This month’s news in brief
Trailblazers announced
Minister for adult skills John Healey has revealed the five trailblazer
Sector Skills Councils which start work this month.
The 72 current NTOs will cease to exist in April, to be replaced by approximately
25 larger, more powerful Sector Skills Councils licensed by Government. The
"trailblazers" will inform government policy on establishing the full
SSC network and its remit.
Among the five is media organisation Skillset, which has had the full
support of its profession. "Employers, unions and industry organisations
threw their weight behind the bid," said chair of Skillset Bob Nelson.
The other four are taken from the land based industries, petrochemicals,
retail, apparel, footwear and textile sectors.
See Talking Points page 6 and Close up on Skillset’s Kate O’Connor page 33
Behavioural skills win
A major behavioural skills programme introduced by Co-operative Bank
Financial Advisers has helped it win a National Training Award. "The
training programme used language and behaviour profiles, helping advisers to
firstly understand their own natural preferences for processing information and
building relationships and secondly those of their clients," said CBFA
training and competence manager Marilyn Radford.
Development network
The best training teams increasingly use "learning" rather than
"training" in their title and may involve internal consultancy as
well as training in their remit. This was one of the conclusions reached at the
inaugural meeting of the Industrial Society’s Learning and Development Network.
A cross-section of the training community with a strong interest in best
practice, including the participants and winners in last year’s Training
Magazine TD2001 Award, also discussed how the best organisations communicate a
small number of key priorities throughout the business which in turn provide a
framework for training.
The next meeting of the Network is on 30 January. For more information
contact the Industrial Society’s Julie Amber on 020-7479 1000.
