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TUC welcomes apprenticeships announcement

Submitted by Adrian Gaskell MCMI on Wed, 25/02/2009 - 16:41

The announcement that 21,000 apprenticeships will be created for
workers to further their career development in the public sector has
been welcomed by the Trades Union Congress (TUC).

On Monday (February 23rd), skills secretary John Denham and schools secretary Ed Balls kicked off National Apprenticeship Week by stating that the new roles would be offered from April.

The apprenticeships, which are part of the 35,000 roles to be created over the year, will be in health, education, local authorities and government departments.

Commenting, Brendan Barber, general secretary of the TUC, said that the government is "practising what it preaches".

"The government should now use its purchasing power to make sure companies that bid for public sector contracts provide more apprenticeship opportunities," he noted.

"Unions are committed to high-quality apprenticeships and believe they should be at the heart of a skills-based economy that we would like to see emerge from the recession."

At present, the public sector offers less than one apprenticeship per ten employees even though it employs 20 per cent of the UK workforce.

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Comments

Submitted by on Tue, 14/07/2009 - 21:46

"The government should now use its purchasing power to make sure companies that bid for public sector contracts provide more apprenticeship opportunities,"

This is an interesting theory. Often with government handouts - the large amounts of funding availiable from just one source leads to wasteful distribution. But by only giving money away to competing companies - this could prove to be an efficient usage.

Submitted by on Wed, 15/07/2009 - 08:48

I agree Simon, governments are notorious for spending money badly. The conundrum is that they both have to be seen to be doing something, and are one of the few that have access to money to be able to do something.

Submitted by on Wed, 22/07/2009 - 23:31

Which naturally leads to them just using cash to keep up appearances rather than perhaps taking their time and devoting proper resources to make sure that the (slightly small) resources leftover actually go to the right places.