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AgriFood Skills Australia (AgriFood) is the national Industry Skills Council (ISC) responsible for skills and workforce development for the agrifood industry. It is one of the eleven Industry Skills Councils established by the Australian Government.
AgriFood Skills Australia provides this submission to DEEWR on the A Shared
Responsibility: Apprenticeships for the 21 st Century Report after undertaking consultations with industry stakeholders.
AgriFood Skills Australia believes the Report is timely as there is a real need to address the issues around entrenched and anticipated skill shortages in the economy; a need to increase the completion of full qualifications amongst learners in the agrifood industry through greater recognition of industry’s preference for a ‘building block’ approach; and improved agility of the Australian Apprenticeship system to meet the challenges of the global economy.
The agrifood industry understands too well the importance of a skilled and flexible workforce that can meet the challenges of maintaining Australia’s standard of living and in particular our food security. An innovative and productive workforce is vital if Australia is to respond to the changing needs of both the Australian and global economies. To this end,
AgriFood Skills Australia released a detailed Environmental Scan of the industry in March
2011. The Scan highlights the factors that are currently shaping and impacting on agrifood workforce development and how well the training system and industry itself must respond to better meet the needs of the agrifood industries.
Given the findings of the Environmental Scan and in consultation with our stakeholders ,
AgriFood Skills Australia supports in general the A Shared Responsibility: Apprenticeships for the 21 st Century Report and its recommendations, which are clearly designed to reform a system to meet continued economic productivity for Australia. However, AgriFood has concerns with some of the recommendations in the Report and these are outlined in this submission.
The key area of concern for the agrifood industry is recommendation five. AgriFood believes that the proposed use of priority occupations and transferability tests to determine investment to support eligible apprenticeships and traineeships will negatively impact on the agrifood sectors.
The Specialised Occupations List (SpOL), National Skills Needs List
(NSNL) and state and territory skills needs lists were not intended for this purpose and will not capture occupations across the agrifood sectors.
AgriFood Skills Australia strongly advises that this recommendation not be adopted as our industries will be greatly disadvantaged in terms of building its workforce capability and in continuing to contribute to sustaining Australia’s current productivity dividends.
Finally given the report recommends that the Australian Government should focus on occupations that have tangible and enduring value to the economy, and that agrifood industries are inseparable from Australia’s goal of sustainability, it is imperative that the sector is treated as a priority industry for training funding support and is included in key discussions and development of impleme ntation strategies in regard to the Report’s recommendations.
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Australia’s agrifood industry comprises five major sectors: agriculture, horticulture and conservation land management; food, beverage and pharmaceutical manufacturing; meat processing and retail; seafood processing and racing’s three codes.
The facts in brief
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180,000 mostly small to medium sized enterprises;
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a workforce of more than 880,000 people, with some 57% based in regional
Australia;
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generates over $200 billion each year and accounts for around 20% of
Australia’s export earnings;
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grows and produces over 89% of our domestic food supply and exports 80% of total gross value; and
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One Australian farmer produces enough food to feed 155 people.
The sectors of the agrifood industry are undergoing significant change at all levels. The industry is facing a looming crisis in several sectors due:
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to an ageing workforce,
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skilled workers exiting to the resources sector, and
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poor attraction and retention rates over an extended period.
In addition to these challenges there is growing need for the agrifood industry:
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to reduce emissions ahead of a price on carbon,
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manage rising energy prices and water costs,
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use resources more efficiently and ensure animal welfare.
Innovation and adoption of research findings will be paramount in adapting to these challenges and the need for publicly funded training to upskill the workforce will be required at all job levels across the industry.
Para-professional and technician job roles will continue to grow across the agrifood sectors and will be key to supporting the dissemination of research findings and new knowledge to ensure sustainable enterprises.
The upskilling of the current workforce through the VET system will be pivotal to ensuring that new knowledge and practice generated by the research system are implemented.
Agrifood sectors are finding it increasingly hard to reconcile the policy settings of the training system with the increasing skill needs of our workforce to meet the challenges outlined above.
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Despite its importance to the economy and its vital role within regional Australia, the agrifood industry remains poorly served by a training system that is unable to meet its requirements – namely:
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its enduring learning culture of incremental learning as a pathway to full qualifications;
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enterprises operating in thin training markets in rural, regional and remote locations;
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the large percentage of seasonal and itinerant workers;
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culturally and linguistically diverse workplaces across the continuum of large multinational corporations through to small family or individually owned and managed enterprises.
Industry has raised concerns that the system’s focus on full qualifications as the basis for how it plans, funds and delivers training is at odds with the long established learning culture prevalent across many of our sectors which is incremental, socially embedded and occurs over a lifetime.
In consultations with agrifood industry stakeholders, it is clear that industry supports a
‘building blocks’ approach to skills development and seeks policy that better recognises and funds this approach. It should be noted that the industry is not advocating skill sets at the expense of qualifications. For some agrifood sectors skill sets form part of an important pathway to full qualifications, while for others, they are a mechanism to further up-skill employees ’ post qualifications.
Five priority skills and workforce development challenges have been identified in the
2011 Environmental Scan for the agrifood industry:
1. Employer culture, regional and industry leadership;
2. Attraction of workers;
3. Adoption of higher level skills across the workforce;
4. Adoption and diffusion of new research findings, innovative practice and technology; and
5. Workforce retention and effective skills utilisation.
Understanding this context is critical to agile informed decision-making and targeted public investment in skills. Therefore a key area for action is the transformation of VET – its funding model and policy settings – into a contemporary skills and workforce development system that effectively services regional Australia and pro-actively supports building block approaches to skills development; one that invests as much in building capability of the enterprises as it does in ensuring competence of the individual; one that promptly diffuses research findings and new knowledge through collaboration with
Australia’s innovation system.
To this end the recommendations of the A Shared Responsibility: Apprenticeships for the 21 st Century does much to support the direction and actions identified by the agrifood industry. However, there are recommendations that need much greater consideration for the agrifood industry to fully benefit from the Report.
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AgriFood Skills Australia believes the Report has identified key strategies that will ensure a streamlined, responsive Australian Apprenticeships system for Australia.
However as a sector faced with critical skill shortages and thin training markets, particularly in regional Australia, the two recommendations of greatest concern are
Recommendations five and six.
Recommendation 5 - Redirect current Australian Government employer incentives to provide structured support services to eligible apprenticeships and traineeship.
The Report recommends that the structured support services should only be available to eligible apprenticeships and traineeships in occupations that are priorities for the
Australian economy. The Report proposes this would be determined by two tests: a priority occupations test and a transferability test.
AgriFood is concerned about the methods by which certain occupations and industries will receive funding priority as detailed in the Report.
Several lists, in particular the Specialised Occupation List (SpOL), the National Skills
Needs Lists and the state and territory lists, have been considered in the Report as suitable methods for distinguishing apprenticeships and traineeships as priority occupations and to determine which occupations should receive priority funding. The
Report also states if an occupation does not appear on any of these lists, its subsequent need for Australian Government support is debatable .
While it is acknowledged in the Report that these lists were not created for the purposes of determining government training support and investment, the Report argues that they are the most suitable available.
AgriFood is concerned that poor quality data embedded in these lists have the potential to impact negatively on our industry in terms of Government investment due to the agrifood industry generally not being well represented in the ANZSCO classifications at level four and above. In addition, many of the jobs in the agrifood industry are considered to be lowly skilled by the ANZSCO and therefore do not appear on the
Skilled Occupations List (SOL) or on the Specialised Occupations List (SpOL). Should this Report recommendation be adopted, this would lead to serious skilled labour shortages across all agrifood sectors and impact negatively on productivity and food supply.
In a recent submission to Australia’s Sustainable Population Strategy, AgriFood recommended a major revision of the SOL and the ANZSCO on which it is based to facilitate the use of both lists to better enable labour force and training policy development to meet industry needs. The current structure of the SOL largely neglects the range of labour needs of the agrifood industry.
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Recommendation 6 - Establishment of an Employer Contribution Scheme .
While this may suit some industries such as building and construction, for the agrifood sectors, which are extremely diverse and made up primarily of small to medium sized businesses it is problematic. Therefore AgriFood supports the Minister ’s position that funding systems requiring employer contributions not be introduced.
Establishment of a National Custodian
AgriFood Skills Australia supports the concept of a National Custodian to undertake a key leadership role to applying a whole system perspective to Australian
Apprenticeships particularly ensuring:
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consistent standards and alignment across all jurisdictions;
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consolidation of the number of stakeholders in the Australian Apprenticeships system;
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streamlining of service delivery and administration; and
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consistent allocation of funding nationally – or development of consistent funding models to be applied nationally.
As the aim of the Australian Government is to create a system that is far less complex than it is currently, it will be critical to align State functions and State funding policy with the directions set by the Custodian. Therefore it may be essential that referral powers to the National Custodian be considered by the
“taskforce”.
In establishing the “Taskforce” AgriFood strongly recommends that the employer groups represented actively engage with the agrifood industry and AgriFood Skills Australia to ensure that industry’s position is taken into account when progressing the establishment of the National Custodian. Industry Skills Councils are able to play an active role in engaging with the VET system to support nationally consistent policy.
Alignment of Policy and Funding and the methods of Priority Industry
Determination
AgriFood Skills Australia recommends greater alignment between policy, funding and the determination of priority industry status.
The report recommends that the Australian Government should focus on occupations that have tangible and enduring value for the economy – both in the traditional trades and the newer forms of apprenticeships and traineeships.
Given that the agrifood industry is a major employer – particularly in regional Australia, contributor to the national economy and critical to national food security it is recommended that:
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 the industry be considered a priority industry to receive additional funding for traineeships and apprenticeships while recognising industry’s preference for incremental “building blocks”; and
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a review of VET funding mechanisms be undertaken with the aim of creating consistent models nationally.
Employer on the job training
AgriFood Skills Australia supports the move to improve the quality of employer on-thejob training , as this is critical to the notion of “shared responsibility” and to ensuring retention and completion rates are high.
However to ensure success, it will be critical to encourage more employers – particularly those in small to medium sized enterprises – to take on an apprentice/trainee and that the recommended provision of support services such as mentoring and pastoral care be carefully implemented so that the bureaucracy doesn’t overtake the intention of the recommendation.
Also it will be imperative that support services be provided to assist employers to implement such strategies as mentoring and pastoral care.
AgriFood Skills Australia recommends that structured support for employers be established in consultation with industry, to provide high quality employment and workforce development experiences for eligible apprentices and trainees. The system is designed for employers but as currently structured, and acknowledged in the Report, is too complex and employers can easily be deterred from active engagement in the system. This has resulted in poor access to the system from the agrifood industry compared to other major industries. This is supported by NCVER data in a recent report.
For further details on this submission please contact
Arthur Blewitt
Chief Executive Officer
AgriFood Skills Australia
E arthur.blewitt@agrifoodskills.net.au
T (02) 6163 7200
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