Introduction

Once again the skills, learning and training landscape, and government funding for skills and further education (FE), have changed. The Conservative-led coalition government outlined its plans in a strategy document published in November 2010, Skills for sustainable growth and the associated funding plans document, Investing in skills for sustainable growth.

Changes include the abolition of the Train to Gain programme, which has been replaced with a much smaller programme of financial support for workplace training and targeted at small and medium businesses. While there is more support for apprenticeships, which has been welcomed by trade unions, funding entitlements for individuals have generally been scaled back, particularly for those aged 24-years and over. There are also cuts in English as a Second Language (ESOL) provision for migrant workers.

In addition, the changes come against a backdrop of rising unemployment, which unions predict will get much worse as a result of the swingeing public spending cuts, and which include a 25% cut to the FE budget over the next four years.

Almost two and a half million (2.43 million) people are now unemployed, nearly 8% of the workforce. For young people the situation is even worse, with the latest official statistics showing that youth unemployment (those aged between 16 and 24) stands at 895,000. Almost one in five (19.3 %) of young people are unemployed.

And for those in work, inflation (at around 4.5%) is running at more than double the government’s target of 2%, at the same time as many workers are seeing their pay frozen if not cut, making training and learning opportunities unaffordable.

But while it is an incredibly challenging time for union-led learning, unions have an impressive track record in this area, acknowledged in the government’s skills strategies, and learning and skills development, including apprenticeships, is set to remain a key priority for trade unions.

With the support of the TUC’s learning and skills organisation, unionlearn, unions have already trained around 25,000 reps since 1999, providing the opportunity for thousands of workers to develop new skills or update existing ones. And the Union Learning Fund (ULF) has funding of £21.5 million for 2011-12 to support union-led learning projects that meet its current priorities.

This booklet informs trade unionists about the changes arising from the Skills for sustainable growth strategy. It also provides a summary of the changes to the funding of skills and further education (FE) set out in the associated document, Investing in skills for sustainable growth, although trade union learning officers warn that the funding situation for learning and training is very fluid and changeable.

It sets out the latest developments with regard to the apprenticeships agenda, trade union input into the learning and skills agenda, and provides examples of the learning opportunities that unions and union learning reps (ULRs) are providing for their members at workplaces and in their local communities — including support for workers at risk of redundancy.

The booklet also looks at the link between learning and organising, briefly describes the law in relation to the rights and role of ULRs, the right of employees to request time to train, and equalities issues around learning and training. And finally, it provides information about and contact details for learning and training organisations where union reps and members can find further information advice and guidance on skills.