one’s retail business. But that’s not what you’ll get here. Speaking of Germany, any enterprising British youngster could pop on the German Government’s website right now and apply for a host of apprenticeships across the whole range of industries. They are crying out for them there. It’s all in English and when you get there they’ll even put you through a German language class.

I would note that lots of employers do want ‘fresh ideas’ and I would argue this is a good thing. The only advantage we have a country have is what is in our heads; there’s no point competing with the Chinese in building ships as real added value perhaps comes in things like their design and that is where the real creativity of the British stands out (course, you do still need folk to deliver the ideas – it’s all very well Rolls’ boffins coming up with new ideas for fan blades, but if they can’t be engineered….).

Richard Broughton

[Tizer]

I'm glad I put the link to the skills shortage news story on this topic, it's prompted a lot of interesting posts and I agree with the sentiments expressed in them. In the last 20 or so years we've sent far more young people to universities and given the impression that a degree certificate is going to get them all a good job, when many were not best provided for by academic study and would have been much better fitted for life and employment with a more practical training. Not only has this contributed to a skills shortage but it's left the graduates trying to find work and with a big debt to pay off. At the same time, many of the best science and maths graduates were creamed off by the investment banks and their allies. All this is against a background of the `British disease' - snobbery and `knowing one's place'. The idea that art and literature are `better' than science, technology and engineering. Children being held back by being told `you can't do that, it's not for you'. Not to mention the news and entertainment media convincing kids that the way to go is to become a celebrity.

[Moh]

My attention was attracted today by the kindness of people we have never met. I posted a request for info. on the Great War Forum about my husband's uncle, Fred Harrison, who died 31.10.1918 in Belgium and is buried in Vichte Military cemetery after being originally buried where he fell. I was given info. about where he died, the battle, and also info. that another member of the Royal Welch Fusiliers, Walter William Lund from Foulridge is buried next to him. Then a kind man who lives in Vichte has taken photos. of the graves, the cemetery and the land where the battle took place. He puts photos of the soldiers on their graves on Remembrance Sunday every year. Such kindness from people we do not know who go the extra mile.

[Thomo]

Moh, that is wonderful. In the European lands where the Great War was fought there are many who are generous when it comes to such acts of kindness. Tiz, I believe that sums it all up very well. It is right that the arts should have a place, but not at the expense of the country's future.

[David Whipp]

A disgraceful decision at this evening's meeting of West Craven's Pendle area committee has robbed Barnoldswick of the money to provide new and replacement dog waste and litter bins.

The two Conservative representatives for the town voted with their three Earby colleagues to stop money being put back into the budget for replacing waste bins like this one at Greenberfield Locks.

Problems with the area committee's budget began in June, when the new Tory majority on the local committee made an £8,000 blunder in their sums and overspent the money allocated by the full council.

After discovering the mistake a couple of months ago, I persuaded Pendle Council's Executive to fund the overspend from a central pot. This meant that the two budgets axed by the Tories at the last area committee meeting could be reinstated (this was £3,000 for the waste bins and £2,000 for an improvement project at Long Ing).

Incredibly, when this was proposed tonight, the five Torys outvoted the four Liberal members of the committee; meaning no bin repairs, no bin replacements and no new bins in Barlick - no matter how much they are needed.
What a shameful decision from people who profess to wanting to address dog fouling and littering.

[plaques]

Sounds very much like a case of letting you know who the boss is!. Wait till you get voting on the Pendle Core Strategy. They will just bulldoze it through no matter what anyone else thinks. Tory democracy?

[Stanley]

What grabbed me was the front page of the Tory rag, Pendle Matters. A large picture of the MP and Barlick Tories stood in the Town Square above a paragraph in bold print recording the Great British High Street award. Followed by a puff on Tory initiatives in other towns including the suspect Portas scheme. The caption on the main picture is 'Working all year round to support our local high streets and town centres'. The intended impression is obviously to leave readers who only give the rag a cursory glance thinking that it was the Tories wot did it. I told you they would be spitting feathers! Lovely example of smoke and mirrors. 21 pictures of AS in total.... he seems to have perfected the art of donning a fake beard for certain occasions..... Not a word about the volunteers or any other participation in the fight for the award.

[Bruff]

‘………the arts should have a place, but not at the expense of the country's future.’

They are the country’s future. The ‘creative industries’ sector is this country’s third biggest and one of our largest exporters, with aerospace and pharmaceuticals and universities. It’s why ‘media studies’ graduates, contrary to popular belief, have some of the best employment prospects (well above the average for all graduate courses), and so many folk want to do it. I might also add that the sector is not all about folk ‘painting pictures’ – it employs many skilled trades folk like carpenters and electricians and engineers.

No one can trace a record of him saying it, and so it’s probably apocryphal, but Churchill, when handed a recommendation to flog off some of the national art collection to fund the war efforts retorted ‘then why are we fighting?’ Likely apocryphal as I say but I like to think he did say it.

Richard Broughton

[David Whipp]

Plaques, the Tories did indeed bulldoze the Core Strategy through at the full council meeting where it was decided (Labour abstained).

Stanley, it was funny yesterday seeing some activity on the ground from local Tories - they had a visit from a Japanese journalist. Quite startling to see the difference from normal behaviour.

[Bruff]

Could I ask whether the local MP there is still doing his bit to encourage, by example, a better aesthetic for the ‘High Street’? That is, via the frontage of his shop?

Richard Broughton

[plaques]

Labour abstained).

Disgraceful, What's the point of electing a voice on the council and then keeping your mouth shut. ? In effect they are agreeing with the Tories. Sack the lot of them.

[Tripps]

[quote="
Just got round to reading the latest Private Eye and was shocked to see that the Imperial War Museum has had its budget cut by £4million per annum and as a result there are to be massive cuts. No more guides for school parties and worst of all, the closure of the library and all its archives are to be sold off. This after a £40million refurbishment and in the year we celebrate the centenary of the start of the Great War. This is beyond cultural vandalism, it is criminal. See THIS LINK.[/quote]

Just been on the local news that the government are going to use the LIbor fines money to avoid closing the educational programmes at the IWM. Andrew Lansley MP has been on, (since the Duxford branch is in his constituency), and said as much.
He did not say so absolutely directly, but years of practice at avoiding questions make it almost impossible for him to do so.

[Stanley]

Richard, are you alluding to Ashworth House on Church Street? One wonders what it is used for, never any sign of activity, simply a shop front plastered with yet more pictures of his moon face.

[Bruff]

Ashworth House yes, that’s the place. What an eyesore that is, quite dreadful. Part of Barlick’s unique attraction is the heritage of its shop frontages which, when coupled with the very nice décor and displays of many of them, earns it national awards. It’s irritating at the very least to see the MP jumping on this bandwagon when his ‘shop’s’ a disgrace. I mean, the cheek!

Richard Broughton

[Thomo]

If you believe that Ashworth House in an eyesore, take a closer look at the plethora of "fast food" outlets, many of which do not fit the original plan. Or could it be that "you" think its an eyesore because it represents someone else's views and opinions ? I agree about the flyer that concerns this towns victory in the High Street competition, it does not represent the hard work at all, and much of this by they who were not portrayed. At least, we now know that Lyle is still somewhere in this area, and is not just some mythological entity. maybe he should stick with football, and keep out of our affairs.

[Tizer]

Got an automated phone call from the security people at the credit card company saying they suspected our card was being used by someone else. I thought it was a scam and we looked up a genuine phone number on our monthly statement. It turns out to be true, someone is making online purchases using our card details from the likes of `Sony Entertainments' and for videos. The card is now cancelled and we're glad their software flagged up the unusual use of the card. But...how did they get the details? It's not our main card and is used occasionally and for specific things. It hadn't been used for a while but then we used it over the last couple of days, so that narrows down the possibilities. It was used at the Sainsbury's till to pay for groceries, by phone to make a payment to the Field Studies Council, and online: to buy a jumper from Woolover, the big knitwear company; and also online to pay three subscriptions to the British Trust for Ornithology and to two magazine publishers for our regular geology and postcard magazines. We're very careful about our use of credit cards and I suspect that the problem more likely lies with the card processors' own systems. Of course when this sort of thing happens they never tell you where the weak point was and you don't know who or what to avoid in the future. The card company's phone lines were all overloaded and we couldn't get through again that evening, which suggests that there might have been more victims than just us!

[David Whipp]

Can't remember if I posted here about the grit bin the county council proposed removing on Esp Lane, but I got an email today from the highway's department:

"After receiving your feedback I propose to leave the bin where it is. There is no other suitable location on the adopted section of Esp Lane. Unfortunately we cannot put a bin on a privately maintained / unadopted road; Esp Lane is only adopted up to approx the gable of no 70."

A good result!

(On Ashworth House... I don't think Stanley has commented this time about us making sure it got a blue light tree...