Strength in numbers

I am writing this just before I head out to Hamburg for my youngest son’s stag do. Coincidentally, FESPA and European Sign Expo will be starting the day after the stag returns home, so I will be staying on in Hamburg to meet, greet, and carry out my duties as an ambassador for the UK sign industry. I have no idea how that all fell into place, but as Colonel John ‘Hannibal’ Smith used to say on early evening Saturday TV, I love it when a plan comes together.

Seriously though, my plans seem to revolve around what suits others rather than the Machiavellian machinations of me trying to get an extra day tagged onto a long weekend. In the main, a lot of us just want to get on with things, do it well, treat people and opportunities as we would like to be treated ourselves, have a good time, make some money, and generally, make the world a better place. If we pick up some experiences on the way that we can hand down in later years, so much the better.

However, I sense a whiff of a general malaise in the industry that could threaten the very future of the education funding currently available to it. The disquiet in question is an attitude of ‘not my problem’. Before you choke on your cornflakes, of course there are those out there who recognise that I do not mean them personally, it is just the way it is.


It is the old ‘me, me, me’ scenario. You know the type. They who block a junction in slow moving traffic and cannot be bothered to let someone out or go in front of them even if they themselves are going nowhere. Do not get me started on indicating on roundabouts. As long as they get what they want then their little world is OK, forget the rest, your problem, not mine.

In other words, they cannot look up and see that their actions and attitudes have a consequence. Some good consequences, some bad, but for this topic, their indifference can be toxic. Well, the problem with this particular problem is that it will be everyone’s problem if they want to create a better and more profitable industry.

Driving factor

I have mentioned this particular theme before in as much that Government funding for the sign industry NVQs was driven by take up.

Every year the industry managed (after much cajoling) to creep over the threshold and engage just about enough candidates to secure another year of funding for assessments in a level two NVQ/SVQ/QCF.

It is not helped by the difficulty of a low number of assessor centres, created because of the low take up, which is created by the low number of assessor centres, which is created by etc. Well you get my point.

Of course, the bonus to being able to prove your nationally recognised competencies is that with an NVQ under your belt, you will qualify for a CSCS card (subject to filling in the CITB health/safety/environment test) as an installer for either illuminated or non-illuminated signs or as a sign maintenance and repair operative. Very handy for sign companies that work on construction sites and where on mature sites, the facilities manager will only accept qualified technicians so they can keep insurance risk and costs down.

For sign companies themselves, it is a huge boost to staff morale plus the customer satisfaction that they are buying from a business well trained in the many necessary arts of producing signs. Win-win as we say.



All of this is about to change. For a start, funding is now being given to apprentices only. You can still take an NVQ outside an apprentice scheme, but you will have to pay 100 percent for it to be assessed if you are not a qualifying apprentice.

Second, costs of assessments are rising and the amount of money available by funding is falling.

Third, the CSCS organisers, and thereby your construction company clients, seem to be adopting a more stringent view of what CSCS card will allow you onto site as they are moving away from a ‘general’ trade card to more specific skills and categories.

Fourth, there is a hint of the Department of Education doing away with the sign and many other trades’ qualifications simply lumping them all together under ‘manufacturing’.

Fifth, without a nationally recognised standard of education qualification, your skills as an employee will be questionable until proven otherwise and as a business, you are gambling on the employee’s competencies meeting standards.

There are individual companies starting their own apprentice schemes that come without a formal examination. That is fine in some respects, but leaves no one with the confidence that how the employee is trained is actually right and correct.

With the low take up of the current courses and qualifications, it is very difficult for the industry to argue for a recognised qualification and funding. If, and it is a small if, the take up and engagement does not improve, there is a strong chance that qualification and funding will disappear.

 
The result will be that there will no longer be a recognised standard of knowledge and competency within the sign industry and that will have several consequences.

It will affect sign companies when recruiting and employees when looking for jobs. Access to construction sites will be limited if there is no qualification available to gain a CSCS card specific to your employment and skills. Holding a ‘general trade’ CSCS card may no longer be worth the plastic it is laminated in, especially as CSCS crack down and become even more stringent than at present.

It will affect how the industry is perceived and even, dare I say, encourage clients and customers to consider the industry as similar to the perception of the double glazing industry of the 1970s (for those that can remember that far back) i.e. potential cowboy and wild west territory. Nowadays you would not consider anyone fitting windows unless they are qualified and a member of a trade association. That is how far that industry went to turn it around.

I am not saying that sign companies in the UK must immediately take on at least one apprentice to prevent the collapse of the education framework and funding, but the ball is well and truly in the industry’s court. The possibility of an end game whereby qualifications are limited to a general manufacturing level is possible. We should all fear the loss of recognisable and transferrable skills.

On that ‘happy’ note—Prost.



Public Notice:

• The attitude of ‘not my problem’ cannot be a long-term strategy
• Government funding for sign-making NVQs was driven by take up
• Funding for NVQs is now being given to apprentices only
• CSCS cards are useful for sign companies on construction sites

The British Sign and Graphics Association (BSGA) history dates back more than 70 years when a group of leading sign-makers formed the Master Sign Makers Association (MSMA) with the aim of promoting the sign industry and defending its interests.

For more information on the issues discussed in this article visit www.bsga.co.uk or tel: 0845 338 3016






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