Financial challenges are a “material strategic risk” to delivering the strategy, and an urgent review is needed
Financial and capacity constraints in both the higher and further education sectors are a “material strategic risk” to the delivery of the industrial strategy, the government’s own advisory council has warned.
The Industrial Strategy Advisory Council’s first ever annual report spares few punches in its conclusions, calling on the government to take “radical action” which should include an “urgent review of the sustainability of further and higher education.” Such a review would underpin the development of a ten-year plan for post-16 skills and devolved delivery in England, which would cover the capacity, capability and funding required to meet industrial strategy workforce needs.
The council is an independent committee set up to advise the government on the development of the industrial strategy. Ministers have promised that the council will be put on a statutory footing via legislation at some point in this Parliament, but for now its role remains advisory. It is chaired by Microsoft’s Clare Barclay, while former University of Manchester vice chancellor Nancy Rothwell is the deputy chair.
The annual report stresses that the sustainability of universities matters to the eight industrial strategy priority sectors (or IS8) – advanced manufacturing, clean energy industries, creative industries, defence, digital and technologies, financial services, life sciences, and professional and business services – because universities
do more than supply graduates. They provide research and specialist expertise, support innovation and business collaboration, and can act as anchor institutions within local economies.
It is observed that some universities have already closed departments which are “critical” to the eight sectors, with chemistry given as an example. This, the committee warns, may weaken “not only the national higher-skills pipeline and the delivery of the IS, but also the institutional capacity available to support local growth, innovation and devolved delivery.”
Elsewhere in the annual report, the committee expresses concerns that not all government departments are prioritising the industrial strategy – one example given is the reforms to skills funding which have been focused at the level of entry to the workforce, rather than the “higher-level and management skills that are vital for productivity and technology adoption in the IS8.”
The Industrial Strategy Advisory Council also says that it is pursing a programme of strategic partnerships with research-intensive universities to “share research, academic expertise and local networks to strengthen our recommendations into government.” It is partnered with the University of Manchester’s Unit M, and has recently signed an agreement with Queen’s University Belfast. The council plans to agree partnerships with universities in Scotland and Wales over the coming months.