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1. Formulation and application of a policy for the promotion of paid educational leave. The Committee notes the information contained in the Government’s report received in August 2008. The Committee notes that, further to the Leith Review of Skills in England, the Government sought to adopt a strategy aimed at: (i) encouraging employers in England to take responsibility for the skills of their workforce by making a Skills Pledge, to support their employees to become more skilled and better qualified, with Government support; (ii) improving the Train to Gain brokerage service to support employers to address all their training needs; (iii) with the Devolved Administrations, instituting a fundamental review of the Investors in People employer standard; and (iv) supporting the Trades Union Congress “Unionlearn” and union learning representatives. The Committee notes that, in addition to these measures, the Government is consulting on a proposal to give most employees in England a statutory right to request time to train which would give employees a legal right to ask their employer to give them time to undertake relevant training, and place a duty on employers to consider these requests. The Government indicated that there are around 22 million employees in England who could potentially benefit from time to train, and it estimated that around 300,000 persons will undertake training each year as a result of the introduction of this statutory right. The Committee notes that consultations ended in September 2008, and understands that, following the outcome of these consultations, the Government of the United Kingdom intends to legislate for a right to request time to train for all employees throughout Great Britain. The Committee asks the Government to include information in its next report on the progress made in the process of legislating for employees to request time to train, and to provide further information on measures for implementation and sanctions for breach once promulgated.

2. Leave for the purposes of trade union education. In response to the Committee’s last comment, the Government indicates that section 43 of the Employment Act, 2002, provides rights to Union Learning representatives for reasonable time off with pay so as to carry out their duties and undergo training. The Committee notes that corresponding legislation was introduced in Northern Ireland under section 31 of the Employment (Northern Ireland) Order 2003. The Committee also notes that, following the establishment of the Union Learning Fund, £98 million has been provided to help trade unions develop their capacity to promote the uptake of learning and skills in the workplace, helping over 600,000 workers back into learning. The Government also indicates that it has supported the TUC in establishing its learning and education organization “Unionlearn” which seeks to build on and bring greater coherence to various aspects of trade union learning and education. “Unionlearn” seeks to provide a platform to raise the number of trained Union Learning representatives in the workplace from 20,500 to 22,000 by 2010, so as to help over 250,000 workers per year back into learning. The Committee asks the Government to continue to include information in its next report on the practical implementation of section 43 of the Employment Act, 2002, and corresponding legislation in the Devolved Administrations.

3. Train to Gain. In response to the Committee’s last comment, the Government indicates that the Employer Training Pilots (ETP) which sought to test the effects of offering financial incentives to improve access to training, engaged over 90,000 employers and around 196,000 learners. In light of these results, the Government decided to run a national programme building on the ETPs. Accordingly, Train to Gain was rolled out from April 2006 and, as at May 2008, it had engaged almost 97,000 employers, of which 74 per cent were “hard to reach” employers, 81 per cent were from small and medium-sized enterprises, and around two-thirds were employers who engaged less than 50 employees. In this time, the Train to Gain programme enabled over 488,000 employees to begin learning programmes, and delivered over 241,000 qualification achievements. The Government indicates that it continues to develop and expand Train to Gain to better meet the needs of employers and learners, and to tailor it to meet the needs of specific sectors. The Committee asks the Government to continue to report on the practical implementation of the Train to Gain programme, and the steps taken to further develop and expand this programme. The Government is also requested to include information in its next report on how these financial incentive arrangements have affected the propensity by which paid educational leave is granted.