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(vi) better preparation for working life in initial full-time education;
(vii) more opportunities for vocationally relevant courses for those staying on in full-time education;
(viii) closer co-ordination of training and vocational education provision nationally and at local level;
(ix) a £16 million fund for development schemes in particular localities or sectors;
(x) examination of longer-term possibilities for more effective, rational and equitable sharing of the costs of training between trainees themselves, employers of trained people and the general taxpayer.

- The need for action.
- The transition from full-time education to work
- A new Youth Training Scheme
- Training for craft, technician and professional skills
- Institutions
- Funding

5. People as producers create wealth by providing goods and services that people as consumers want to buy. They create machines and equipment as tools of wealth creation. People are our pre-eminent resource and that is why they have to be given the best backing that the nation can afford. New technology offers us the chance to become more productive and to create new and better jobs selling goods and services to the rest of the world. But we need a better educated, better trained and more adaptable workforce if we are to take that opportunity.

6. Our major competitors lay much greater emphasis on training young people than we do. In France and Germany 80 per cent or more of young people reaching minimum school leaving age receive further education or training of some kind. In Britain in 1979 on the most favourable interpretation the figure was less than two-thirds.

7. In Britain the training provided is mainly apprenticeship in traditional craft and technician skills, for many of which there is declining demand. Opportunities for day release to Colleges of Further Education are limited and sometimes lack co-ordination between the college and where young people work. Full-time college courses often seem financially unattractive to many young people compared with the immediate rewards of an unskilled job.

8. Training for adults is also inadequate. We have until 1l0W assumed that the training given in a person's first job is all he will need for the rest of his working life. Entry to some craft and other occupations is so restricted that there is little point in providing training for adults or for adults to seek it.

9. Who has the responsibility to train? At the moment the position is muddled. Individual employers, local education authorities, joint negotiating bodies,

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industrial training bodies, the Manpower Services Commission and Government Departments are all involved. The cost of training is basically a matter for the individual employer, but a wide variety of grants, subsidies and courses is provided at the taxpayers' expense or from Industrial Training Board levies on particular industries.

10. We must have clearer goals, better means of delivery, a fairer allocation of financial responsibilities and, above all, a will to work together and to get on with it.

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The first year in employment

17. However well schools and colleges prepare young people for working life we must improve their training when they start work. Young people need to be equipped not merely to do the immediate task required by the job, but with a basic competence and flexibility which they can build on as they change jobs.

18. The best way of providing this training is through arrangements made by employers for their own young employees. Yet in 1979 nearly 40 per cent of the 700,000 school-leavers who found jobs received no training at all. About another 20 per cent were receiving training for only eight weeks or less. Our efforts must therefore be directed not only to creating jobs for young people but also to ensuring that they are properly trained for them.

19. We announced last July the introduction from 4 January of the Young Workers' Scheme, which provides grants to employers who take on young people under 18 in the first year of employment earning less than £45 a week. That scheme is intended to encourage employers to take on more young people at wage levels they can afford, and could enable them to provide the training required.

20. To encourage proper training we are now expanding the scheme of grants to employers who co-operate in providing integrated training, further education and work experience (the Unified Vocational Preparation scheme) so as to cater for some 50,000 young people by 1984-85. We also intend to extend to the 1982-83 training year the higher level of support for skill training - some 35,000 places - announced last July for the current year. .

21. The Manpower Services Commission has now proposed to establish a high level working group, including representatives of industry and education, to report urgently on the possibilities of a wider and more general scheme of foundation training for all young people, whether employed or unemployed. Priority must be given to the young unemployed. Nonetheless, we welcome this proposal and shall be fully prepared to consider re-allocating resources available for young people in any way which may contribute more effectively to their futures.

22. Meanwhile, we must continue to plan on the basis that over the next few years many young people may have difficulty in finding jobs on leaving school. So special provision will continue to be needed for them in order to achieve our major aim of reaching the position where all young people, on leaving school, either move on to further education, find a job or are given the chance of training or community service.

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proposes that a new and better Youth Training Scheme should be introduced by the Commission to cover all unemployed minimum age school-leavers by September 1983.

Training content

24. The new scheme will build on the experience gained from the Youth Opportunities Programme and the Unified Vocational Preparation programme. It will aim to equip unemployed young people to adapt successfully to the demands of employment; to have a fuller appreciation of the world of industry, business and technology in which they will be working; and to develop basic and recognised skills which employers will require in the future.

25. These aims require an effective integration of skills, knowledge and experience through planned and supervised work experience and properly designed opportunities for off-the-job training or further education. Young people have different abilities and learning aptitudes and local labour market needs also differ. Both will have to be taken into account in designing and operating the scheme, but for young people with no experience of work a training programme of up to a year will generally be needed.

26. There will be five main elements:

Induction and assessment. Individuals will receive a proper induction to the programme and to each element of it. Their skills and attainments will be assessed. This may include opportunities to sample different skills or jobs in order to establish aptitudes.

Basic skills. The programme will aim to ensure that basic skills like numeracy and literacy have been acquired; to develop some practical competence in the use of tools and machinery and in some basic office operations; and to foster skills in communication (in interview for example).

Occupationally relevant education and training, both on and off the job. This will provide opportunity for personal development and use of the basic skills in a variety of working contexts, adapted to the needs of the local labour market. It will be integrated with planned work experience, with young people being given a minimum of three months off-the-job training or relevant further education. Arrangements will be flexible, so that the training can be given in the form of day or block release and can take place in a company training school or at a college.

Guidance and counselling. Young people will receive advice and support throughout the programme under arrangements agreed with their sponsors.

Record and review of progress. Each young person's progress will be recorded, reviewed and assessed as he or she goes through the programme. A document of progress will be given to the young person on leaving the programme and will record standards achieved in a way which is recognisable both to the young person and to potential employers.

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these interests at the local as well as the national level. The Government is therefore asking the Commission to organise the delivery of the scheme in such a way as to provide for full local involvement.

28. Large numbers of sponsors will be needed for the different elements within the scheme, which must be carried out within industry and commerce if it is to be fully effective. So the full co-operation of employers is vital. Provision will be made within the scheme towards assisting sponsors with their overhead costs and they will be able to contribute to the local input to the design of the training programme.

29. Colleges of further education and their maintaining Local Education Authorities will have an important role in the new programme. It will mean for them a major expansion in provision for this age group, the equivalent of perhaps 80,000 full-time places funded by the Commission. They will also be asked increasingly to relate what is taught to what the young trainees will be doing at the work place and to arrange courses flexibly through the year.

30. The Careers Service in recent years has had to switch resources from its more traditional roles to help a large number of unemployed young people. It has been very substantially aided in this work by direct Government funding of nearly 1,100 additional posts for this purpose. It will now have to meet a new challenge, especially in counselling the trainees who are on the new scheme for a year, and in working with people employed on the scheme, whether in colleges or in schemes, and see that all young people receive necessary advice and support.

Coverage

31. Under the new scheme, the Government intends to guarantee an early offer of training to all minimum age school leavers who are unemployed during their first year after leaving school. Unemployed school-leavers will be offered a full year's training course; those who become unemployed after some experience of work will be offered shorter courses which may average six months.

32. Other young people under 18 who leave school or further education after the minimum age and CaIIDot find a job and others under 18 who have had a job but become unemployed within 12 months of leaving school will be eligible for places. The resources made available for the scheme are intended to be sufficient to provide enough places for these two categories on the same basis as for minimum age leavers, ie unemployed school-leavers will be offered a full year's training, and other young people who have had some experience of work will be offered shorter courses. There will not, however, be an absolute guarantee of such places. While resources are limited it seems right to accord priority to minimum age school-leavers who find themselves unemployed during their first year after leaving school.

33. Community Industry at present provides disadvantaged 16 to 18 year olds with temporary employment lasting up to a year. The Government recently welcomed a report which examined the role and objectives of this programme and concluded that it should in future concentrate more on 18 year olds. Community Industry will need to consider carefully where its contribution can best be made in a way that is consistent with the new arrangements. One way

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forward would be for it, while continuing as a temporary employment programme offering additional help to disadvantaged young people, to provide exclusively for young people - mainly for those aged 17 and 18 - who are outside the target group of the new scheme.

Training allowances and benefit arrangements

34. The new scheme is first and last a training scheme. This is reflected in its structure, its delivery and the terms and conditions for the young trainees. The young people catered for by the scheme will benefit from having a wider range of skills and experience. As trainees, it seems right that they should receive allowances that reflect their learning role. That is how they will make their contribution to the cost of a foundation training which improves their prospects of employment.

35. The level of the training allowance will reflect not only the benefit of training, but also a change in the provision of supplementary benefit to young people. The provision of guaranteed training places on the new scheme for those who leave school at the minimum age and cannot find jobs brings them into a situation akin to those who go on at that age to further education. For the latter it is accepted that they should continue to be dependent on their parents and that they should not have access to supplementary benefit in their own right. The same will apply to unemployed minimum age school-leavers when they are guaranteed a place on this new scheme. Legislation will be introduced accordingly. They will then, in general, cease to be eligible for supplementary benefit in their own right until 1 September in the year after that in which they leave school. For example, those who leave school at the minimum age in the summer of 1983 will not become eligible for benefit in their own right until 1 September 1984. Scottish leavers at Christmas 1983 will become eligible on 1 September 1984.

36. So, from the date when the new scheme is fully introduced in 1983, parents will be expected to provide any necessary financial support to these trainees and child benefit will continue to be paid to parents so long as the young person is neither in work nor on the scheme. In addition, parents' entitlement to benefit will take account of their responsibility for these young people.

37. The benefit needs of special groups among young people will continue to be met. The intention will be to follow broadly the categories at present allowed to claim supplementary benefit while still at school, and the new arrangements will not affect existing provision such as mobility allowances and noncontributory invalidity pension. All handicapped young people who are within the coverage of the new scheme and who are able to benefit from participation in it will be encouraged and enabled to take part.

38. These new arrangements will provide for payment of a training allowance from the Government. For those unemployed in their first year after leaving school at the minimum age this allowance will be set at a level intended mainly to cover travel and other expenses. Its precise level will be decided nearer the time in 1983 when the scheme comes into full operation, but the level of this Government allowance is likely to be around £750 a year. Those young people who join (or are on) the scheme after 1 September in the year following

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their minimum school leaving age will be paid a higher training allowance by the Government since, when unemployed, they will still be eligible for supplementary benefit. Their allowance is likely to be around £1,250 a year. Those who unreasonably refuse a suitable training place would, like adults who unreasonably refuse training offers, have their benefit reduced for 6 weeks. The allowances for both groups will not apply before 1983 when the new scheme becomes fully operational and the Government is asking the Manpower Services Commission, in working out the detailed implementation of the scheme, to advise on the level of allowance which is appropriate and can be afforded within the resources available, which are set out in paragraph 40 of this Paper.

Progress towards the scheme

39. The present Youth Opportunities Programme is already evolving in the direction now planned and will continue to do so in 1982-83. The Government is asking the Manpower Services Commission to develop the programme so as to provide around 100,000 of the new 12-month training places in that year and to be in a position to provide such places for all school leaver entrants in 1983. The new scheme will then replace the Youth Opportunities Programme. Meanwhile, the Government will continue the Youth Opportunities Programme allowance on its present basis, raising it to £25 a week from January 1982 to maintain a differential above supplementary benefit.

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also needed of the arrangements for training in craft, technician and professional skills, both for young people and for adults. We must also remove obstacles to the full and efficient use of the skills acquired.

43. No one can predict the precise composition of the skilled labour force which will be needed over the coming years. What is clear is that we will require a higher proportion of people able to handle jobs at technician level and above and that there will be fewer opportunities at semi-skilled level and below. Technological and market changes will impose major demands on firms and individuals, and not least on managers in industry and commerce.

44. Uncertainty puts a premium on flexibility and mobility within the workforce. A key to this is a training system embodying a wide range of recognised standards of achievement. Access to skilled work, or training to higher levels, should depend not on the form and structure of previous training but on proven ability.

Standards

45. We already have a number of institutions with considerable experience in defining and testing standards of individual competence in theoretical or practical skills. These include the City and Guilds of London Institute, the Royal Society of Arts, the Councils of Technician Education and Business Education and their Scottish counterparts, the professional institutions (soon to be joined by the new Engineering Council), some employer organisations and research associations, voluntary training bodies and Industrial Training Boards.

46. Standards of competence have, however, been seen as optional rather than basic equipment. We therefore endorse the commitment by the Manpower Services Commission to 1985 as the date by which relevant standards of competence, with associated courses and certificates, should be available for all significant skilled occupations. We know that many of those engaged in collective bargaining, nationally and locally, want to replace agreements based on time-serving and age restrictions with arrangements based on such standards. We urge them to do so as soon as possible, and by 1985 at the latest.

47. The Government will make financial support for skill training in industry at the enhanced levels referred to in paragraph 20 above increasingly conditional upon steps towards implementation of these necessary reforms.

Adults

48. The skill shortages which have held back our economic progress in the past could reappear when the economy recovers. They cannot be met solely by training the new intake of young people, but will require considerable readaptation of the existing labour force. Skill needs will continue to change and require updating. Wider opportunities for training and retraining of people in their 20s, 308 and later in life are bound to be required in the future.

49. This is primarily a matter for industry. It will, however, in some cases require quite new arrangements and facilities. The Government therefore intends that the resources of the Training Opportunities Programme, currently running at some £250 million a year, should increasingly be directed to encouraging the necessary provision in industry.

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Open Tech

50. There are gaps in the availability of training facilities to firms and to individuals seeking to progress to higher levels of skill and responsibility, particularly at technician and supervisory levels. These could be filled by making existing facilities and new courses more accessible through the use of "open learning" and "distance learning" methods, and exploiting the potential of new information technology. The Government is therefore providing resources for an "Open Tech" programme. This will be supervised by a Manpower Services Commission Steering Group representing industry, education and training interests. It will work with and through many channels (including industrial ones), facilitating the actions of others rather than establishing a new educational or teaching institution. Participants in the programme will typically use a range of printed and audio-visual learning materials, and will work independently, either in college or at home, but with access to tutorial and practical help and facilities. The first project will start in 1982.

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54. There have already been interesting proposals for joint initiatives for new types of training scheme coming forward from employers, unions and others in particular localities or sectors. The Government will be making available to the Commission additional funds of £6 million in 1982-83 and £10 million in 1983-84 for the assistance of such developments.

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firm. Yet the individual firm has absolutely no guarantee of a return on this investment since the trainee is under no legal obligation to stay once his training is complete. Attempts to even out costs between employers in particular industries through the Industrial Training Board's levy/grant system foundered under the weight of bureaucracy involved and its inability to deal with the problem in respect of cross-sector skills where much or the difficulty lies.

60. In the longer term the responsibility for training must lie mainly with employers, as it does in most other major industrial countries. It is only in this way that we can ensure that training meets industry's real needs. A remissible tax on the lines of the French system has been suggested as one possibility for influencing positively employers' calculations about the relative costs and returns of investing in training. Another would be a system of training grants to firms financed out of general taxation. Either would involve some measure of bureaucratic intervention. Yet a large-scale expansion of public provision for training, parallel to the public education system, seems even more objectionable. There are many issues here, which will need to be examined. The Manpower Services Commission has proposed to establish, in co-operation with the Government, a general study of the funding of industrial training as a whole. The Government will give further consideration to the matter in the light of that study.