National Water Skills Audit - Australian Water Association

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Executive SummaryIssues in MeetingSkills NeedsIssues affecting the whole economy, or many sectors of the economy, chronically or fromtime to time, serve as a backdrop to this discussion, and often apply more acutely to thewater sector than to other sectors. For example, the construction and mining sectors areaccustomed to wide fluctuations in demand, highly competitive market conditions, withfrequent boom-and-bust cycles. The water sector is comparatively stable, with wellsignalledvariation in demand for skills, and more vulnerable to shocks.The current shortage of skills in Australia generally has been described as market failure.This is partly because it takes a finite time to rebuild capacity, not only in the widereconomy or selected sectors, but firstly within the organisations that will provide therequired education and training. These institutions are presently under strain, and poorlyequipped to respond to any increases in demand.Major issues particularly affecting the water industry today, most previously reported andconfirmed by this analysis, include:• A sector workforce with historically high long-term stability, and corresponding lowlevels of mobility, and in overall decline over the last 10 – 15 years.• Very low levels of recruitment and training, both external and in-house, in key skillareas, notably in technical and managerial categories, over that period.• The impending retirement of a large cohort of skilled workers, leaving significant gapsin skills and experience, within their organisations and the whole sector.• Changing capability requirements to meet the emerging demands of climate change,environmental management, new technologies, and the multi-disciplinary nature ofsustainable water management.• Limited experience and capability to attract and retain new entrants.These are compounded by concurrent issues faced by the education and training sector.Those that are especially relevant to capabilities to service the needs of the water sectorinclude:• With institutional restructuring and the decline in demand from the water industry,closure of water-specific education and training programmes.• Resource constrained, and current low capacity to engage with the water sector,update existing materials, generate new courses relevant to emerging needs and deliverindustry-relevant education and training.Closing theGaps• Low levels of entrants and completions in general programmes relevant to the watersector, including sciences and engineering.It is tempting to view present needs as urgent, and solutions in a corresponding shorttermframework. Both the water sector and the education sector operate in long timeframes,with gestation periods of years and decades. Addressing skills needs acrossthese sectors requires a long-term perspective, balanced with the need for urgent action.There are significant current commitments to education and training places, and recentfurther commitments announced and clarified. These have been identified in the maintext of the report. Most are vocational, including the headline commitment by theCommonwealth Government to providing 450,000 new training places. The challenges,to be explored further in the second phase strategy development, will be to ensure thatappropriate places are allocated to the water sector, and that providers are well equippedto deliver.Entrant places are a less significant issue for the university sector, though numbers ofgraduates in key disciplines are well below demand. There are structural issues to beresolved, and collaborative teaching approaches to be rolled out to ensure broad availabilityand high teaching standards are sustained nationally for specialist sector-specificviiiICE WaRM • National Skills Audit (Phase One) Report
Executive Summarydemands. These and other concepts, including closer engagement between universitiesand industry, will be evaluated further.Particular opportunities for Indigenous people did not feature in the survey and analysis, butare commented upon in the main text. It is noted than there is a companion project beingprepared for COAG in parallel with this project, to address water supply and sanitation forIndigenous and remote communities.Similarly, the matter of skilled migration was not comprehensively addressed withinthe survey and analysis, though general data and comments are reported. While skillsshortages are also reported in the water sector internationally, it is clear that skilledmigration will require more detailed consideration in the development of strategies.This report, prepared for the July 2008 COAG meeting, is only for the first phase of atwo-phase assignment. It confirms the seriousness of skills shortages and gaps in theAustralian water sector, with estimates of magnitude and composition. The second phasewill continue to develop issues raised in this analysis, and those not able to be well definedin the time available, to identify and evaluate strategies for addressing national water sectorskills. Wide consultation is planned, to ensure capture of current industry-based initiativesand leadership of outcomes. The strategy report will be presented to the October 2008COAG meeting.ICE WaRM • National Skills Audit (Phase One) Reportix
Page 1 and 2: Department of Environment, Water, H
Page 3 and 4: Table of ContentsAcknowledgementsii
Page 5 and 6: Executive SummaryBackgroundThe Coun
Page 7: Executive SummaryFor the WSAA segme
Page 11 and 12: 1.2 Terms of ReferenceAppendix B. T
Page 13 and 14: 2 MethodologyThe methodology for th
Page 15 and 16: This section consists of desktop re
Page 17 and 18: Australian Water Directory. This ma
Page 19 and 20: educated at the top levels, but les
Page 21 and 22: members (at all educational levels)
Page 23 and 24: Table 3.5: Australian Government st
Page 25 and 26: priority issues within the educatio
Page 27 and 28: Ages of the employees were recorded
Page 29 and 30: Figure 3.4.1: Workforce demand fore
Page 31 and 32: Table 3.6: Estimated headcount gaps
Page 33 and 34: 3.3 The ‘Non-Urban’ Water Indus
Page 35 and 36: Figure 3.7: Percentage of employees
Page 37 and 38: Age BracketsThe organisations were
Page 39 and 40: Sources of Recently Appointed Staff
Page 41 and 42: Table 3.14: The types of employees
Page 43 and 44: Table 3.15: Preferences of organisa
Page 45 and 46: Table 3.16: Estimated total sampled
Page 47 and 48: Table 3.18: Projected total (non-WS
Page 49 and 50: Table 3.19: Projected total sampled
Page 51 and 52: in these three sectors, with the la
Page 53 and 54: Table 3.23: Qualifications in sewer
Page 55 and 56: Table 3.25 shows the age profile of
Page 57 and 58: 4 Analysis of Results4.1 Combining
Page 59 and 60:
Table 4.4: Projected total addition
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Employment Gaps - Qualifications 20
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Recruiting and Retaining - GeneralW
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4.3 DiscussionA survey response was
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5 Outcomes/Issues5.1 Current Needs
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Figure 5.3: Composition of survey p
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Table 5.4 shows the combined result
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• There is a high demand for civi
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organisations such as CRCs or Inter
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6 Next StepsThe first phase of this
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ReferencesAttikiouzel Y 2008, ‘Li
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Water Industry Capacity Development
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Appendix ATerms of ReferenceICE WaR
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2. Lodgement Details2.1 Quotes shou
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PART A STATEMENT OF REQUIREMENT (Se
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• includes an executive summary o
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Appendix BProject organisation char
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Appendix CJob Family Description Jo
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