Skills White Paper 2005 ULF Workshop TUC briefings available at www'tuc'org'ukskills

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Skills White Paper 2005ULF WorkshopTUC
briefings available at www.tuc.org.uk\skills
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Skills White Paper some key themes

• Skills offer to employers
• National Employer Training Programme (NETP)
• Sector skills agenda
• Skills offer to adults
• Employees NETP and sector skills agenda
• All adults Level 2 entitlement etc.
• Benefit claimants New Deal for Skills
• Strengthening union role via a union academy
• Delivery and implementation
• key role of regional partnerships
• reforms to the supply of training and skills

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Some cross-cutting themes

• give employers a bigger say in design and
  delivery of publicly funded training but also get
  them to invest more in training workforce
• a clear ladder of progression for adult
  learners
• a bigger focus on Level 3 qualifications
• development of a high quality national
  Information, Advice and Guidance service
• Equality of opportunity

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National Employer Training Programme (NETP)

• retains key elements of pilots but no decision
  yet on wage subsidies
• bigger focus on Level 3 via
• Level 3 jumpers
• two new regional pilots
• regional/sectoral Level 3 priorities
• NETP to be developed as a gateway to meet all
  employer skills needs
• Delivery key role of new brokerage service and
  Regional Skills Partnerships

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Sector Skills agenda

• 22 SSCs licensed and final 3 due this summer
• 4 SSCs with Sector Skills Agreement
• another 6 by March 2006
• all with agreements by 2008
• SSCs to have lead role in designing new
  Vocational Diplomas for young people
• new network of Skills Academies

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Skills for adult learners

• Strengthening Skills for Life and ICT
• Level 2 entitlement to be rolled out with
  flexibilities to progress to Level 3
• Adult Learning Grant to be extended
• Foundation Degrees
• Information, Advice and Guidance
• Unitised and credit-based qualification system
• New Deal for Skills

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TUC welcome for .

• the recognition of the trade union role in
  learning and funding for the development of a
  union academy
• commitment to raising the number of trained union
  learning representatives to 22,000 by 2010
• developing a network of union representatives in
  the Skills for Business network
• ensuring that the Trade Union Learning and
  Modernisation Funds can be used flexibly to
  strengthen the trade union capacity in training,

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Skills for adult learners

• balance is very much skewed to the needs of
  employers as opposed to the lifelong learning
  needs of individuals
• important to ensure the strategy is employment
  led rather than employer led
• Government should introduce mechanisms to ensure
  that employers do engage in training, including
• the introduction of statutory rights on
  collective bargaining, paid time off to train and
  statutory levies in sectors where they are
  failing to address skills problems.