Responding to the Clean Power 2030 Action Plan and evidence annex.
Energy & Utility Skills welcomes the publication of the Government’s Clean Power Action Plan that draws extensively on data from our recently published report, the Workforce assessment for the power and networks sector. Our Labour Market Intelligence provides a detailed understanding of the workforce and skills challenges, and was produced through extensive collaboration with several hundred energy organisations and their supply chains. The employer-verified workforce and skills data that is reflected in the Clean Power Action Plan provides a clear view of the labour market projected labour supply and demand, workforce gaps and the significant opportunity to create thousands of high quality jobs.
Our work with employers also reflects that we need to address skills and workforce issues urgently if we are to meet the ambitious Government targets for net zero. With a detailed understanding of the additional jobs needed to deliver net zero, we need to focus on delivering skills and workforce solutions at pace. We would advocate strongly for:
- The Office for Clean Energy Jobs to work closely with Skills England, employers and skills bodies to understand the opportunities to make early impact on the workforce challenge through targeted pilots of the growth and skills fund;
- Skills England, Mayoral Combined Authorities and devolved administrations to ensure funding is available to enable the delivery of a safe, skilled and sustainable workforce, drawing on industry bodies to secure the consistency and quality of training programmes; and
- DWP to engage with employers and their industry bodies to explore early opportunities to leverage proposals in the ‘Get Britain Working’ White Paper noting the significant opportunities for NEET individuals to join the power and networks sector.
Government and industry collaboration has produced a valuable and comprehensive skills evidence base to inform policy development – this will be critical to ensuring that we have the competent workforce we need to deliver the Clean Power 2030 Action Plan. We look forward to working with Government and other stakeholders to secure the benefits of a clean energy economy for future generations by focusing on actions that will deliver Government missions.
