Meeting of EDF Skills Sub-Group 22 May 2007, Boardroom, North Down and Ards Institute

 

Present:

 

 
 

Declan Billington

Chair
 

Nuala Kerr

(DEL)
 

Victor Jordan

(Invest NI)
 

Brian Henry

(NDAI)
 

Professor Ken Brown

(QUB)
 

Damien McGivern

(UUJ)
 

Allan McMullen

(CITB)
 

William McMullan

(CITB)
     
Apologies:

 

 
 

Michael Gould

(DEL)
 

Tom Gilllen

(ICTU)
 

Robson Davison

 

 

 

1.      Minutes of Meeting on 14 February  2007

The minutes of the previous meeting were approved without amendment.

 

2.      New Members of Skills Sub-Group

The group introduced themselves, welcoming the new members – Brian Henry, Professor Ken Brown and Damien McGivern and thanked North Down and Ards Institute for hosting the meeting.

 

3.      Tour of campus facilities

The Skills sub-group were given a tour of the campus and observed first hand the North Down Technology and Innovation Centre NDTIC. The NDTIC provides a range of services to local companies to support their economic development. The state of the art resources in a wide range of disciplines, help local companies grow and flourish with access to the highest quality industrial training and support services.

 

4.      Presentation by Construction Industry Training Board

Alan McMullen gave a presentation on “2007 – 2011 Construction Skills network Labour Market Intelligence.” Discussion followed around differences in rates of pay in NI and ROI, barriers to delivery, migrant workers and modern apprenticeships.

 

ACTION: DEL to consider discussion, previous paper and respond on the way forward prior to the next sub-group meeting in September.

 

5.      Update from the Programme Board Meeting

Nuala Kerr provided a paper update on the key strands of the Skills Strategy:

 

the Skills Expert Group (SEG),

 

Future Skills Action groups in ICT and Financial Services

 

Careers Strategy

 

and Workforce Development Forums (WDF) - Brian Henry provided an overview on his local WDF membership.

 

6.      Leitch report

Nuala Kerr presented members with details on the background and development of the Leitch report.

 

ACTION: CSR bids will be finalised by the end of May, Nuala Kerr will verbalise DEL’s intentions to chairman for endorsement by business community prior to the plenary meeting on 1 June 2007.

 

7.      Update on Northern Ireland Annual Skills Conference

Nuala Kerr then gave an overview of the Skills conference. 260 cross sectoral participants attended, the conference received useful publicity and engagement form the stakeholders.

 

8.      Universities Strategy for Skills

The chair invited the Universities to prepare a paper on how they are contributing to skills for the next meeting.

 

ACTION: Prof Ken Brown and Damien McGivern

 

9.      Structure of future meetings

The chair will circulate his watching brief which can be used to summarise key issues, drive issues forward and highlight barriers.

 

10.    Date of next meeting

The plenary meeting takes place on 4 September 2007; the Skills sub-group will meet before that if a date can be found in August to suit most members’ diaries.