UKCES

Continued...

This process provided opportunities for participating groups to explore the application and focus for a strategy influencing the development of qualifications as well as allowing regulators to provide input and guidance to the development of policy surrounding the process.

Whilst this was a relatively new concept in systems terms Skillsmart Retail had, over some years, been developing and implementing policy in conjunction with partner awarding bodies and regulators, designed to respond to employer and employee needs around qualifications structure and delivery. The sector has already, in conjunction with these partner organisations, initiated carefully selected changes to the qualifications environment with initiatives focused on:

1. the recognition of quality in-house training, and
2. the adoption of alternate approaches to the quality infrastructure through alignment with high quality development of assessment skills within selected major retailers.

As a consequence Skillsmart Retail was able to bring a body of knowledge and experience to the development of a strategic policy document drawing upon these initiatives and based upon a well developed consultative process. The resulting policy document “A Skills and Qualifications Strategy for the Retail Industry” has subsequently served as the basis of ongoing implementation planning for the sector. This document was re-presented as “Retail Qualifications Strategy - Tier 1: The Core Strategy” in December 2005 providing a different format for presentation but essentially unchanged in broad content and direction.

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