1. New Anglia Sector Skills Plans
Ports & Logistics
17th April 2018
Martin Collison (

2. The Education and Skills Funding Agency, working with New Anglia LEP, funded by ESF, awarded a contract to SkillsReach to develop eight Sector Skills Plans for New Anglia during :
The plans are to inform future investment in skills by the public sector and employers to support future growth
The New Anglia Skills Board focuses on post 16 education and training and has successfully attracted City Deal and EU funding:
Initially its work was generic, e.g. Employer Incentive Pilot
In 2016 the Skills Board began to develop a sectoral focus & led two sector skills plans: health & social care; construction

3. The following Sector Skills Plans have now also been completed:
Agri Food Tech
Digital Tech
Energy
Life Sciences and Bio-technology
Advanced Manufacturing and Engineering
Ports and Logistics
Financial and Insurance Services
Tourism and Culture

4. The sector skills plans are intended to be:
Concise documents, recognised & owned by employers
Focused on a few priority actions to promote growth
Once adopted, they will be priorities for the Skills Board & inform future funding
Each plan contains both a short narrative & data pack:
Focus on barriers: types of training required & how the skills system functions
& propose, at most, 5-6 key actions to address these barriers
Most of the plans include an action focused on creating a group to lead on skills for the sector to feed into the LEP sector group (where one exists) & the LEP Skills Board

5. National/Global Ports and Logistics Sector Trends
Long term there has been steady growth in trade volumes
Value of global merchandise trade rose by +32% to $16trillion (about double the value of all food consumed globally) in the decade to 2016 even as the economy recovered from the 2007-’10 downturn
Whilst this was a big fall from the +124% growth seen from , it shows that the value of World trade continued to grow even during slow growth periods

6. National Ports and Logistics Sector Trends
Data from DfT (2017) shows that annual motor vehicle traffic at a record high:
Car traffic at 253.7billion miles – up 2.2% in the last decade;
Lorry traffic fell was 16.5billion miles – down by 8.7% in the last decade;
Van traffic was 50.1billion miles – up by 21.2% in the last decade.
In the last 20 years Traffic on all road types increased except for urban ‘A’ roads:
Motorway network +35.4%
Rural A roads +21%
Rural minor roads +24.5%
Urban A roads -0.9%
Other urban roads +7.8%

7. National Ports and Logistics Sector Trends (DfT 2017)
From the number of passengers using trains rose by +56%
Rail system is focused on London, with 64% of all rail journeys starting or ending in the capital
Rail freight is 9% of domestic freight at circa 15billion net tonne kilometres
Freight has fallen in the last 5 years by about a quarter, although all this fall is due to a fall in the volume of coal moved by rail freight to power stations

8. New Anglia Ports and Logistics Sector
Gross Value Added (GVA) in 2015 of £2.33bn, 6.5 % of New Anglia total
GVA increased by £553m since 2010, +31 % - much higher than growth in the whole economy (+17 %)

9. New Anglia Ports and Logistics Sector
48,700 staff, 6% of the New Anglia workforce
2015 Employment was 5,500 more than 2010 (+13%), compared to +7% across the New Anglia economy as a whole
Freight employs 86% of the workforce and passenger transport 14%
‘Freight transport by road’ is the largest employer with 9,500 staff
Followed by ‘Maintenance & repair of motor vehicles’ with 8,000 staff
3rd largest sub sector is ‘Operation of warehousing & storage facilities for land transport activities’ with 4,800 workers

10. New Anglia Ports and Logistics Sector
In 2016:
4,085 Transport & Logistics enterprises operating in the New Anglia area, or nearly 7% of all enterprises
Since 2010 the number of Transport & Logistics enterprises has increased by 595, or +17%, much higher than the total New Anglia rate of growth (+9%)
However, this growth rate is still below regional and national growth rates for the sector (+33% and +36% respectively)
This very high growth rate in enterprises is we think attributable to self employed delivery drivers (see above increase in ‘van miles’)

11. New Anglia Ports and Logistics Sector
Feedback (65 businesses & other stakeholders):
The challenges on workforce & skills are mainly focused on three areas:
Short to medium term (or possibly longer term) challenge in securing the workforce needed e.g. drivers & warehouse staff (esp. post Brexit);
An expectation that investment in automation & clean transport will accelerate in the next 5-10 years - big increase in demand for engineering, ICT & digital skills;
A current & longer term challenge in securing the management skills to drive change & promote trade, innovation & growth in the industry.

12. New Anglia Ports and Logistics Sector
Feedback:
A lack of strategic leadership at LEP (i.e. Norfolk & Suffolk) level for the sector;
Need to focus on sector growth enabled by skills – not just skills alone;
Concern that the local area has very little training provision for the sector, many staff train elsewhere & companies forced to address skills needs alone – but a desire as skills needs evolve to engage more with College / University support;
Concerns over lack of courses, e.g. a lack of apprenticeship standards for drivers, which means levy not used & workforce supply gaps unfilled;
Need to consider working with/linking to other LEP areas with major logistics focus/clusters e.g. South East Midlands; London & SE; Greater Lincolnshire.

13. Co-ordination by Ports & Logistics Sector (& Skills) Group
Leads on sector growth potential, skills needs to grow the sector &
acts as a key advocate for careers in the Ports & Logistics sector 
Delivery through three linked programme delivery areas:
1: Workforce Supply
To meet short to medium term workforce supply challenges e.g. drivers
2: Management & Leadership Skills
To support management, trade & marketing skills to grow the sector & make it more efficient
3: Logistics Technical Skills
To equip the sector with the skills needed to embrace new technology for transport & logistics
Supported by strategic investment in area 4: Ports & Logistics Skills Centres
By developing existing & new centres with specialist facilities & staff
to support Ports & Logistics course delivery

14. Next steps
The plan is due to be presented to the LEP Skills Board in early summer 2018
With 10 sector skills plans the LEP has limited capacity to take all 10 forward at the same time and in the same detail
Action likely to focus on:
Cross cutting issues which affect multiple sectors e.g. industry 4.0, engineering, ICT skills etc.
Supporting sectors which have strong industry leadership to help drive forward skills investment programmes

15. Thank you for listening
Martin Collison
(07802)