The Learning and Skills Council (LSC) is to get a £1bn funding boost, taking its annual budget to improve England’s skills and competitiveness up to a massive £11.2bn.
The increased funding marks a 20% rise in the Learning and Skills Council’s budget over the past two years, despite calls from employers’ groups for the council to be completely overhauled. Half the extra money will go to funding the government’s ‘Train to Gain’ scheme and the rest will go on general investment across the organisation.
The Learning and Skills Council recently announced it had hit all its interim targets set by the government in spite of complaints about the service it provides from groups such as the CBI and EEF.
Rob Wye, LSC director of strategy, said that despite objections from employers groups, the learning and skills sector should be proud its achievements so far.
“We have a mountain to climb but the amount of focus on learning and skills in the UK has never been greater,” he said.
