UKCES

Continued...

This figure includes qualifications that no longer exist and there are no figures for how many of those individuals who achieved those qualifications still work in the sector.

Therefore, if the sector relies on accredited qualifications alone, it has no real indication of how many working in the sector are currently competent. The total turnover of the approximately 69,170 businesses in the footprint across the UK is £140bn per annum. Across the UK, approximately 87% of businesses employ fewer than 10 people. The gender balance within the industry is currently approximately an 80:20 male:female ratio across the entire sector. In some sectors, such as the body building sector, there is a high rate of ethnic minority workers. Whereas in other sectors there is not, such as in the light and heavy vehicle maintenance and repair sectors, where the ability to read and understand very technical data information is an obstacle for most who have English as a second or other language. Work completed by Automotive Skills Ltd., through their Sector Skills Agreement (SSA), and research carried out by the IMI provided sufficient evidence to identify skills gaps and shortages and enabled us to present draft solutions to the sector. In order to clarify the composition of the IMI and its various constituent parts and their roles and responsibilities, it is useful to briefly describe some key functions within the organisation.

The IMI has two distinct groups within it:

• The SSC function, carried out by the Skills Development and Professional Body teams and supported by the External Affairs team

• The awarding body.

The IMI became the licensed Sector Skills Council (SSC) for the retail automotive sector in September 2007. The predecessor organisation, Automotive Skills Ltd was subsumed in to the IMI group and branded as IMI-Automotive Skills – made up of the Skills Development and Professional Body teams, supported by the External Affairs Team. This division picked up the work remit of its predecessor and began work on this Strategy in October 2007. One of the key functions of an SSC is to develop National Occupational Standards (NOS), on which all vocational qualifications for the sector are based. In exactly the same way as it does with NOS (whereby IMI-Automotive Skills develop NOS and then hand them over to awarding bodies to develop and offer qualifications based on them), IMIAutomotive Skills also develops the standards for the Automotive Technician Accreditation (ATA) scheme (which, in turn, are based on NOS). This function is carried out by the Skills Development Team.

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