Over the course of a year a whole range of reports land on my desk.

Some, for example those dealing with labour market data or industry trends, are quite clearly of direct relevance to business. Others seem at first glance to be less so, but on closer inspection prove to deal with the wider framework within which companies operate.

One of these latter reports arrived this week. NACETT, the National Advisory Council for Education and Training Targets, has published a report entitled Fast Forward for Skills. This is a report for government on the future national targets for education and training.

It further examines the current targets for the achievement by companies of the Investors in People standard, and extends the targets for this within the ten-50 employee band of companies.

Now it may seem that these targets are something for the TECs and Education Authorities to worry about, but nothing to concern individual firms. However, the authors of the NACETT report state quite clearly that the whole point of these targets is to increase UK competitiveness.

Throughout the report they give evidence which shows that, although not doing badly in terms of skills attainment, the UK is still behind some of our international competitors.

The key to business success is to have the right skills to do the job, but also the right skills to cope with the sort of change which modern business must face.

The companies who will be around in ten, 20 or 50 years' time are those who can thrive on this change, and develop a culture of continuous skills development. It is this sort of culture which NACETT hope to develop through the targets they are proposing.

Paul Twiddy is information manager at Business Link Bradford & District

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.