The new report presents clear challenges to the industry, to the Sector Skills Councils (SSCs) - and in particular Cogent - to Government and to the Chemistry Leadership Council itself.

Cogent is set to help deliver, at both national and regional level, the recommendations outlined in the report. In addition, Cogent must clearly and coherently articulate the industry’s skills needs.

The chemicals industry has significant skills gaps at both plant operator and graduate levels, with too few people trained to the required level. Upskilling the sector is therefore a major challenge.

With that in mind, the report makes a set of recommendations on the need for a Gold Standard, which should define the skills, competencies and qualifications required for a world-class industry.  Individual companies will be able to measure themselves against this and structure their training accordingly.

The focus of the Gold Standard should be on the industry's ‘Licence to Operate’ - including the skills needs associated with the Sustainable Development agenda and productivity.

Cogent is responsible for driving this work forward and for developing mechanisms for quantifying the value added from training. This will be done by developing case studies in consultation with exemplar companies both within and outside the chemicals industry.  The aim being to quantify the benefits of training and development to companies' bottom lines.

In addition, the report recommends that Cogent, working with the Skills Network Group must lead the development of a Sector Skills Agreement, to ensure a comprehensive skills road map exists which sets out the industry's future skills needs and the mechanisms by which these can met.

Government intentions to expand workforce development training represents a real opportunity for the whole of the chemicals industry, including Cogent, and the actions taken as a result of the new report will help achieve this.

For further information, contact Rob Bevan - Tel: 07786 707431

Download the report