ALMOST a third of British workers receive no formal training from their employers, a fact condemned as a “national disgrace” by Bryan Sanderson, the chairman of the new Learning and Skills Council.
In his first official week in charge, Mr Sanderson pledged the council would work to get the “no train, no gain” message through to employers. He said those who offered no training to their staff limited the success of their businesses and even threatened their survival.
He told a conference about small businesses in Birmingham that:
31 per cent of all British workers had not been offered formal training by their current employer;
5.7 million British adults of working age have no qualifications at all;
26 per cent of adults have done o learning in the past 3 years, and 22 per cent of those have done no learning in the 10 years since leaving school; and
a fifth of all adults in England - around seven million people - have serious problems with basic literacy and numeracy.
“The fact that almost a third of all workers receive no training reflects badly on all of us - on those involved in education and training and on businesses which do little or nothing to train their employees,” said Mr Sanderson.
Alison Webster has been appointed to the position of executive director of the Essex local learning and skills council.
She is currently chief executive of Essex Careers and Business Partnership Ltd. Only one of the 47 local council posts has yet to be filled.
