Britain’s Lost Skill, and How We Get It Back The GRIT Manifesto: A Policy for Real Skills
We have built an elaborate edifice of funding streams, audits, and targets, a structure that rewards compliance, not competence.
In 2013, The Social Mobility All Party Parliamentary Group concluded that the system itself was the problem, not the people. It found that character and resilience were the main determinants of success, yet our education and training systems did little to develop either. Over a decade later, very little has changed.
If anything, there is even less understanding of what genuine skill means. We have built an elaborate edifice of funding streams, audits, and targets, a structure that rewards compliance, not competence.
For anything to change, the reason why has to be strong enough. We must raise awareness, gather evidence, and face the seriousness of what has been lost. It will bruise egos and damage reputations, but it is a price worth paying.
Employers repeatedly tell us they hire for attitude and train for skill, yet the system teaches neither. The attitudinal and motivational elements, the very foundation of confidence and aspiration, are almost non-existent.
Back in the 2000s, during the days of Train to Gain, I recall a conversation with someone who proudly explained how employers could tweak paperwork to qualify for funding. That was when we began training for forms, not for life.
Training became a cost, not an investment. A tick-box exercise, not a commitment to people.
And so we arrive here, a country where employers are desperate for skilled hands, yet billions have been spent producing certificates instead of craftsmen.
The GRIT Manifesto: A Policy for Real Skills
We have moaned long enough. The time for analysis is over. The time for construction has come.
Britain needs a new compact between government, industry, and the workforce, one built on real outcomes, not bureaucratic theatre.
“We no longer have a skills problem. We have a skills bureaucracy, an industrial machine that eats money and produces nothing of lasting value.”
— John McDonough, Managing Director, Recro Consulting
He is right. We have replaced the apprenticeship with the spreadsheet, the coalface with the consultant, and the master with the manager.
If we want a country that works again, we must return training to the people who actually do the work.
1. Take the Money off the Middlemen
Billions have poured into colleges, private providers, and consultancies that measure learning in reports, not results.
“Only those who train should be paid to train.”
— John McDonough
That means ending automatic funding to intermediaries and replacing it with a direct skills rebate. Companies that take on apprentices or trainees get money back from the state, tied to verified outcomes, real jobs, real productivity, real skills.
This one reform would wipe out a generation of waste and reconnect training to work.
2. Build a National Skills Trust
Britain should establish a National Skills Trust, an independent, employer-led body that holds and distributes all public training funds. Every employer would contribute a modest payroll levy, reclaimable only if they actually train people.
Train someone and you get your contribution back, plus a top-up. Train no one and your levy funds those who do.
“This would turn training into a genuine investment, not a compliance exercise.”
— John McDonough
3. Local Apprenticeship Boards
Skills are local, not central. The trades that power Manchester differ from those that sustain the Midlands or the Highlands. Local Apprenticeship Boards, run by employers and chambers of commerce, should decide what trades are needed and who is qualified to teach them.
Let Birmingham, Wolverhampton, and Coventry decide what their future workforce requires, not Whitehall.
4. Rebuild Real Apprenticeships
Let us stop calling six-month courses apprenticeships. They are not.
A true apprenticeship takes three to five years, combines on-site learning with classroom study, includes structured mentorship, and ends in an independent test of mastery. Anything less is deception.
We should reserve the word “apprentice” for those who earn it. The rest can call themselves trainees.
5. Value the Masters
Every great apprentice needs a master. Yet the mentors who pass on their craft are too often unpaid and undervalued.
“If a company trains an apprentice, the skilled man or woman on the shop floor should receive a direct training premium for teaching the next generation.”
— John McDonough
This is how we preserve expertise and dignity in work, instead of losing both to retirement or foreign recruitment.
6. End the College Monopoly
Colleges once stood for craftsmanship. Now too many are bureaucratic holding pens. Under reform, they must earn their place.
They should form real partnerships with employers and be paid only for verified outcomes. Where private training companies have failed, they should be allowed to fall. Every pound of public money must be traceable to a real person in a real job.
7. Modern Guilds
To protect standards, restore pride, and keep ethics alive in the trades, we should reintroduce modern guilds.
Every apprentice who completes training should be registered with their local Guild, gaining recognition as a qualified tradesperson. Guilds would monitor competence, encourage lifelong learning, and strike off those who fail to uphold standards.
This is how Britain once built the world’s trust, through self-regulating pride, not distant bureaucracy.
8. The British Skills Guarantee
Let us set a clear target. Within ten years, 80% of skilled labour on major UK projects should be home-trained.
Every major public contract, from infrastructure to hospital refurbishments, should include a Skills Clause requiring a minimum number of apprentices to be trained through the project itself.
If companies want public money, they must help build Britain’s workforce.
9. The Role of Government
Government must do less but do it better. It should:
Set the framework, not the curriculum.
Fund outcomes, not institutions.
Publish real data on employment, retention, and productivity, not completion rates.
“Government should get out of the way and let employers, workers, and guilds build the system from the ground up.”
— John McDonough
10. Restoring Pride
Ultimately, this is not just economic reform. It is cultural repair.
Britain once built ships, bridges, and engines, and with them, pride and community. We have to rediscover that sense of purpose and say again that a carpenter, mechanic, or welder is as vital as any banker or politician.
“If we get this right, the next generation will not just hold certificates. They will hold tools, instruments, and purpose, and they will build a country that actually works.”
— John McDonough
This is the GRIT Manifesto.
It calls time on the training charade, rewards those who teach, empowers those who care, and demands that Britain once again values skill, craft, and contribution.
Because without the people who make things, nothing else works.