A Ten Point Plan Skill Strategy

The Strategy focuses on tackling four priority areas that emerged strongly from research with employers. These areas critically underpin the skills and labour needs of the sector, which in turn are hampering the productivity of the sector:

· Management and leadership

· Customer service

· Chef skills

· Retention

In order to effectively tackle these areas, the following ten point plan has been developed:

1. A Single communications channel
2. Management and leadership
3. Right Qualifications and funding
4. Supporting small businesses
5. Customer service
6. Chefs
7. Industry code of practice
8. World class skills delivery
9. Attracting high quality people
10. Broadening the appeal of the sector

The next section sets out the ten point plan, including a description and rationale for each point of the plan, targets and specific commitments from employer representatives and key partners. The status of these commitments is highlighted as agreed, proposed or in principle, depending on the development of discussions/agreement reached at this stage.

Through the discussions with key partners and employer representatives a number of barriers have been identified that if not removed will hamper the effectiveness of the strategy to meet its ambitions. A separate discussion paper outlines those barriers.

Key targets and strategic phases of activity

The strategy has five overarching targets:

1. Productivity – raising levels of productivity to meet new government and industry targets

2. Customer service – raising international perceptions, as measured by VisitBritain

3. Retention – a significant reduction in the existing rate of staff turnover

4. Employer business engagement – enabling all businesses to appraise their readiness for 2012

5. Achieving the 2020 skills mix – as determined by the Leitch Review (2006)

The ten point plan outlined in the remaining part of this document brings together strategic activities required to meet these overarching targets. In addition, the specific activities that have been agreed are underpinned by five strategic levers that industry and public sector partners must use if the strategy is to succeed:

1. Government policy
2. Industry codes of practice
3. Quality assurance
4. Public funding
5. Effective communication