Working with unions to meet skills needs

Cutting training budgets will have an obvious impact on skills (‘US delight as EU firms slash training budgets’, Personnel Today, 21 March). The UK already lags behind our EU partners in the amount invested in direct staff training. However, the message is not all doom and gloom.

In the Budget the chancellor announced the national roll-out of the ‘Train to Gain’ programme this month, tasked with increasing workplace training among the low-skilled. The TUC will soon launch ‘Unionlearn’, an initiative aimed at providing the opportunity to improve basic skills or for continuous professional development. Both projects put the needs of employees centre stage.

Good employers are leading the way, working in partnership with unions to deliver real support to staff in training and skills development. As the chancellor said in the Budget, skills are vital to our economic success – for both staff and employers.

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Liz Smith
Director, Unionlearn

E-mail your letters to [email protected] or post them to Karen Dempsey, editor, Personnel Today, Quadrant House, The Quadrant, Sutton, Surrey SM2 5AS