Your Publishing Skills Group
It has been a long and often tortuous road, but the UK’s publishing industries – books, journals, periodicals, newspapers and online publishers are now once again represented within the government’s Skills for Business Network.
You may recall bits of the journey, at least as far as the World of books and journals is concerned (the bits that PTC has represented). The original Industry Training Organisation was merged into a National Training Organisation, and then this network was collapsed into much larger but far fewer Sector Skills Councils (SSCs). The publishing community stood outside the new network for several years but in 2008 agreed that it would throw its hat into the ring. The SSC of preference was Skillset, which served the training and development needs of the broadcast media sector, though there is also a side agreement with the Creative and Cultural Industries SSC for the Periodicals sector.
The purpose of all this hard labour, you may recall, is the worthy goal of linking industry to the government agenda on skills and training – aiming to ensure the right qualifications and skills are readily available to enable UK Plc to perform to its maximum capacity. In the case of books and journals, where most new entrants have at least one degree, often vocational, together with vibrant in-service training provision, the most important achievement delivered has been the National Occupational Standards, providing an important and well-used business tool identifying what people need to know, and need to be able to do, to perform a variety of publishing functions. To date over 25,000 downloads of the documentation testify to the considerable impact the Standards have had.
Your new Publishing Skills Council meets quarterly to further the skills agenda for its various constituents. If you have a view on training provision, qualifications or skills requirements for publishing and would like to voice it, then please get in touch. We would very much like to hear from you.
John Whitley
Chief Executive