Ministers scrap apprenticeship red tape; a government agency is calling for ideas to improve the skills system and research reveals there is a gender gap in attitudes to training. All these stories and more in our summary of training news.

Parliament might be on its summer holidays but ministers are still busy scrapping apprenticeship bureaucracy. Do ministers take summer holidays? Would we notice if they did? After all, an increasing number of managers are taking work on holiday.

Consultations have been making the news this week. A government agency is calling for ideas to improve the skills system. And a consultation gives approval to local authority opinion.

That brings us to research – and the gender gap is back in the news as research reveals a gap in attitudes to training. This week's second piece of research indicates that the jump to national leadership can be a perilous voyage.

We're being naughty in selecting our favourite story this week – with the Olympics now underway we've spent the past month expecting to be inundated with stories with some form of games connection. To our surprise nothing appeared – perhaps all the PR and marketing people who normally conjure up these ideas were on holiday and didn't take their work with them!

In the absence of an Olympic story, we're settling for a favourite headline of the week: Buy a Red Cross trainer.

These weren't the only stories we've covered this week. Go to also on TrainingZone.co.uk to see all our news and features.