New entrants in the market are offering legal services, particularly in commoditised law, such as personal injury and conveyance.
Earlier this month the Financial Skills Partnership, the Sector Skills Council for the accounting, finance and financial services sector, and
Skills for Justice, the Sector Skills Council for legal services, justice and the community safety sector, merged.
Alan Woods OBE, the Group Chief Executive, is keen to see further expansion.
His immediate priorities are two-fold.
“Financial Skills Partnership and Skills for Justice have now come together under a parent company, but we are keeping the separate brands.
“We have all the efficiencies and savings across the business by being a bigger organisation, but we keep the distinctiveness.
“So for the employer in the justice sector, we will still be in Skills for Justice.
“We have developed a brand portfolio that employers will recognise.”
Hence the new brands – Skills for Local Government, Skills for Armed Forces and Skills for Fire and Rescue.
Mr Woods is also looking for new opportunities outside the UK.
“I also want to develop our offer in a global market place for skills.”
From legal to financial was an obvious step, he explains:
“We are finding there is a general blurring in the distinction between the financial and legal services sectors.
“New entrants are using different workforces from those traditionally provided by solicitors. For example the Co-op are recruiting thousands of apprentices to deal with legal services matters.
“Because the market was going in that direction we thought it would be useful to provide a one-stop service for a range of employers offering financial and legal services.
“At the same time there is a demand in legal services to get to grips with government support for apprenticeships, not traditionally something they have approached before.”
Mr Woods has been working in the skills sector for more than five years, and he concurs there has been a change in emphasis in that short time.
“Before we were very much driven by the skills and education sector itself; now there is much more emphasis being placed on employers demanding the skills they want for their workforce.
“That is also where the political emphasis has also moved to, that employers are at the heart of the system.”
There is also a difference of emphasis depending on where in the UK skills are being delivered.
“With justice, you had eight police forces in Scotland that have come together into one force - that is not the emphasis in England and Wales, where we have established the College of Policing.
“Northern Ireland has devolved policing, so there are different needs.
“We have a strong representation in each of the four nations as skills is a devolved issue.”
As for employers, “they will ask us to do a range of workforce development activities, whether that is introducing apprenticeships or competency frameworks, and they will ask us to develop the standards that underpin all of that.
“In most of our sectors, particularly in justice, the training is done in-house. We design the standards that they train to and we will work with them and even turn those potentially into vocational qualifications.
“We are making a much clearer offer to employers to reflect where the market is developing and to make sure we have subject matter experts in each employer group.
“It is a very tailored offer to each sector.”
Skills for Justice is also at the forefront of new level six and seven apprenticeships, equivalent to bachelors and masters degrees, meaning that apprenticeships can better support the development of high-level skills necessary for economic growth.
Its new degree-level Higher Apprenticeship in Legal Services could even offer a vocational route to becoming a solicitor.
Skills Minister Matthew Hancock is certainly a fan of this kind of approach.
He said new apprenticeships at degree level and above send “a clear signal that practical learning is a viable route to the professions”.