BALI commits to phase one of the OHRT's Skills Needs Analysis project

The British Association of Landscape Industries' (BALI) Chief Executive Wayne Grills was at the RHS offices in Vincent Square, London yesterday, attending an Ornamental Horticulture Roundtable (OHRT) meeting to discuss the planned phase one development of the Skills Needs Analysis study. Phase one of the extensive project, which is led by the Employment and Skills sub-group of the OHRT group and authored by Pye Tait Consulting, will seek to identify a detailed skills-analysis of ornamental horticulture businesses across the UK. The findings will inform the ORHT's strategy and objectives, help to prioritise future action and support the case for lobbying government and requests for funding. In particular on the skills agenda, the group needs the government to commit to securing access to a sufficient labour force post-Brexit and to better promote skilled career pathways into the industry.

Discussions took place on Wednesday this week to decide on a number of important factors for phase one of the study, which saw the ORHT group agree to a methodology, define the scope and parameters of the paper and prepare a pilot of an impending survey that will be used with a small cross-section of employers operating within the industry, to gain early feedback and feed in to phase two.

This project is also running alongside a separate planned study through the ORHT group to establish the contribution of UK ornamental horticulture to the UK economy.