Cover story:Colleges look to the future
Friday, July 9th, 2010Leading representatives from Northern Ireland’s six colleges discuss the future of further and higher education, and highlight its importance to economic development. The College STEM Initiative (CSI) is the colleges’ main initiative to encourage learners into careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics and building those skills is their main priority. What will be the consequences for the colleges after the UK Budget? Brian Doran We have to see the outworking of the Budget and how it translates into decisions made by the Executive here. For colleges it will be down...[full story]
Economy:Robert Skidelsky
Friday, July 9th, 2010Keynes’ biographer Lord Robert Skidelsky is to address this year’s Northern Ireland Economic Conference. agendaNi profiles the professor of political economy. Lord Skidelsky is Emeritus Professor of Political Economy at the University of Warwick and is perhaps better known as Keynes’ biographer. His three-volume biography of the economist John Maynard Keynes received numerous awards. The financial sector crash brought Keynes back to life. In the 1970s, Keynesian policy became somewhat obsolete. He was seen as the great economist of the Great Depression of the 1930s but he had little...[full story]
Budget 2010:Going for broke
Friday, July 9th, 2010With the emergency Budget looking to cut the deficit, Owen McQuade looks at the risks of such deep cuts in stalling the economic recovery. The UK’s emergency Budget of 22 June aims to deliver a severe fiscal retrenchment equal to 6.3 per cent of GDP by 2014-2015. Three-quarters of the adjustment will come from spending cuts and the balance from raising taxes, with £113 billion per year knocked off the deficit by 2014-2015. Government spending will fall from 47 per cent of GDP in 2009-2010 to under 41 per cent and borrowing will fall from 11 per cent to 2 per cent. The cyclically adjusted...[full story]
Skills:Skills, knowledge and success
Friday, July 9th, 2010Employment and Learning Minister Sir Reg Empey explains why he thinks Northern Ireland’s new skills strategy will improve our economic performance, especially by up-skilling those already in work. The economy is rightly at the heart of the Northern Ireland Executive’s current Programme for Government, but to achieve the innovative, dynamic economy the Executive aspires to, it must continue to refine its policy toolkit. The Independent Review of Economic Policy led by Professor Richard Barnett, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ulster, recognises the important correlation between...[full story]
Skills:Skills for the future
Friday, July 9th, 2010A follow up to the 2006 skills strategy, Success through Skills 2 prepares for a future where 90 per cent of jobs will require formal qualifications and a highly skilled workforce. This revised draft strategy, put out to public consultation by Reg Empey on 1 June, centres on the fact that the 2008 Programme for Government’s main goal was to create an “innovative and dynamic” economy. In order to achieve this, Success through Skills 2 aims to increase the number of well qualified managers in the province, up-skill the current workforce and ensure that the future workforce has a...[full story]
Skills:Programme update
Friday, July 9th, 2010agendaNi tracks the Programme for Government’s main commitments on skills and checks what has been achieved or not to date. A highly skilled and flexible workforce is one of the ingredients for the “successful economy” desired by the Programme for Government, although there was also “much to do” to build that skills base. The document also recognised that a “tolerant, inclusive and stable society” would attract skills (i.e. those of migrant workers) and investment, thus implying that both would be deterred if this were not the case. Published in January 2008, the programme...[full story]
Skills:A right to training
Friday, July 9th, 2010A new Assembly law aims to make training for employees easier but plans are on hold until the economic pressure on business eases. Northern Ireland’s employees will have the right to ask for time off for training or study, when the economy improves. The proposal is contained in the technically- named Employment (No.2) Bill, which was introduced to the Assembly on 7 June and passed its second stage on 21 June. The Bill’s main thrust is to update the law on workplace disputes and speed up how they are resolved. On training and study, the overall aim is to make employees more aware,...[full story]
Skills:Coalition skills plans
Friday, July 9th, 2010Reversing the over-importance placed on higher education is emerging as the coalition’s main theme as it gears its skills policy around the economic recovery. Skills policy is a devolved matter except for some UK-wide bodies. When UK ministers use the word national, it therefore usually means English. To be truly national, an idea needs to be suggested by the UK Government and accepted by the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland administrations. During the election campaign William Hague said the Tories had learned from Reg Empey’s experience in government while they were in opposition. Within...[full story]
Workplace well-being:Roundtable discussion
Friday, July 9th, 2010With the rise in mental health difficulties and stress problems in the workplace, HSENI brings together key professionals in occupational health to discuss how managers should respond. As well as its intrinsic benefit, improving staff well-being is good for customer service and will become increasingly important in the public sector as spending cuts add pressure to staff. Why is workplace mental health becoming increasingly important? Bryan In the traditional areas of health and safety, the logic of our involvement has evolv ed over the last eight to nine years from an emphasis on hard...[full story]
