Government launches National Apprenticeship Week
The government today launched National Apprenticeship Week, celebrating the commitment of employers to recruit apprentices and urging people to look at the benefits to their skills and career of becoming an apprentice. Major UK employers are expecting to hire thousands of apprentices in 2010 and the government is encouraging all businesses to take up […]
MPs slam Train to Gain scheme
A scathing report released this week has slammed the Train to Gain scheme for poor implementation including overspending and unrealistically high targets as well as the lack of prevention of fraud. The report, by the House of Commons’ Committee of Public Accounts, found a catalogue of errors in the implementation of the £1.5bn scheme […]
Government set for skills make-over as whitepaper is announced
The UK is set for a skills shake-up after Lord Mandelson announced a new government strategy that aims to simplify the national education and training system. Launched yesterday, ‘Skills for Growth – The National Skills Strategy’ whitepaper, produced by the Department for Business Innovation and Skills, heralded new beginnings for the heavily critisised and complicated […]
Four questions every training manager should be asking themselves
With training remaining under pressure from tightening budgets, Steve Vaughan sets out the four key questions that every training manager should be asking themselves. What is your strategy for surviving the recession? There are lots of theories out there about surviving a recession. Some companies have looked at cause and effect; others invest in predictive […]
New government business and skills panel announced
Business Secretary Lord Mandelson today announced the creation of a new advisory panel on New Industry, New Jobs, Universities and Skills. The new panel, to be chaired by Roger Liddle, will help generate ideas across the whole of the government’s New Industry, New Jobs agenda, link it with the skills and higher education agenda and […]
Mandelson’s new department unveiled
Lord Mandelson has outlined the responsibilities of his Ministerial team at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. The new department was created last week out of the merger of the Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform, and the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills. Lord Mandelson said of the merger: "The government needs […]
Where has all the money gone?
Despite former Skills Secretary, John Denham’s pledge for a ‘summer of learning,’ reports of funding worries and empty coffers continue to circulate. So is Gordon Brown’s vision of a training utopia over before it’s even begun? Verity Gough asks: Where has all the money gone? When this year’s ‘jobs’ Budget was announced, there must have […]
