This week's issue of People Management magazine contains a news feature highlighting some of the findings of a recent IPD-sponsored survey into employers' attitudes towards training. The main report is scheduled to be launched at the HRD conference in early April, however, this articles trails several of the findings, including -

- More companies than ever appear to have a training budget

- A year ago, 25% of companies were training staff via the Internet or intranets; that figure has grown over the past year by 13% for Internet use and 17% for intranet use.

- "people centred objectives were seen as less important than more business-focused goals" on training managers agendas

- Managers were increasingly using cost benefit analysis methods to identify training needs.

- More firms were developing training internally rather than out-sourcing.

There are some surprising, and some less surprising findings here, so it will be interesting to read the full report when it's available.

TrainingZone's own online survey conducted last summer showed an overwhelming 72% of respondents favoured a workplace system in which employees has both an allowance of time and an individual budget for their development; only 11% of respondents felt that training should be solely at the employer's discretion.