Skills for Justice has recently undertaken a functional and occupational mapping exercise across the justice sector. The maps have been developed in consultation with experienced practioners employed in the sector and draft versions of both maps have been widely circulated and consulted upon. The Functional and Occupational Maps help highlight any overlaps or gaps in our current National Occupational Standards and inform a number of areas of work:

• standards development
• qualification development
• progression routes

The Functional Map describes the functions, or activities, that are carried out across the sector, and aims to identify functions that are common to two or more sub-sectors and those that are specialist. The Functional Map is primarily derived from the previous Functional Maps for community justice, custodial care, customs and excise, police, restorative justice and youth justice. These functional maps have now been combined into the justice sector Functional Map with the aim of removing duplication and making the transferability of functions more transparent.

The Occupational Map aims to provide a concise overview of the sector, and describes: the main employers and stakeholders, the numbers employed in the various sub-sectors, career progression and development for selected job roles, key trends and drivers for change within the sector and key characteristics of employment in the sector.

Final versions of the maps can be downloaded by visiting Functional and Occupational Maps on the Skills for Justice website.

The entire suite of Community Justice and Custodial Care National Occupational Standards (NOS) are currently being reviewed and updated to reflect significant changes in practice and in the organisation of services as well as other factors, including innovation in service provision, development of NOS in other parts of the sector and the revision of some imported units. The aim of this project is to produce a suite of revised, up to date and relevant NOS and qualifications, including NVQ and SVQ awards at levels 2, 3, and 4, for operational/practitioner staff in community justice and custodial care. There is an ongoing separate justice sector-wide development project which will create a suite of Higher Level awards relevant to managers across the whole sector.

The review of the existing Community Justice and Custodial Care NOS and qualifications has focussed on the following six areas:

1. appropriate adults
2. community safety and crime reduction
3. custodial care
4. offender management and community interventions
5. restorative justice
6. working with victims, survivors and witnesses

The consultation versions of the NOS will be available on our website during the week commencing 3 October, and will run until 1 November.

To view the consultation NOS visit the website www.skillsforjustice.com/ccandcjnosreview.html

The team in Wales has begun work with senior managers from across the justice sector to address leadership and management skills issues. The Skills Foresight focus groups in early 2005 identified this as a cross cutting theme for the sector. "Without sufficient focus on effective solutions to workforce development needs amongst managers, the justice sector will not make the most of all the effort going into increasing skills at an operational level." said Ken Gilliver, HMCS, Chair of the Skills for Justice Wales Country Group. "It is therefore essential that we are able to clearly identify the common issues and best practice in this area." Ken added.

The group will be working with Simon Leckie, Skills for Justice lead on leadership, management and diversity to identify current provision, best practice models and common skills issues. The information gathered will also contribute to a UK wide database on provision that is being developed to assist the sector in addressing skills gaps.

For further information about this work please contact the Nick Skeet, Skills for Justice Wales Country Manager by telephone on 01656 750 133.

Tuesday 27 September saw the first intake of students at the University of Ulster to the part-time Advanced Certificate in Community Safety. The class of 20 who have commenced the first module come from a wide range of agencies which will ensure a good representation of perspectives, and with that informed discussion.

For further information about Skills for Justice work in Northern Ireland please contact the country office by telephone on 028 9025 8028.

Skills for Justice would like to bring the following consultation to your attention. The Government's consultation on the future of the Adult Learning Inspectorate (ALI) and the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted), including a possible merger between the two, was launched on 29 July. The normal 12 week consultation period will end on 4 November. In line with the Chancellor of the Exchequer's statement before the General Election, the central proposition is that both the ALI and the childcare inspectorates might be joined to Ofsted to form a statutory regulator for 'children and learners'. That proposition is dependent for its acceptance on the support of employers. It is expected that if employers say 'No', the plan falls and the ALI will continue to stand independently, representing adult learning. 'Employers' in this instance, will be widely interpreted; the government wants to hear from everybody in the learning and skills sector.

The full consultation document is available on the DfES (www.dfes.gov.uk/consultation) and ALI (www.ali.gov.uk) websites. It is long and, for the most part, there is no mention of either employers or adults. The focus of concern is on increasing the tightness of regulation of schools and child protection. Because of the government's chosen form of consultation it would be easy for employers to think this consultation is not for them. However, the outcome of the consultation could affect the whole future development of the learning and skills sector.

The consultation questions directly concerning ALI's remit include:

Question 1. Through this consultation paper and linked activity we are seeking the views of respondents (including employers) on the proposition that ALI's existing inspection remit should be brought together into Ofsted to create a single inspectorate for children and learners. Please include any comments or suggestions with your views.

Question 5. If ALI's statutory post-16 learning and skills inspection functions were to be brought within a single inspectorate, how might its quality improvement and commissioned support and advice roles best be handled in the future?

Question 6. How might the needs of the organisations which are currently served by ALI best be met in the future.

You can answer these questions through the websites mentioned above or email your responses to: inspection.reform@dfes.gov.uk

The ALI does not support a merger with Ofsted. If employers within the Skills for Justice sector footprint have any reservations about this merger you may want to take this opportunity to say so. If you believe a merger is appropriate and have some ideas for government on how the ALI's quality improvement and contracted inspection functions might survive elsewhere, this is your opportunity to offer them. The ALI says it is determined to work with government and the learning and skills sector to find the best way forward to meet the challenges our country faces and are encouraging employers to join the debate.


Content in the article/s below has been supplied by external source/s. Skills for Justice can take no responsibility for the accuracy of the material, nor should their inclusion be taken to indicate Skills for Justice endorsement.

Energy and Utility Skills is the Sector Skills Council representing the needs of employers, in the electricity, gas, waste management and water industries. EU Skills and has recently produced the following National Occupational Stanards that are available for consultation:

• working in confined spaces
• operating process plant
• controlling water operations

The consultation period will run until 31 October, for further details please visit the Energy and Utility Skills website at www.euskills.co.uk or contact Jill Blacklin by telephone on 0845 077 7018.

SkillsActive, the Sector Skills Council for sport and active leisure, has recently launched a consultation to review current standards in spectator and crowd control. Working with colleagues across sport, colleges and the Safety Officers Association, SkillsActive is leading the review and further development of the current standards. There are currently three levels of standards that are used; Level 2 - appropriate to the work of stewards and marshals in all spectator events; Level 3 - covering the duties of senior stewards or anyone in a supervisory position and Level 4 - covering the more extensive responsibilities of ground/stadium safety officers. The standards are used by organisations that provide stewarding at sports events as benchmarks of good practice and targets for training.

The consultation to review current standards in spectator and crowd control is now taking place and will run until 19 October 2005. For further details please visit the SkillsActive website at www.skillsactive.com/newsstore/news130905001.

On 14 October the Nottinghamshire Drug and Alcohol Action Team (DAAT) and its employment initiative, Project Recruit, would like to invite you to the launch of 'Moving On', a short film promoting the benefits of recruitment and retention of ex-drug users in the workplace. Taking place at the Broadway Cinema, Broad Street, Nottingham, the film will be shown four times throughout the day.

To find out more details, or to book a place at the event please contact Jade Poyser by telephone on 01623 414 114, extension 6917.

National programmes and strategies for learning and development within the Police Service are increasingly underpinned by assessment against National Occupational Standards (NOS). Notable examples are IPLDP, CLDP, PRDLDP, WPLDP and PIP. These programmes are accompanied by assessment protocols which require assessors to be trained in their role. This means that assessors have achieved the A1 assessor award or have undergone training in assessment practice, such as that which leads towards the A1 award. The process of assessor accreditation can take time and resources. In order for a candidate to achieve A1 they need to be assessed by 2 qualified A1 assessors. Priority may be given to assessment towards an NVQ award, where assessors must hold the A1 award. To implement assessment protocols for some of the new programmes not currently leading towards a formal NVQ award, forces may have to take an incremental approach to developing A1 accredited assessors. Appropriate training would ena

Centrex, to support forces in making the first step towards this incremental growth of appropriately trained assessors, has developed a programme which can enable an in-force cascade of assessor training and assessment in the police context.

The programme consists a two-day workshop aimed at personnel currently in possession of their A1 (D32/33) award and an appropriate training qualification. In addition they need to be currently working in a workforce development role. The aim is to equip trainers to cascade assessor training locally to respond to local need and demand.

Workshops will be held in the week commencing 28 November 2005 at two locations (Bradford and Daventry). Attendance is free of charge for police forces, however places are limited. Further details will be circulated to Force Training Managers.

For further information about this project please contact Dr Rachel Cragg at Centrex by e-mail at rachel.cragg@centrex.pnn.police.uk.

On 14 October Tribal Education TCAD are running a conference in London NW1 for Skills for Life teachers and support staff to disseminate findings and share new teacher support materials developed during 2004/05 for the Offender Learning and Skills Unit.

The conference aims to:

• raise awareness of the issues of assessing, teaching and accrediting speaking and listening skills for offenders and the wider audience of skills for life learners
• disseminate research findings of the 2004/05 OLSU project on speaking and listening for first language adults, including offenders
• share findings from consultation with practitioners
• disseminate results of fieldwork carried out in offender settings
• share information and findings from other projects such as Speech and Language Therapy with Juvenile offenders and speaking and listening and Maths4Life, to ensure coherence disseminate materials designed and trialled as outcomes of the project
• discuss staff training needs identified as part of the consultation and trialling

This conference will be of interest to the following groups:

• providers of Skills for Life who want to learn about the relevance and importance of these new developments with regards to adult learning, and who want to contribute to this work in the future
• staff in Community and Family Learning settings
• workplace providers, TUC union learning representatives and providers of training
• prison and probation staff
• national, regional and local LSCs
• Criminal Justice SSC links

For further details about this free event please contact Sophie Allen by telephone on 01223 470 480 or by e-mail at sophiea@ctad.co.uk.

The college of North East London currently have a number of places available on the Social Work - Access to higher education level 3 course.

This course is for those wishing to pursue a higher education course in the field of social work and/or a related course. Course units include social policy, social work practice, psychology and sociology. Also taught are professional skills, study skills, information technology and Maths. Students will be expected to take GCSE equivalencies in English and Maths.

The course lasts for: 3 days a week for 1 year What you need: You must be at least 19 years old and have a minimum of 1 year's experience of voluntary or part-time paid work in the care sector. You are required to take an initial assessment and an interview.

After studying: Successful completion of this course will enable you to progress to the BA (Hons) in social work or other related degree courses.

If you are interested in finding out more about the course please contact the university telephone hotline on 020 8442 3055 or 020 8442 3568.