While industrial bodies such as the Chemistry Leadership Council, Cogent (the UK Sector Skills Council) and other industry trade bodies have developed new strategic agendas for the industry skills base, there remains an urgent imperative to align these to specific and local needs.

These strategies must also align to the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) who continue to work through local education, academic and skills providers to developed and ensure delivery of skilled workforce relevant to industries and cluster needs.

HCF continue to see a pivotal role in ensuring these broader industry based strategies are well articulated at a local level and aligned to the needs and industry goals of agencies like the LSC and the chemicals industry. Since its formation HCF has always promoted a strong skills agenda linked to the needs of the local industry. To achieve these aims HCF is responsible for the ChemSkills forum (formerly CITO). Further details of Chemskills project can be found through the link at the bottom of the page.

In addition sponsored programmes have included employment research and children challenging industry initiatives. A major achievement in skills development has been CATCH (Centre for Assessment of Technical Competence Humber). The CATCH concept has been founded on detailed local industry and employer research and developed by a public-private partnership and collaborative approach hosted and project managed by HCF.

The new £8 million state of the art facility on the Humber provides skills assessment and development for, and on behalf of, the chemical industry and supply chain organisations.