UKCES

Continued...

Our ultimate vision is of a Cogent sector where every person is fully contributing to business success as a qualified, proven professional, valued as an employee and with a clear career pathway that benefits both the individual and employer.

The benefits are clear: Cogent has calculated that the increased productivity and competency derived as a result of industry upskilling in our strategically critical sector is worth a staggering £1.5billion.

Our Sector Qualifications Strategy (SQS) presents a reformed route to meeting this challenge and to delivering truly world class skills.

Training and development is not an optional requirement in our footprint, in most parts of the sector it is mandatory, specifically around the health and safety agenda. However, despite a significant investment in skills, our Sector Skills Agreement (SSA) showed that organisations are experiencing pressing gaps and shortages.

This is further exacerbating the unrelenting demands presented by a challenging global environment. Our science-using industries are undergoing major transition – they are changing; responding to a changing world.

Our SSA research identified an urgent need to upskill the workforce across the Cogent footprint and revealed skills shortages in specific areas including innovation and Business Improvement Techniques (BIT); change and project management; health and safety and management and leadership. The Cogent SSA also revealed widespread skills gaps within the process operative constituency in the Cogent sector.

Our SQS is designed to support employers in closing these gaps and coping with this constant change and the new demands that go with it. Qualifications are a critical tool in meeting this challenge and an important vehicle for managing change.

Our SQS will deliver a framework that recognises achievements at every level; that is employer-led; that is flexible; that adapts to change and that embraces diversity. Cogent’s SQS takes in every stage of a person’s progression in his or her career from pre-entry through to professional qualifications, with upskilling being a central tenet in our approach. This together with a modular, accredited route to progress and transferable and recorded skills underpins much of our action plan.

To download the full document, click 'Download the PDF' in the green box at the top of this page.