As I noted last month, after months of waiting, I am delighted to say we have finally been officially relicensed as the Sector Skills Council for Active Leisure and Learning.

Following a rigorous relicensing process by the government, we were not only successful in having our five year license renewed, but was also judged as a good SSC with a number of outstanding areas, namely employer engagement, leadership, project management and delivery. And I am thrilled with this assessment, as our sector employers are our bread and butter and if we’re not delivering on their behalf then we’re doing something wrong.

Over the last five years – technically six – our focus has been on increasing the demand for skills, along with raising the quality of skills provision, creating a fit for purpose system of training, and lobbying funding agencies and policy makers to invest in this employer-led framework. And this can be demonstrated in a variety of ways, for example the development and delivery of apprenticeships, these programmes have developed and rapidly grown in a sector with no tradition for such structured work-based programmes. Over 4,000 apprentices have been certificated in the past 12 months.

The development of a broad range of S/NVQs that have become established across the industry – there has been a 30% increase in people completing their qualification, and we have issued around 22,000 certificates already this year. Not forgetting our National Skills Academy, which since its creation, has led to a one-stop shop for the industry to access quality assured training and support in four out of nine English regions.

Our renewed license is based on a new five year plan of delivery. We need to ensure all qualifications in the sector are on the new Qualifications and Credit framework – in which case they have to be the qualifications employers want their future workforce to have. We need to ensure our National Skills Academy continues to expand across the whole of the country and look at ways it could work within the home nations. And despite the recession, we are a growth sector, its crucial that we continue this growth. Therefore, we must ensure that the sector is supported by a qualified, high calibre workforce, and we must support employers to invest in this workforce. So there’s a lot to do.

The fact that we have been relicensed is a testament to the commitment and passion of my staff that are working so tirelessly on behalf of the sector. But also, it is a testament to the commitment and passion of employers in the sector, that are working so tirelessly to develop and deliver a service that addresses the health and well-being of the nation.

So for me, right now, it’s important to recognise how far we’ve come and say with pride that we’re going in the right direction. But it’s also just as important to recognise the journey has only just started and we’ve a long way to go. However, working together, I know that we’ll get there.

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.

Now, more than ever, we must look to the future and provide greater insight into the world of work, the skills needed to succeed in the sector and build relationships between employers, colleges and universities.

With that said, the world of skills and education has been changing over the past few weeks, prompted by the reshuffle in Westminster. The government has merged the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (previously known as BERR), with the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS). The resulting new Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is charged with building Britain’s capacity to compete in a global economy.

For the first time, this new department puts together skills, FE, HE and business development all under the same umbrella and recognises the need to have employers, colleges and universities closer aligned at a government level – something Sector Skills Councils have lobbied for since their inception six years ago. This new department puts employers where they should be – at the very heart of education reform and policy making.

So what does that mean for our industry? Well, we’re not entirely sure of the details; however we should recognise that there is a huge opportunity for the sector. For a start, we finally have a doorway to discuss vocational skills development aligned with academic qualifications, Apprenticeships are recognised as part of business and innovation, and skills development is now visibly at the heart of government thinking. We are an industry that needs the highly technical vocational skills to operate, combined with the more academic skills in leadership and management to succeed. Not forgetting that the training and qualifications available need to reflect this, and be eligible for public funding.

We can be encouraged by this new department’s remit to deliver on the government’s ambitious objectives to expand the number of Apprenticeships available. Despite the negative stories in the press recently, last month the government announced it will fund a £1.9m Apprenticeship Expansion programme in our sector, led by our National Skills Academy, and will recruit, train, place and mentor over 1,400 people in the next two years.

So the outlook is positive, it seems that the new department will be positioned to guide us through the economic turbulence, and we’re confident that the sector can once again prove resolute as the economy responds to the current downturn. As always, we will continue to work closely with employers across the sector to encourage the continued development of staff and investment in training at this time.

As we enter a new year, along come a number of new challenges. Particularly this new year, it’s starting to shape up as a real winter of discontent both economically and on the weather front. This new year brings some significant new challenges for us as your Sector Skills Council, our assessment for relicensing which is already underway.

Through the process, early March brings consultation with key stakeholders from the sector. In particular, the government welcomes input from employers and this offers you the opportunity to feedback on our performance, and the progress of the sector over the past five years, and how you would like your SSC to evolve. You can go to our website for more details: www.skillsactive.com/aboutus/re-licensing.

Our objective hasn’t changed. We believe that the future of the sector really rests on the quality of its people and the need to properly invest in their training and skills development if we are going to increase participation in sport and physical activity. If we’re going to get more people, more active, more often, then the industry needs more people, better skilled, better qualified; now more than ever.

But let’s not make it all doom and gloom. We think the next five years is challenging yet hugely exciting. This is largely down to the launch of the National Skills Academy for Sport and Active Leisure and its rollout over the next two years, with the vision to extend the concept into the home countries as well. Finally we have the real opportunity for employers to engage with both setting the industry framework of qualifications and standards and buying in to its implementation; an opportunity that has been years in the making.

For me it’s always about shaping a long-term skills legacy; we identified the need to radically improve the way in which we develop the skills of people working in our sector. The issues are clear; the lack of career pathways and clear entry points into the sector, the mismatch of qualifications in the current education system enforcing the need for re-training, and the lack of funding available for training to aid the professionalisation of the sector. Despite our best efforts we haven’t been able to fully address these problems; we’ve had the evidence through our sector skills agreement but not the mechanism to address these issues. Until now that is.

Our objective hasn’t changed. We believe that the future of the sector really rests on the quality of its people and the need to properly invest in their training and skills development if we are going to increase participation in sport and physical activity. If we’re going to get more people, more active, more often, then the industry needs more people, better skilled, better qualified; now more than ever.

And not only that, the Academy will deliver a clearer skills framework, more affordable and relevant skills training, it will deliver locally at regional level where employers really need it, and it will revolutionise learner access through its innovative online academy.

I can’t mention the next five years without mentioning the Games. We clearly have a window to profile the sector and with the opportunity to utilise the investment into the sector, and the government’s commitment to improving the infrastructure despite the economic downturn, we really do have an opportunity to thrive.

According to the experts, the outlook is bleak. However with what lies ahead, we can only believe that the importance of our sector will be truly recognised in these testing times.

The SkillsActive Group achieved a significant milestone this month when we officially launched the National Skills Academy (NSA) at Lords. So where did the NSA come from and why is it so important?

Two years ago, when we devised our Sector Skills Agreement, SkillsActive undertook a consultation process which involved more than 4500 employers across the active leisure and learning sector. Through this engagement, we were able to gain an in depth understanding of employers’ skills needs and their priorities for the future. The consultation painted a very positive picture of growth in the industry, but it also highlighted a range of gaps. It showed how fragmented the industry was and how disparate our employers were. It drew attention to a range of networks, but also exposed a lack of connection.

To deliver the vision of an active, sporting nation, our industry needed more people working in the sector, who were better skilled, and better qualified. We needed to improve the quality and range of our services. We couldn’t rely on what we had done before; we had to present our services in a new way and we had to make them work for us. We had to find an answer to a question that, quite possibly, is the question people calling SkillsActive ask most – what does the industry offer in the way of career opportunities and how do you access them?

The answer to that question – and to the key concerns raised by employers – is the National Skills Academy. The NSA is part of the SkillsActive family and, like SkillsActive, is a charity. For me, the NSA completes the circle. It will link the industry – creating an opportunity for individuals, employers, training providers and Government to buy in to what the industry has created in terms of frameworks, qualifications and standards. It is a much-needed resource which will provide individuals and employers access to information on quality training providers who will meet their training needs and it will improve recruitment and retention. It will allow individuals to invest in their futures, and for employers to invest in their staff. Put simply, it will help the industry fly.

The NSA will also professionalise the sector. In today’s environment, it doesn’t matter whether you are a volunteer or a paid professional, you need a qualification and to be able to demonstrate to the public and your employer that you are fully competent. If sport and leisure is going to connect with the health sector and work with the Department of Health in addressing physical activity levels, we have to show we are a professional industry that can up skill our work force and retain it. There is a huge opportunity for the health services to utilise our sector for referrals and we must be confident that we are equipped to fulfil this role. This is dependent on having the right training opportunities and qualifications that are relevant to employment and also concise information on career development. The NSA is truly a solution to this.

The NSA has both a physical presence in regional hubs, and a virtual one online and SkillsActive will work alongside the NSA to ensure its offer to the industry is underpinned by up to date research and technical developments as well as employer demand. It really does mark the dawn of a new era and an exciting future for the industry and we invite you all to join the ride.