The current Blair administration, and its predecessors, have grasped the skills mantel and have also identified links between skills, economic growth and equal opportunities. Good employers have always valued and invested in skills, and trade union membership has historically conferred the benefits of access to training and education.

Meanwhile, Sector Skills Councils we

The sheer complexity of learning and skills services has resulted in the establishment of another specialist niche service known as Information, Advice and Guidance, with its own acronym, IAG. Moreover, not a week goes by it seems without another government White Paper, pilot project or publication on learning and skills. Perhaps the difficulty lies in the fact that no one has yet decided who is responsible for training and educating the UK workforce.

Should it be the responsibility of the state through the education system at tax payer’s expense? Or perhaps employers should bare the burden of training - after all they profit directly from the skills of their workforce? How about the workers themselves? Maybe they should take responsibility for their own professional development and employability - no one can count on a job for life any more.

Learning and skills has become a high profile issue which is engaging a variety of organisations and stakeholders including trade unions, employers and Sector Skills Councils. Whilst the UK has a strong economy, productivity is trailing compared to our key competitors and poor skills is one of the reasons why. For example, over one third of adults in the UK do not have a basic school leaving qualification and five million people have no qualifications at all.

The current Blair administration, and its predecessors, have grasped the skills mantel and have also identified links between skills, economic growth and equal opportunities. Good employers have always valued and invested in skills, and trade union membership has historically conferred the benefits of access to training and education.

Meanwhile, Sector Skills Councils wer

The sheer complexity of learning and skills services has resulted in the establishment of another specialist niche service known as Information, Advice and Guidance, with its own acronym, IAG. Moreover, not a week goes by it seems without another government White Paper, pilot project or publication on learning and skills. Perhaps the difficulty lies in the fact that no one has yet decided who is responsible for training and educating the UK workforce.

Should it be the responsibility of the state through the education system at tax payer’s expense? Or perhaps employers should bare the burden of training - after all they profit directly from the skills of their workforce? How about the workers themselves? Maybe they should take responsibility for their own professional development and employability - no one can count on a job for life any more.

Learning and skills has become a high profile issue which is engaging a variety of organisations and stakeholders including trade unions, employers and Sector Skills Councils. Whilst the UK has a strong economy, productivity is trailing compared to our key competitors and poor skills is one of the reasons why. For example, over one third of adults in the UK do not have a basic school leaving qualification and five million people have no qualifications at all.

The current Blair administration, and its predecessors, have grasped the skills mantel and have also identified links between skills, economic growth and equal opportunities. Good employers have always valued and invested in skills, and trade union membership has historically conferred the benefits of access to training and education.

Meanwhile, Sector Skills Councils we

Should it be the responsibility of the state through the education system at tax payer’s expense? Or perhaps employers should bare the burden of training - after all they profit directly from the skills of their workforce? How about the workers themselves? Maybe they should take responsibility for their own professional development and employability - no one can count on a job for life any more.

Learning and skills has become a high profile issue which is engaging a variety of organisations and stakeholders including trade unions, employers and Sector Skills Councils. Whilst the UK has a strong economy, productivity is trailing compared to our key competitors and poor skills is one of the reasons why. For example, over one third of adults in the UK do not have a basic school leaving qualification and five million people have no qualifications at all.

The current Blair administration, and its predecessors, have grasped the skills mantel and have also identified links between skills, economic growth and equal opportunities. Good employers have always valued and invested in skills, and trade union membership has historically conferred the benefits of access to training and education.

Meanwhile, Sector Skills Councils we

Learning and skills has become a high profile issue which is engaging a variety of organisations and stakeholders including trade unions, employers and Sector Skills Councils. Whilst the UK has a strong economy, productivity is trailing compared to our key competitors and poor skills is one of the reasons why. For example, over one third of adults in the UK do not have a basic school leaving qualification and five million people have no qualifications at all.

The current Blair administration, and its predecessors, have grasped the skills mantel and have also identified links between skills, economic growth and equal opportunities. Good employers have always valued and invested in skills, and trade union membership has historically conferred the benefits of access to training and education.

Meanwhile, Sector Skills Councils we

The current Blair administration, and its predecessors, have grasped the skills mantel and have also identified links between skills, economic growth and equal opportunities. Good employers have always valued and invested in skills, and trade union membership has historically conferred the benefits of access to training and education.

Meanwhile, Sector Skills Councils were set up by the government to promote and encourage skills acquisition across 25 industry sectors. Learning and skills is one of those rare issues where traditional protagonists share a mutual interest - after all skills are good for employees, good for industry and good for the economy.

Let me now take you on a brief tour of the learning and skills landscape in order to sketch out the main players, and nail some of the more unwieldy acronyms. The trade union movement, of which UNISON, Amicus, T&G and GMB are the largest members, is headed up by the Trades Union Congress known as the TUC. Historically, trade unions have been vociferous in demanding greater access to education and training and still today membership benefits include access to subsidised, if not free, training opportunities.

In 2002 the government finally passed legislation giving legal status to ULRs (or Union Learning Representatives if given their full title). The relevant passage is covered by Section 43 of the Employment Act 2002. Within two years the TUC estimated that ULRs had empowered 100,000 people to access training in their workplace in one year.

Given this success, trade unions are now campaigning for the legislative right to include training in negotiations with employers, mandatory training levies and further statutory powers for ULRs. They are also seeking further influence on Sector Skills Councils, or (yet another acronym) SSCs, and support for more prescriptive learning agreements.

However, whilst trade unions are effective at campaigning for improved learning resources in the workplace they have yet to really exploit the potential of learning and organising. This represents a golden opportunity for trade unions but they have been slow to realise it. In the meantime the establishm