Today is the 6th anniversary of our 5 year SSC Licence, presented by Charles Clarke (Secretary of State, DFES) on this day in 2003 – as only the 4th Sector Skills Council to be licensed.

Even more importantly, today Lord Mandelson (Secretary of State, BIS) has announced our new licence as the SSC for Active Leisure and Learning. This is something of a coincidence – but at least we will be able to remember the date!

We are proud of our achievements to date, and delighted that the comprehensive relicensing assessment recognised the expertise that we bring to the sector.

We were scored as “good” in all categories and “outstanding” for our sector specific solutions which includes innovations such as the Register of Exercise Professionals, National Skills Academy and Active Passport. We received further praise for our work across our diverse sectors, the strength of our labour market intelligence and pioneering work at a European level.

All of these are part of our vision, aspirations and ambitions for developing and up-skilling the workforce over the next 5 years – so the challenge is now to continue with our mission.

There’s no denying that we’re going through a very difficult period. As the recession continues, the job market continues to look bleak across the whole of industry. Over the past few months the media has focused on graduates who have left university and are simply boosting the unemployment figures, instead of starting their career.

Despite this reality, our industry has remained somewhat buoyant, the growth has slowed down, yet we continue to see a rise in opportunities. To this end, there has never been a better time to attract people to start a career within health and fitness.

Our Sector Skills Agreement research has shown that there is a lack of people with higher level skills in management and leadership attracted to the industry, and yet according to national statistics, there are unemployed graduates; so I have to ask the question, are we doing enough to attract the right people?

Employers repeatedly tell me that expectation is often a barrier to attracting graduates into the industry. They have the skills required and yet don’t expect to learn the business by working on the front desk or cleaning the bathrooms.

This may have been the case five years ago; however the rise in vocationally-based qualifications, placement work experience, and part-time jobs have given graduates a realistic picture of the industry, so expectation can no longer be a significant barrier.

According to the FIA State of the Industry Report, in 2009 the industry’s total revenue was up to almost £4billion – an all time high. This places a greater emphasis on the workforce, and ensuring that we have the right people with the right skills to support this growth. Positively, our recently launched 2009 Working in Fitness Survey results show that health and fitness continues to be a popular industry to work in – once you’re working in it – and respondents were keen to progress their career within the industry.

This is great news for an industry with historically reported retention challenges. So what can we do to tackle the recruitment challenges?

My advice, let’s utilise the current climate and find a way to attract more people who are highly qualified, with the skills we need for the continual development and success of the industry.  It’s well publicised that graduates are out there looking to start their careers – let’s help them.

SkillsActive, the National Skills Academy for Sport and Active Leisure and the Register of Exercise Professionals (REPs) make up the SkillsActive Group. Each organisation plays a key role in ensuring our sector has the professionally trained and qualified staff it needs to offer a world class service that supports and encourages people to be more physically active, more often.

A few weeks ago, REPs encountered some opposition in a Daily Mail report which questioned the credibility of personal trainers. The report cast doubt on the standards set by the Register and the quality of training and expertise held by personal trainers working in our gyms and health clubs.

Although the report omitted some important facts – leaving it open to interpretation – the story raised key issues and illustrated just how important it is to ensure your personal trainer or fitness instructor is a member of REPs.

REPs is an independent public register which recognises the qualifications and expertise of exercise instructors in the UK. It provides a system of regulation for instructors and trainers to ensure that they meet the health and fitness industry’s agreed national occupational standards.

Membership of REPs aims to provide assurance and confidence to consumers, employers and health professions that all registered exercise professionals are appropriately qualified and have the knowledge, competence and skills to perform specific roles. Members are acknowledged for their professionalism, their adherence to the industry’s nationally recognised standards and their ongoing education. They are also bound by a Code of Ethics and hold appropriate public liability insurance. In order to remain on the Register, members must continue to meet the standards that are set for their profession through continued professional development (CPD).

However, REPs membership is not a statutory requirement for those working in the fitness industry, which is why we so often hear stories of personal training ‘gone wrong’. Anyone in the UK can in fact set themselves up as a personal trainer and carry out fitness sessions with individuals who may suffer from a range of chronic injuries or even serious medical conditions – all of which can be exacerbated through poorly designed exercise.

The Register seeks to minimise such harm by setting standards, but like any industry watchdog, it is not fool proof. Regrettably, there may always be a small minority of professionals working in any industry who act carelessly and fail members of the public. REPs works hard to minimise such cases in the fitness industry and the more aware members of the public are of the Register, the more effective it can become at protecting them.

You can find out more about REPs from their website www.exerciseregister.org.

Back in 2005 the then Department for Education and Skills published the ‘common core’ – a document outlining the skills and knowledge required when working with children and young people in a variety of settings. This set of skills and knowledge covered areas such as effective communication and engagement, child and young person development, safeguarding and promoting the welfare of the child, supporting transitions, multi-agency working and sharing information.

As outline in the 2020 Children’s and Young People’s Workforce Strategy published in 2008, the Department for Children, Schools and Families announced a ‘refresh’ of the common core to examine the content and extent of implementation of these skills and knowledge, bring it up to date and making sure it is relevant, user-friendly and used by more people in the children’s workforce.

The Active Leisure and Learning Sector is one of the biggest sectors working with children and young people. Playwork aside, sport, fitness and the outdoors all have participation from children and young people and specific targets to get more of them engaged with physical activity and the outdoors. This is particularly relevant through the government’s specific social cohesion, obesity and grassroots agendas – engaging children and young people are high on the agenda at every level.

Through our role of ensuring we have the right people with the right skills to deliver across the active leisure sector, we have made sure that the current common core principles are embedded within national occupational standards – the competencies that job roles are based on. Meaning that those working in the sector should have the skills, qualification and knowledge required to do so. However, as the sector develops, so must the skills and training of the workforce. With this in mind, SkillsActive is working with key partners across the children’s workforce running a series of consultations to ensure that the common core skills and knowledge are appropriately updated.

It is crucial that employers and practitioners from sport, fitness, the outdoors, and caravan industry’s, as well as the playwork sector, have their say in these consultations, in order to influence the refreshed outcomes and provide a common core which is accessible and meaningful for those working with children and young people in the sector, so they can provide the best possible service for children and young people using their facilities and services.

For more information, or to take part in the consultation process, visit: www.skillsactive.com/commoncore. This is your chance to influence the future of the sector when it comes to children and young people.

Over the last couple of weeks the row over quangos has hit the headlines once again, with both Labour and the Conservatives wanting to crackdown and relight the ‘bonfire of the quangos’ on the lead up to a general election – despite it being a year out.

The term quango is widely used; however I was deeply concerned to hear Sector Skills Councils being referred to in this way by ill-informed spokespeople who clearly hadn’t done their research.

Sector Skills Councils are independent organisations licensed by government – we are a charity and a membership body. We are very much led by employers and our work is solely directed by an employer-strong board made up of representatives from across our sector. In fact, we are the only organisation that operates within the sport and active leisure sector that addresses the skills and productivity needs in sport, fitness, playwork, the outdoors and caravan industries.

Being licensed by government is a pre-requisite for all Sector Skills Councils. Through this licence, government buys a service from an organisation that meets specific criteria, and being employer led means that we can speak with authority to government departments about the skills needs, funding issues and general landscape of our sector. We can, and do, lobby government departments on behalf of employers as we know what the real issues are, and yes like quangos, we are seen as the experts in this field and we are not a government department; however unlike quangos, our work is directed by employers, and we are not fully supported by government funding.    

It’s important for me that people understand our status, we do not want to be seen as yet another government directed organisation that doesn’t know what its like on the ground. We do, we’ve done the research, and we’re out meeting employer’s everyday. We are developing solutions – such as the National Skills Academy – to ensure the sector has access to the best training provision, at the best price. We’re working with a sector that is primarily made up of micro and small businesses and we’re brokering funding on their behalf. We’re producing workforce development tools that help to build a well trained and professional workforce that deliver a quality service. We’re working across those many partner organisations that have a foot in the door of our sector, and we’re ensuring that they – through us – support more people, being more active, more often, so that the sector can grown, become sustainable and excel.

In short, we ensure that more people are better skilled to deliver the active leisure and learning agenda for benefit of the health and well-being of the nation, and that those people hold the qualifications that employers value. And that’s not the role of a quango.