Ambition 2020: World Class Skills and Jobs for the UK: The 2010 Report
The UK Commission for Employment and Skills was established to advise Government on the policies, strategies, and measures that we need as a country to achieve our World Class Ambition of being one of the top eight countries in the world for skills, jobs and productivity. We believe that there can be little more important than equipping the UK with the skills it needs, for the jobs it needs, today and tomorrow.
Ambition 2020: World Class Skills and Jobs for the UK: The 2010 Report (PDF, 10.6 Mb)
Published July 2010
Our prosperity depends on the success of our economy. That depends on the jobs we are able to create; and having the skilled workforce we need to do them – and to do them well. It also requires us to achieve this in a way that puts us amongst the best in the world.
Last year we published the first Ambition 2020 report in what we called ‘tough times’. The recession was biting deep into businesses, jobs and communities, and economic conditions were extremely testing and difficult. Now, although we are emerging out of the recession, as then, our focus must be on the economy and exploring the means to securing economic renewal and growth. We must actively seek to transform and rebalance the economy and to create the conditions needed to ensure sustainable recovery over the long term. The challenge is indeed great, but then so is the prize. To edge into the top 8 countries in the world, we need to increase our employment rate by close to 1% point and our productivity levels by 13% points. Every 1% point increase in each is worth around £10 billion a year: in perpetuity.
Our Commissioners, who are all leaders from a wide variety of global, national and small and medium businesses, leading trade unionists, and key figures from education, training and the public and voluntary sectors, are passionately committed to this agenda. As the full effects of recent economic developments and the associated financial crisis, are more fully understood, this year the scale of the challenge arguably appears if anything more arduous, especially in the context of substantial constraints on public and private expenditure. In framing our assessment this year, therefore, setting out World Class Ambitions for the UK in the future, and putting forward proposals for action, we have had to be, even more than ever, particularly mindful of the need to find more innovative approaches to achieving more and better for less.
Crucially, Commissioners have discussed the need to think completely differently about how public policy is deployed in pursuit of World Class Ambitions and the continued critical role of employer leadership in pursuing these goals. We are very clear that an Ambition to be world class in skills and employment requires transformational change and is not just a responsibility for UK Governments but one for employers, individuals, communities and Government, all of whom have a vital role to play.
Commissioners are unswerving in their dedication to work with the four UK Governments to help ensure that the UK becomes a world leader in jobs and skills to deliver strong economic recovery and growth.
Sir Mike Rake
Chairman, UK Commission for Employment and Skills
