Skills experts from Australia and Finland will be in Scotland this week to provide advice on how organisations and businesses can make better use of the skills of their workforce.

While Scotland's construction industry has a good record on skills acquisition and development, the improvements in the workforce's skills profile during the last 10 years have not been accompanied by improvements in productivity.

The need to improve skills utilisation has become even more important for the Scottish Government and businesses given the current economic situation.

Caroline Alcorso, Manager of Workforce Development with New South Wales's Education Department, Noela Eddington, Director with Queensland's Department of Education, Training and the Arts, Kim Windsor, director with Windsor Associations, Australia and Tuomo Alasonin, Director of Technology and Research in the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation, will be in Scotland to take part in a four-day programme of skills events.

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This includes giving presentations to the 21st Scottish Forum on Lifelong Learning on Skills Utilisation and a Successful Skills Strategy.

Education Secretary Fiona Hyslop, who chairs a leadership Group to champion effective skills utilisation in Scotland, said: "Scotland has a good record in the acquisition and development of skills as seen by our relatively strong performance on skills qualifications.

"However, if we are to create a more successful country and ensure Scotland emerges strongly from the current economic downturn, we need to do much more with the skills available to us.

"We need to make better use of the skills of our people and tackle the barriers that hinder their full and creative use. That means ensuring learning is transferred to the workplace and there is good quality leadership and management, human resource practices and workplace organisation in all sectors," she said, commenting that effective skills utilisation is a long-term challenge which must recognise the unique circumstances and needs of different individuals, organisations and learning providers.

"Our international visitors each have a strong track record of improving skills utilisation in their home nations. I hope we will be able to learn from their experiences to address this important issue for the benefit of our people and our economy."

(BMcC)