A month after the government outlined plans for Union Learning Reps to be given legal status, Lifelong Learning Minister Malcolm Wicks has announced a new injection of funding for Union Learning Funds.

The additional £11 million means that a total of £27 million will be available for union learning projects over the next four years. Announcing the move, Mr Wicks said: "I want the union of the future to be a learning union where learning becomes as important as the traditional focus on pay and conditions. More than ever before, the most significant contribution workers can make to improve their prospects and their standard of living is to learn new skills or upgrade their existing ones. They need help and encouragement to do this, and unions are ideally placed to deliver this." He added: "Evaluations have shown that (union) learning representatives are proving to be very effective at encouraging training and development in the workplace, particularly among workers with the lowest levels of skills, who may be sceptical about management efforts to get them to train."

Around 2,000 Learning Reps are currently working in organisations. Their role is to encourage learning in the workplace, although there's currently no requirement for them to be consulted over planned training programmes. The Trades Union Congress itself is involved in a number of training initiatives, and only recently launched a new virtual classroom at its National Education Centre. If you're interested in getting involved with this type of work, the TUC are currently advertising for ICT Training Associates on TrainingZONE - see our jobs pages to find out more.