Train of thought

Phil Mellows talks to Declan Swan, director of the Hospitality Training Foundation, about the government's new Sector Skills Councils

The incumbent government exhibits all the symptoms of a disease that allows it to only dawdle or rush with no gentle stroll possible in between. While licensing reform is plagued with prevarication, other matters appear to be rushed through impatiently - such as the new Sector Skills Councils (SSC).

Declan Swan, the director of the Hospitality Training Foundation (HTF), seems infected with that impatience. While the government booklet calmly points out "there is neither a deadline for becoming an SSC nor any cut-off date beyond which proposals will not be considered", the abolition of National Training Organisations (NTO) on April 1 left bodies like the HTF without an official role to perform as far as government is concerned. In effect that leaves the industry temporarily unable to influence education policies and the work of Regional Development Agencies and Learning and Skills Councils (LSC).

Declan wants to put that right as quickly as possible. "We are having to do in eight months something that would normally take two years," he said.

So far it has gone well. Earlier this month more than 70 employers from across the hospitality, travel and tourism industries, including pub operators such as Scottish & Newcastle, Laurel, SFI Group, Charles Wells, SA Brain and New Century Inns, met to agree to take the first step towards becoming an SSC - submitting a formal expression of interest.

Declan is impressed by the enthusiasm employers have shown, even though, as he admits, the concrete benefits that the SSC will bring are not terribly clear.

"You might ask why we should bother," he said. "But if we want to change the culture of the industry we have got to believe that we mean what we say when we say that people are our greatest asset, and it will look mighty strange if we don't have an SSC. The whole industry will be consigned to the sidelines."

There is a cash incentive, of course. The government will put up to £1m into an SSC if employers are willing to match the figure. That will fund the usual work of such organisations, the conferences, the research, and on top of that the SSC will be able to influence LSCs to release funds in a direction that can benefit the industry.

It will also have the job of raising standards and making sure qualifications are suited to the sector, and the HTF would like to devolve some of the policy-making down to local or regional groups giving them the ability to tailor education provision to the specific needs of an area.

For Declan, however, the most important thing about SSCs could be that they have a much broader influence than the old NTOs.

"Basically, I think the government is right. We have got to look at the bigger picture, to go beyond the boundaries of what we are doing now. SSCs are not simply about training, they are concerned with the national social and economic agenda and how that can be shaped by skills and learning.

"They put employers in a very influential position in which they can influence every part of the education system, right down to what happens in schools. SSCs will be at the centre of everything. The image of the industry, qualifications, policy, learning and social issues."

The HTF, now merged with its counterpart organisation in the travel and tourism industry, will be sending off the expression of interest within the next couple of weeks and has already started work on the next stage - developing a full proposal about how the new SSC will operate.

Declan hopes the process can be completed by the autumn, but as well as the urgency involved he is concerned that the industry will need to be exact and clear about how it approaches the opportunity.

His view of the industry and its training needs has been stimulated by the "five tests" that a proposed SSC must go through to gain government approval:

• Does the sector make a significant contribution to the UK economy?
• Are there significant changes in the demands on its workforce?
• Is performance boosted by improved skills?
• Does it make a contribution to key government priorities?
• Does it form a coherent sector with committed employers?

Some of them seem straightforward enough. The hospitality industry employs an estimated 1.4 million people directly plus about another 500,000 in ancillary roles. As part of a wider sector you can add hundreds of thousands of workers in travel and tourism. Then there is the cash the industry hands to the Treasury. No doubt about the significant contribution there.

It creates and sustains jobs and supports government training programmes, all key priorities for the government.

Hospitality is also fairly obviously an industry undergoing huge change with the consequent demands on its workforce. "People want more for their money - you've only got to look at food in pubs - and there is more and more technology coming in," said Declan.

Those demanding customers also mean that skilled staff are a necessity. "The opportunities to boost performance in customer care are enormous," he said.

"Education in literacy, numeracy, IT, problem solving and craft areas can make a huge difference. Customers these days can tell whether the staff at a pub have been trained or not. A lack of training can lose operators money."

This is a particular interest of Declan's. He recently visited a coffee bar where he finished up paying £3.50 for a cup of coffee after complaining about a stale croissant.

"As a customer you're not bothered by the fact your croissant is hard as long as the staff can give you some alternatives - a soft croissant, something else to eat or your money back. But at this place the staff simply didn't know how to handle it."

That contrasts with the pub where he ordered a beef sandwich. "I expected just a beef sandwich, but I got what amounted to more like a steak," he said. "People come back for something like that and bring their friends.

"It's not that there aren't some places that are extremely good, the problem we have is unevenness. We have to get best practice across the sector and that means training and a culture in which the people who work in it are encouraged to talk to customers and be creative."

Declan is impressed by the innovation in the industry.

Concepts such as Yo! Sushi and the new wave of up-market bars are an imaginative response to the needs of the 21st century consumer, he believes.

"But creativity has to be underpinned by professionalism, you have to show you know what you're doing, you have to make sure the product is backed up by people who deliver the experience - or the result is catastrophic!"

The need in the hospitality industry for staff who feel valued and able to think for themselves is something Declan can relate to his own experience of running hotels in Ireland. "The reality of hospitality is that you have to be able to second-guess what the customer's thinking and the only way you can do that is by talking to them.

"Staff who feel valued will do that, and they will produce more."

That takes care of four of the tests and suggests the kind of approach that will shape the full proposal for the SSC.

It is the fifth test, however, that could prove the most challenging. The good news is that employers have agreed on the broad basis for a sector covering travel and tourism as well as hospitality. There are potential advantages here in developing closer links between hospitality and tourism and inspiring publicans, for instance, to think more widely about how their business depends on what other industries are up to.

But the sector has to persuade the government that it is perfectly clear where its boundaries lie.

Certain things have initially been ruled out. These include vistor attractions such as historic si