TUC Reaction to White Paper

Commenting on the Government White Paper Raising Expectations: Enabling the System to Deliver announced today (Monday), TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said:

“Many of the proposed reforms, such as giving local authorities a greater strategic role for young people, should help more employees get the skills they need. But with two in five workers still not getting any regular training at work, this organisational reform must not divert attention from the wider skills challenge - getting more employers to offer quality apprenticeships and training opportunities.

“It’s vital that as well as meeting the skills needs of employers, more individual employees are helped to get new skills under these new arrangements. Unions can help to do this, both at a strategic level and on the ground, through the 18,000-strong network of union learning reps.

“The Learning and Skills Council (LSC) has played an important role in supporting the Government’s skills strategy in recent years. Ministers must ensure that the expertise built up by LSC staff is utilised in any future arrangements, without recourse to redundancies.”