Employees
April 01 2001
by Mike TuffreyApril saw the start of the new business-led Learning and Skills Council, with a budget of £5 billion and responsibility for all post-16 education and training in England outside universities. And not a moment too soon. Despite all the attention to education and training over the last decade or more, major industries and crucial growth sectors for the UK economy such as IT and financial services still find themselves lacking suitably qualified applicants. Whoever is ultimately responsible for the problem, it is good to see individual companies working together to find solutions.
A parallel reorganisation is underway in the industry-led national training organisations. The three main business organisations, the CBI, BCC and IOD, have made skills training the centre-piece of their pre-election manifesto, calling for an extra two million skilled workers over the next decade. But don't hold your breath for "training, training, training" to become the mantra of the next government, whatever the outcome of the election.