Leaders called on to harness skills surplus

29 September 2009

ILM has announced its wish to work with the Scottish government, public sector, education and training providers to do more to harness the high levels of skills in the Scottish labour force in order to drive up productivity from its current low levels.

At an event hosted by ILM and Jim Mather, Minister for Enterprise, Energy and Tourism, about the productivity gap, debate focussed on how Scottish leaders and managers can drive new innovation and the ability to engage and motivate the labour force.

Despite Scotland outshining the rest of the UK in its overall skills level it lags significantly behind in productivity levels and is low down in the second quartile of OECD countries for economic productivity.

Speaking at the event Penny de Valk, ILM CEO said: “The paradox of the Scottish economy is that despite high skills levels, its low rate of productivity is holding it back as a nation.  With its skills base Scotland should be a pace setter for the rest of the UK economy, so why isn’t it? 

“The evidence suggests the issue is one of skills utilisation and Scotland’s leaders and managers are failing to take advantage of the capability of their people.  For ILM leadership and management are indivisible, their primary objective should be to maximise the contribution that employees can make to their organisation’s success.”

In response, Jim Mather, MPS emphasised the importance of principled leadership, systems thinking and continuous improvement in all areas of public and private enterprise. Scotland, he argued, should aspire to be the standard against which other countries judge themselves.

Delegates at the event, comprising key figures from the public and private sectors in Scotland, strongly supported the Minister’s call to raise aspirations. They identified the large number of small and medium sized enterprises in Scotland, coupled with the limited number of larger businesses with head offices in Scotland, as being significant factors in restricting the exemplars of best practice.

ILM, as the largest leadership and management qualifications awarding body in Europe, committed itself to supporting efforts to bring about a step change in performance. ILM believes that effective leadership and management is critical to an organisation’s success and therefore the success of the economy as a whole. To be effective, leaders and managers must aspire to world leading standards of performance themselves and their people. ILM believes that weaknesses in leadership and management capability are a major factor contributing to the underutilisation of Scotland’s wealth of skills and talent.

The Leitch Report found that Scotland is the only part of the UK where the percentage of people with a higher education qualification outnumbers the percentage of those with a basic school leaving qualification, reflecting Scotland’s widely applauded education system.

The event was attended by 50 delegates from across government, business and education and training.

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For further information or copies of the full report please contact Rebecca Griffiths (rebeccagriffiths@colmangetty.co.uk) or Ellie Backhouse (ellie@colmangetty.co.uk) at Colman Getty, or call 020 7631 2666.

Spokespeople available for interviews (contact Colman Getty):  Penny de Valk, Chief Executive, ILM

Notes to editors

A report published by the Scottish Government last year (Skills Utilisation Literature Review) concluded that ‘The evidence highlights that leadership and management are the factors that will have the greatest impact on skills utilisation. Three levels of management will affect skills utilisation: people management, management of the learning acquired and management of the organisation.

The Leitch Report (Prosperity for all in the global economy - world class skills), published in 2006, pointed out that Scotland has both a higher proportion of its working age population with a higher education qualification (31%, compared with the UK average of 29%) and a significantly smaller proportion (28% compared with 35%) with less than an Intermediate 2 or SVQ Level 2 qualification.

In 2007 Scotland was ranked 17th (out of 31) against the countries of the OECD (the UK as a whole was ranked 11th), and is at the top of the third quartile.
Scotland's productivity levels in 2007 were 85.6% of the levels in Germany, the country ranked at the bottom of the top quartile. Germany have been the lowest ranked country in the top quartile in every year since 2000. (Source: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Economy/TrendProduct)  

The Institute of Leadership & Management (ILM) is Europe’s leading management organisation. ILM partners with more than 90,000 individuals and organisations each year to help them fulfil their potential and achieve success through its wide range of flexible leadership and management development solutions.

From industry-leading qualifications and membership services to specialist learning resources, all ILM products and services are built on in-depth research and benchmarked against best practice standards. Supporting a fast-growing community of over 30,000 practising leaders and managers, ILM’s membership services are designed to provide ongoing continuing professional development throughout every stage of a manager’s career.

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