The publication of the report of the Expert Group on Future Skills Needs has provided a valuable insight into the growing skills shortage in the high technology sector. It is the first collaborative effort between industry, education and Government to break the problem down into its constituent parts and treat it with the urgency it deserves.

The contribution of Mr Chris Horn, chairman and chief executive officer of Iona Technologies an Irish software success story currently quoted on the US Nasdaq stock market has been very significant. He has taken his role as chairman of the expert group extremely seriously and the resultant report reflects a commitment to delivering something more than lip service.

All too often industry reports are commissioned by some Government department which has the net effect of stringing together all the shortcomings of a particular sector. But they tend to be short on constructive plans to rectify existing problems. Since early last December, the expert group, comprising about 20 people from the civil service and agencies, universities and industry, met monthly to measure the scale of the skills shortage problem.

Now its report has managed to quantify the future skills requirements of the IT sector until 2003. It concluded that an additional 2,200 technical specialists will be needed in each of the next five years. This is on top of the 6,100 people with engineering and computer qualifications who enter the jobs market each year. The report predicts a further 900 engineering and computer professionals and 1,300 technicians in the same areas will be needed each year until 2003.

To arrive at these figures, the group had to develop its own system for forecasting, deriving economy-wide projections from the Economic and Social Research Institute's medium-term macroeconomic model as a base. Taking into account the rapidly changing IT sector not fully accounted for by the macro model the ESRI projections were replaced by detailed job growth projections specific to the hardware and software sectors. The group came up with three future demand projections, including high growth, basic growth and reduced growth employment scenarios.

The report advised that the State should plan its future growth on the basis of the high-growth scenario good advice considering the worst outcome could only be an oversupply of skilled technicians and engineers. However, Mr Horn expressed his dissatisfaction with current methods of forecasting, saying: "Matching the supply of skills with the potential future demand is a complex exercise. Yet it will be a critical factor in ensuring continuing rapid growth of the economy and in maintaining our competitiveness. If we can accurately forecast future skills requirements, we will have a key success factor for continued growth."

This is a key recommendation of the report, as it reflects a commitment to establishing a measurement structure which can be revisited annually. Central to tackling the skills shortage problem is being able to arrive at a breakdown of skills gaps from one IT sector to the next, and catering for those requirements before they become a problem.

What sets the report apart from others is its commitment to constructively helping to solve the problem, as opposed to simply highlighting the gaps left by the skills deficit. It details every possible source of technical expertise, and the likely jobs that can be generated in each sector over the next five years.

One of the key additional sources of labour supply was identified as the growing stream of returned emigrants and immigrants finding work. However, Mr Horn advises that this is only a good short-term solution, saying: "An increasing reliance on foreign nationals to fill the skills need may lead to wage inflation as they exert pressure on the economy by demanding global wage levels. The element of rotation must also be considered as many people may only work here for a year or two before returning to other countries."

Four possible initiatives to increase the supply of technical expertise were outlined. Full-time degree courses need to generate 400 new professional graduates each year. To cover this on a year-by-year basis, 2,120 new degree places are required.

It was also calculated that employee upskilling, where people already employed in the IT sector engage in night and part-time study, could increase the annual supply of professionals by 50 and technicians by 350. Conversion courses one-year intensive courses in specific fields of expertise may produce an additional 350 graduates each year if "a proactive campaign to attract students was introduced in the universities".

However, Dr Danny O'Hare, chairman of the Conference of Heads of Irish Universities and president of Dublin City University, expressed reservations about this aspect of the report, saying: "Conversion courses tend to have limited use, because they are only one-year immersions in specific areas of software engineering. They don't produce professionals in the longer term".

An improvement in college completion rates was pinpointed as another area where significant numbers could be attained. Findings in this sector were quite surprising: it was estimated 35 per cent of students on technical courses do not complete their studies. By reducing this figure by 10 per cent, it would deliver a further 350 technicians annually. At degree level the completion rates are higher at 80 per cent, though a 5 per cent increase would generate another 100 professionals annually.

This level of course dropout has not gone unnoticed, and the reasons are currently being analysed by the Higher Education Authority for degree students, and the Department of Education and Science for technicians. The expert group will review the findings when the work is completed, as improving third level college completion rates have been identified as the most cost effective way of increasing the skills supply.

Now that the expert group's report has been published, an implementation group has been established also chaired by Mr Horn to ensure the recommendations of the report do not get lost in bureaucratic limbo.

The group is also extending its efforts to other areas of the economy, apart from the IT sector. It now intends to focus its attentions on the low and medium-skills sectors. If it can sustain the momentum of its good work to date and convert the report's recommendations into jobs, there is every reason to be confident the skills shortage will be successfully tackled.