Small businesses have today slammed appointments made to the high profile board designed to plug the skills gap.
Representatives from small firms were once again overlooked when the UK Commission for Employment and Skills was formed, lobby group the Federation of Private Business (FPB) has claimed. Business luminaries such as John Lewis chairman Charles Mayfield and AstraZeneca CEO David Brennan are among those appointed to the committee this week.
This follows the composition of the government’s Business Council for Britain earlier this year, which appointed Tesco’s Sir Terry Leahy, Vodafone’s Arun Sarin and Stuart Rose of M&S, as well as entrepreneurs Sir Alan Sugar and Sir Richard Branson.
The Commission is part of the government’s ongoing offensive to tackle skills shortages in the country’s workforce, which has so far seen proposals to create 90,000 apprenticeships by 2013, as well as plans to make education compulsory up to the age of 18.
Phil McCabe, a spokesman for the Federation of Private Business, called for a re-think. "This list of luminaries reads like a who's who of big business,” he said.
“Both the Council and the Commission have a hugely important role to play in helping to shape the government's policies on the future of business, training and enterprise, but with no-one to represent the views of smaller firms, which are the UK's biggest employers and therefore the engines of the economy.
“It is time to re-address this situation and bring smaller firms to the forefront of the policy-making process," he added.
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