Skills policy in Scotland must address in-work poverty

In recent years, skills policy in Scotland has recognised that it is not only important to continue to develop skills in the workforce, but to ensure that skills are effectively used.

This is a positive step, says Gina Netto, since continued emphasis on utilising skills can help ensure that individual potential is translated into promotions at work. It can also play a role in enabling the growing numbers of people facing in-work poverty to find better paid work.

However, skills policy does not appear to have addressed the issue of different groups experiencing different outcomes at work. A recent report from the Equality and Human Rights Commission showed that several equality groups, including ethnic minorities, are noticeably under-represented in modern apprenticeship schemes. In order to make Universal Credit work and to help people from all sections of the population to move out of poverty, it is important to combine effective skills utilisation with promoting equal opportunities.

Research funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation reveals how informal workplace cultures in large organisations contribute to poverty traps among low-paid workers across all ethnicities. Major factors were unsupportive managers and the lack of developmental opportunities. Equal opportunities policies were undermined by lack of transparency of developmental opportunities and stereotyping of ethnic minorities.

Steps to support career progression for all include; emphasising developing low-paid staff in managers’ performance criteria; creating ‘working to learn’ cultures which provide opportunities for workers to build on existing skills; making better use of procurement arrangements to improve opportunities for workers in supply chains. Greater emphasis on monitoring and benchmarking progression, particularly among public sector organisations, would also enhance accountability.

Organisations in Scotland face particular challenges in transforming organisational cultures given the relatively smaller ethnic minority population compared to England. Issues related to these groups tend to receive less attention in the media and by politicians. Yet, many areas of Scotland have seen a rapid increase in migrants in the last decade, including remote parts of the Highlands and Islands. An established ethnic minority population is visible in all the major Scottish cities. Such ethnic diversity calls for organisations to ensure that their workforces reflect this diversity at all levels, not just at the lowest level.

Government too continues to play an important role in developing the skills of all sections of the workforce, and by encouraging employers to maximise the use of skills, including by taking targeted action. Such action can focus on sectors where low-paid workers tend to be concentrated such as the catering and hotel trade; retail; agriculture; construction and transport. These are also the sectors where ethnic minorities tend to be concentrated. In Scotland, where a referendum on independence is less than a year away, the question of whose skills are recognised and who is seen to belong to the nation, have never been more pertinent.

For more information, visit: http://www.jrf.org.uk/work/workarea/poverty-and-ethnicity