House of Commons Hansard Debates for 26 Apr 1990

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Department of Employment, and nothing emphasised that fact more than the recently proposed initiative on training credits. I think that it was on a Tuesday that the Department of Employment announced, with a great fanfare, the 10 pilot schemes for training credits that were to be introduced throughout Britain. If there was Scottish control of training, why should Scotland not have as many training credit schemes as it wants to experiment with? It cannot be because of the cost as the expense of introducing the training credit scheme throughout Britain for 1990-92 is only £12 million, and this year the Government are cutting £28 million from the Scottish budget.

Mr. McLeish : At least.

Mr. Worthington : As my hon. Friend says, we have been able to identify at least £28 million so far, but more may be revealed. Why should Scotland not have as many training credit schemes as it wants? These schemes were initiated to an English and Welsh timetable, which is strange. Organisations that do not yet exist--local enterprise companies--have to put in a bid for a training credit scheme by 4 May. How can a body which has only just been approved for development money put in a bid by 4 May for a training scheme? I do not know. However, that is the timetable that has been set down, and it is the same in Scotland as in England and Wales. Outline bids have to go to the Scottish Office by 4 May from bodies that do not exist. Detailed bids have to be submitted by the end of July. Who will submit those detailed bids?

Mr. McLeish : Does my hon. Friend agree that the timetable for credits is consistent with the chaotic timetable for the renegotiation of employment training contracts? Should we be surprised about the incompetence of the Government in Scotland?

Mr. Worthington : My hon. Friend should not spoil the second part of my speech, in which I shall come to the gross incompetence involved in the renegotiation of contracts.

Detailed bids have to be submitted by the end of July. Discussions have to take place between non-existent bodies and the local authorities about career schemes. I do not know how that will be done. I have no doubt that schemes will go forward in the names of certain organisations, but there cannot be much honesty involved. When one asks the Scottish Office whether there will be a scheme--any scheme--in Scotland, they cannot say, "Yes, there will." We know that there will be such a scheme because the Department of Employment will decide that it had better keep the Jocks quiet, so a scheme will be allocated to Scotland on the grounds of expediency and not quality. Something will be cobbled together.

The Department of Employment is remote from Scotland and dominated by a south of England representative. We know that the employment training scheme would never have been devised by a political party in Scotland because it does not meet Scottish requirements. However, training will continue to be run by the Department of Employment, and the Training Agency has an appalling record of mismanagement.

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In Committee, the Minister sought desperately to mislead us about the new flexibility open to local enterprise companies for employment training. He tried to make it sound as if it was a Scottish initiative, but it was clear to everyone in Committee that he was announcing the flexibility that is being introduced into the employment training scheme throughout the United Kingdom. I leave it to the Minister to demonstrate that there is any flexibility which applies particularly to the scheme in Scotland, and any Scottish aspect of youth training or employment training that is distinct from training in the rest of the United Kingdom. [Interruption.] I have had to wait for an answer to that question since 9 January. I am still waiting.

Mr. Bill Walker : I hope that the hon. Gentleman is aware that I have been interested in training and development throughout my life. For many years, the Royal Air Force paid me as one of its inspectors. I am curious to know what particular Scottish dimension in training seems likely to be missing from any scheme that applies throughout the United Kingdom.

Mr. Worthington : In simple terms, training the people without jobs for the jobs without workers is a south-of-England expression. In places where there are no jobs or where unemployment levels are about 20 per cent. --what the Minister calls a small patch in Glasgow--the scheme is inappropriate because it is geared for a different situation. When unemployment levels are 2 or 3 per cent., as they are in many parts of south-east England, one scheme may be suitable. In areas such as Springburn and Easterhouse in Glasgow, where male unemployment is between 30 and 40 per cent., one needs to devise another scheme.

Mr. Walker rose --

Mr. Worthington : I have answered the hon. Gentleman's question fully, and I would prefer him to make his own speech in his own way later.

Evidence to show why we need an inspectorate has emerged in the past month and my hon. Friend the Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow (Dr. Godman) referred to that a few moments ago.

Training managers and agents have been treated appallingly by the Department of Employment. At the end of March--this was brought to my attention on 30 March--the Department of Employment sent a letter to training managers and agents informing them that their contracts, which were due to run until September, were cancelled and would run only until the end of April. At the beginning of April, when people came into the office on a Monday, they were told that their contracts would run for only another month.

We are talking about hundreds of trainers and thousands of trainees whose lives were wrapped up in the employment training scheme. They found that the plans they made had been totally disrupted, not because of a particular Scottish problem, but for some reason that has not yet emerged because of problems in the Department of Employment. How can one run a quality training scheme in such circumstances?

It happened in the past with the Manpower Services Commission and the Training Commission and when we changed from the community programme to employment training. The whole system is dug up by the roots and thrown up in the air and it is hoped that something will

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grow from it. After all the years of the Manpower Services Commission, we still have schemes rather than a structured training system. The end of the letter said :

"the Training Agency will be contacting you"--

that is, the training managers and the training agents-- "urgently to discuss the recontracting process."

To the best of my knowledge, the Training Agency has not yet made contact with any agency or manager throughout Scotland.

8 pm

After 10 days, I became so concerned about the threat to training that I telephoned the head of the Training Agency in Scotland, Mr. Lex Gold, and said, "Are you aware that there has been no contact between the Training Agency and any of the training managers or training agents within Scotland?" He replied, "Who told you that?" I said, "My contacts are in the west of Scotland," and he replied, "Do you mean to say that the west of Scotland has not started yet?" The man who is in control of the training system within Scotland had no idea about what was happening in the west of Scotland. After speaking to him. I found out what was happening in the east of Scotland and it was the same--nothing.

I asked him, "How will you implement these cuts?" That is what it is about. The letter states :

"We shall be taking the opportunity of contract renegotiation to review and agree with providers current payments, the numbers of contracted places and current arrangements for filling more places than specified in contracts. The overall aim will be to reduce unit costs."

How on earth will that be implemented without any guidelines from the Training Agency as to how the costs will be renegotiated? What are to be the future unit costs for places within Scotland? In a parliamentary question which was answered on 24 April, I asked

"what was the public expenditure per trainee on employment training in 1989 -90"

and I was told that it was £104 per trainee. I also asked for the figures for 1990-91 and was told :

"Regional ET plans for 1990-91 are for internal management information purposes only."--[ Official Report, 24 April 1990 ; Vol. 171, c. 167. ]

The Department would not tell me. Public money is being invested in training, yet the Government have become so arrogant, withdrawn and unconcerned that they do not think that a Member of Parliament has the right to know what will be spent per trainee in Scotland. It is a crazy, appalling way of running training to send out a letter saying that all contracts are abandoned. I am now told that training agents and managers have received another letter telling them that their contracts are extended until the end of May.

That is exactly why we need a quality inspectorate. We are dealing with the training of young people, as youth training is also being renegotiated. We need a training inspectorate, not to tell the bodies that are administering training that they are responsible for monitoring the quality of training-- which is what new clause 11 says--but an independent body to scrutinise the quality of training. No Government dedicated to quality would send out such a letter. It would be a contradiction in terms.

On the Tuesday, there was a fanfare when training credits costing £12 million next year were announced, yet on Friday letters were hand delivered under the cloak of secrecy, with no fanfares, implementing the cuts in

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training. We must remember that the policy is countrywide. The Minister told us that it will be Scottish training for Scottish needs. The letter states :

"As far as possible ET providers in all parts of the country are operating on a similar basis."

Where is the flexibility in that? The Government are seeking to reduce unit costs to a level which Members of Parliament are told they have no right to know.

What a way to treat trainers, managers and above all trainees. What a way to treat colleges with contracts to supply training. Nothing has happened, despite the statement that agents and managers will be contacted urgently. We still know nothing about budgets, targets or principles on the cuts. We simply have the incompetence of the Department of Employment, which will continue. We need a training inspectorate.

It keeps on happening. Suddenly the system is dug up. It happened when we changed from the community programme to employment training. A devastating document produced by the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations shows how may thousands of places caring for the vulnerable in society disappeared because of the indifference of the Minister. The Minister always says that the community programme involved no training, whereas employment training does. Many community programmes involved a great deal more training than some of the employment training schemes. When we made the transition from the community programme to employment training, 5,000 social care training places in Scotland--representing 55 per cent. of the total social care plans provided under the community programme--were lost. Yet the Minister says that he believes in community care. That has no credibility whatsoever.

Other sinister and disturbing things are happening. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Central (Mr. Watson) for bringing to my attention the parliamentary scrutiny of training. Until now it has been possible to appeal to the ombudsman, or the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration, if it is felt that there has been some maladministration. However, the Government have now written to the ombudsman to say that they do not consider that training administered under the local enterprise companies should be subject to the ombudsman's scrutiny.

The ombudsman replied to the Office of the Minister for the Civil Service :

"First, there does not appear to have been any communication by the Scottish Office or yourselves with the Select Committee on the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration in regard to the Government's intentions regarding"

Scottish Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise. Obviously there was no consultation. The letter went on :

"Secondly I would expect this aspect of the matter to be of concern to"

the Select Committee.

"it appears that the Government are effectively seeking to close off from citizens in Scotland who might be aggrieved at the way a local enterprise company had dealt with their affairs"

that is a local enterprise company using public money--

"an avenue of redress which--by virtue of the Training Agency's role--would nonetheless be available, it seems to me, to citizens south of the border who had similar grievances in respect of alleged maladministration by Training and Enterprise Councils."

That redress to the ombudsman will be denied in Scotland if the Government have their way.

The ombudsman continued :

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"In view of the events in the House of Commons this week following the Budget statement, you may wish to put the above consideration to the Scottish Office."

He was writing in Budget week. The Government have simply ignored the wishes of the ombudsman and are trying to remove matters from public scrutiny.

Mr. Bill Walker : I wish that the hon. Gentleman would not be quite so abrupt and cavalier. I imagine that he understands the position with regard to the Select Committee on the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration and the Scottish Development Agency. Is he aware that such quangos only recently came under the umbrella of the ombudsman? If he is, he will understand that what falls within the Committee's jurisdiction is part of the normal negotiations between that Committee and Departments. If he is aware of that, what is he complaining about?

Mr. Worthington : I am complaining that, whereas at present the affairs of the Department of Employment and training are supervised by the Select Committee on the ombudsman, when training is transferred to Scottish Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise, it will not be scrutinised by the ombudsman or the Select Committee.

Many hon. Members will have received a letter from Grand Metropolitan Community Services, which is a good friend of the Government and one of the few major companies involved in employment training. A problem with employment training is that most major companies have turned their backs on it. Mr. T. R. E. Mann, managing director of Grand Metropolitan Community Services--who, to my knowledge, is not a paid-up member of the Labour party and has no interest in supporting it--wrote a letter expressing his concern about how the Department of Employment is operating. He says :

"It is impossible to get sense out of the Training Agency, where practices vary not only between regions but in some cases between the same Training Agency area office from one week to the next." He expresses his concern about the reduction

"by 30 per cent. over the next three years in expenditure on youth training and employment training."

Referring to the Government's intention to make employers pay more for training, which we do not oppose, he says :

"The Training Agency has indicated that it will expect the reduction in Government funding to be made up by contributions from employers. In view of the combination of both the economic situation"--

we all know what that is--

"and the standard of ET clients now available on the job market"-- that is a south of England rather than a Scottish comment-- "it seems improbable that employers will be prepared to pay more for training in the foreseeable future, especially when only a small proportion of ET clients are likely to be placed with employers." He concludes by expressing his concern about the effect on training quality :

"What we have got is great financial strain on some of the providers of training at the present time."

A training inspectorate is desperately needed because of the cavalier way in which the Department of Employment--the Scottish Office is irrelevant because it has no control or influence on this matter--will continue to make abrupt

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changes in practice which will affect Scottish Enterprise and Scottish LECs and prevent adequate quality training in Scotland. I was impressed by an article on training that I read in The Economist. It quoted Mr. Brian Wolfson, who will be known to the Government as the man who has chaired selection committees for LECs in Scotland. He said that the Government had introduced into training a state of catatonic confusion, and that one local LEC had asked companies what they knew about Government schemes. The second most popular answer was a scheme that did not exist.

8.15 pm

Mr. Bill Walker : I intervene because I was astonished by the theoretical and inept speech of the hon. Member for Clydebank and Milngavie (Mr. Worthington). When I asked a fairly straightforward question and gave him the opportunity to say what special Scottish dimension had to be taken on board, all I received was waffle about the problems--

Mr. Worthington rose--

Mr. Walker : I will give way to the hon. Gentleman ; I am not nearly as discourteous as he is. Labour Members know that I always give way.

Mr. Worthington : May I ask a practical and down-to-earth question? If there is no Scottish dimension, why does the Scottish Office claim that there is?

Mr. Walker : I did not say that there was no Scottish dimension ; I asked what special Scottish dimension the hon. Gentleman was referring to, but he gave a dimension that is common throughout the United Kingdom in areas of high and relatively low unemployment. That is not a special Scottish dimension.

I was not saying that there is no need for local enterprise companies to concentrate on the special needs in their areas. Those needs will differ from area to area. I should have thought that that was common ground among those who have attempted to study the problems of training.

We are considering whether an area has shortages not in tactile skills but human relations or social skills. It must be fairly clear to the hon. Gentleman and other Labour Members that, in a constituency such as mine, where the largest employer is the tourist industry, one of the requirements is training in social and human relations skills. Textile workers in Forfar will need tactile skills, and workers in Aberfeldy or Pitlochry will need skills relevant to the whisky industry. Local enterprise companies and employers will have to recognise and train workers in the skills necessary for those tasks.

There is much common ground on training. We should not disagree about it because the United Kingdom will need a well-trained work force if it is to compete in the world of today and tomorrow. What are we talking about? New clause 11 imposes a

"duty (which shall not itself be delegated) of keeping under continuous review the suitability and adequacy of any training provided by that agent".

I should have thought that we would all agree. The hon. Member for Clydebank and Milngavie seems to think that we need to set up a training inspectorate.

I spent many years as an inspector on behalf of the Royal Air Force-- [Laughter.] I do not find this amusing.

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The hon. Member for Fife, Central (Mr. McLeish) has an academic qualification which I respect. He should realise that my qualification took longer to obtain than a degree. It must have some relevance, especially as it relates to training. I spent years training people to fly, teaching pilots how to be instructors and examining instructors. I think that I know something about this matter, although that may be astonishing to the hon. Member for Fife, Central. I respect the views of Opposition Members whose qualifications show that they have certain abilities and have had training. I respect the hon. Gentleman in terms of education and training, because I know his record.

Mr. Watson : Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the education and training courses leading to the various qualifications of hon. Members have been validated and monitored? Is not that an important part of any training programme? Does he recognise that our proposal for an inspectorate is designed to build that into the Government's training programmes?

Mr. Walker : I acknowledge that point. I criticised the hon. Member for Clydebank and Milngavie not because of what he would like to achieve but because he made his point in an inept, academic and theoretical way. Any training mechanism needs to be checked, and the new clause enables the local enterprise companies to do that. The hon. Member for Clydebank and Milngavie did not treat my question seriously. For what was he asking? What special Scottish needs did he identify? I am confident that the hon. Member for Fife, Central will answer.

Dr. Godman : The hon. Gentleman referred to the training needs of the tourist industry. Given that it is scattered throughout Scotland and its islands, that it is fragmented and that it is largely made up of small enterprises--often family enterprises--might not the envisaged inspectorate be able to lay down training programmes that are beneficial to tourism in all parts of Scotland?

Mr. Walker : My experience of training boards is fairly extensive. Under the old training board system, the boards began to think that they were the be-all and end-all of training authorities. I helped to set up pilot schemes and, in the beginning, was a keen supporter of training boards. I grew disillusioned because they built empires. Marks and Spencer, Trusthouse Forte and similar organisations know more about skill training than any theoretical body. I should have thought that, in the Scotch whisky industry, United Distillers, the largest whisky company, would have training schemes. If such organisations are part of the local enterprise companies, that is a basis on which we can build on what is known to work. That is preferable to setting up an inspectorate with a theoretical approach. At this early stage, I am concerned that we may not lock properly into the established bodies.

Anyone who knows anything about training knows that the same companies have invested in it. They have a reputation. When the local enterprise companies are up and running, they should be locked properly into a system involving experts in training. We will then be able to evaluate skill measurements and so on. I caution my hon. Friend the Minister because of our experience of the training boards. There is a danger that we may set up so-called training experts who become more interested in their empire than in the product--in giving people the

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opportunity to be trained to alleviate shortages and inadequacies in social, tactile, management and other skills in their areas. The Opposition should not always assume that Conservative Members are hostile to their ideas. We may not be, but unless those ideas are packaged and properly presented, the Opposition should not be suprised if we want answers to our questions.

Dr. Godman : Despite the fact that I served a six-year apprenticeship in a shipyard and years later studied for a postgraduate diploma in industrial psychology, largely based on training, I readily acknowledge that I have nowhere near the experience and knowledge of industrial training of the hon. Member for Tayside, North (Mr. Walker).

New clauses 11 and 4 are eminently compatible. If the Minister is not willing to listen to the arguments in support of new clause 4, I hope that the 10 members of Scottish Enterprise and the 10 members of Highlands and Islands Enterprise will at least listen. It might be in the interests of those organisations and local enterprise companies if there were an inspectorate or review body. I am not talking about training boards. I asked the hon. Member for Tayside, North about the relevance of the inspectorate to tourism and he answered by talking about Marks and Spencer and whisky distilleries. I believe that local enterprise companies could be helped by the development of training programmes for industries such as tourism which are to be found throughout Scotland. That might defray some of the training costs incurred by LECs.

One of the most important elements in the training role is that of matching employers' training needs with those of employees or potential employees. In constituencies such as mine, there is often significant incompatibility between what incoming firms require and the skills of local people--not only young people but unemployed middle-aged people.

8.30 pm

The Renfrew enterprise company has a board of 18 members. Not one woman has been chosen, although in the area covered by that local enterprise company, women form about 52 per cent. of the population. In response to a comment that the Minister made earlier, I should say that I do not seek to argue the case for tokenism. There are many highly skilled and successful business women in the Inverclyde area, who could make a major contribution on that board, especially in training matters. I have every confidence in the chairman, John McClelland, who is the plant director of IBM. I readily concur with what the hon. Member for Tayside, North said on this subject. IBM is one of the companies which provide a superb training programme for their employees, so I was pleased to learn that Mr. McClelland had become the chairman of that company.

The huge problems that Inverclyde faces are not peculiar to the lower Clyde --they are problems typical of any areas of high unemployment seeking to attract new companies by means of enterprise zones. Many of the companies attracted to an enterprise zone require skilled labour. One of the first of the companies attracted to Inverclyde was the Crusader insurance company, which has already recruited a number of young people--a goodly proportion of whom have quit their employment in the local social security office to go to work for that company,

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and I do not blame them for that. They have rightly concluded that they will be offered better terms and conditions of employment by Crusader than they enjoy at the DSS. About 16 employees of the DSS have gone to join Crusader ; good luck to them. I only hope that the DSS in turn will take on 16 unemployed people, including some of the middle-aged people who figure all too prominently in the long list of long- term unemployed in Inverclyde.

New companies need training personnel with basic skills to take on in-house training programmes. I welcome the new clause, because I think that the local enterprise companies have a heavy responsibility to ensure that training programmes are set up in their areas, but I also support new clause 4, which advocates a review committee set up by Scottish Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise. Such a committee could assist local enterprise companies and local colleges as well as local trainers of personnel. It could also play an important role in meeting the training needs of companies, especially companies new to Scotland. Just as important --perhaps more so--it could help with the training needs of unemployed people, especially the middle-aged unemployed who are to be found in such large numbers in the ranks of the long-term unemployed.

I repeat that new clause 11 and the new clause offered by my hon. Friend the Member for Clydebank and Milngavie (Mr. Worthington) are compatible proposals which would assist in meeting training needs.

Mr. McLeish : I support the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Clydebank and Milngavie (Mr. Worthington). Most people--as usual we must exclude the Government from any consensus--are concerned about the problem of quality. The commercialisation of Government schemes is creating a crisis of investment and quality. As the hon. Member for Tayside, North (Mr. Walker) said, there is a consensus that the 1990s must be the decade of skill training and effective investment by Government and employers, but it appears that that balance is not being struck, because the Government are moving quickly out of investment and are seeking at every possible opportunity to pass the burden from the state to employers, who may or may not be ready to accommodate such an initiative.

I do not blame the Training Agency or the former officials of the Manpower Services Commission. I do not blame advisers in the Scottish Office. I blame the Government alone for their incompetence and insensitivity in allowing the Department of Employment in London and its branch section in Scotland to permit the Treasury to dictate the pace and volume of investment. That is a major reason why we have a crisis in training in Scotland and throughout the United Kingdom. My hon. Friend the Member for Clydebank and Milngavie was right to suggest that there had been a cut of £28 million. From a review of autumn statements, public expenditure White Papers and supply estimates over the past two to three years, we have established that, on a Great Britain basis, about £250,000-worth of cuts will have been made between 1989-90 and 1990-91. It appears that, in the space of a few weeks, £250,000 has disappeared, although no Minister will admit to it. That is one of the reasons why the quality of planned programme provision including employment training and YTS is in a state of chaos, on the one hand because of incompetency and crisis and on the other because of lack of investment.

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It was evident from the remarks of the Minister of State and the Secretary of State that the Scottish Office is some way responsible for the employment activities of the Department of Employment. The truth is a million miles from the fiction peddled by the Scottish Office day in, day out.

I should like to bring to the Minister's attention a sitting of the Select Committee on Employment held on Wednesday 17 January, at which evidence was taken concerning the employment service. There was an exchange of views between my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, West (Mr. Ross) and a senior official of the Department of Employment concerning local enterprise companies and training and enterprise councils and their relationship and how the Department of Employment would be involved in overseeing their development.

In a telling exchange, minuted in paragraph 42 on page 9, the senior official from the Department was quizzed about the relationship. He remarked :

"I think there will be a degree of stability and shared policy because Ministers are part of the same Government".

That has never occasioned stability and an exchange of policy in the past. He went on :

"our Secretary of State as I understand it will continue to have an overriding responsibility for employment matters in Scotland." It is clear that the Scottish Office is a poor appendage of the Department of Employment.

My hon. Friend the Member for Clydebank and Milngavie has exposed another myth, which is that the LEC initiative in Scotland reflected the Scottish culture, the Scottish labour market and its training needs and aspirations. In reality, the former Secretary of State for Employment decided to take a trip to the United States and visit Massachusetts. He visited private industry training councils in America and brought the idea back here. Transferring ideas from a different culture is always difficult. The Government made a mess of that idea in Great Britain and the Scottish Office hijacked that residual mess from America, called the principle local enterprise companies and the circle is now complete.

The idea is that we have control over our affairs in Scotland, but we do not. Local enterprise companies are supposedly an imaginative Scottish idea, but they are not. Now, savage cuts have been imposed on employment training by an English-based Treasury which has little regard for the quality of training provision. Instead, the Treasury has a high regard for keeping public expenditure constraints extremely tight indeed.

Why do estimated and outturn figures in any one year virtually automatically now become the planned provision for the following year? In 1986-87, in real terms, we were spending £4 billion on training in Great Britain. By 1992-93 that will drop to £2.8 billion. That is a cut of £1.2 billion over seven years. That is supposed a positive contribution to the skills crisis and a proper reflection of the Government's concern for people who do not have skills. That is hypocrisy, but the position is worse than that.

There is a need throughout Great Britain for the Government to work in partnership with employers. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Clydebank and Milngavie explained, chaos has ensued as a result of the Training Agency being pressured to send a letter to employment training agents and managers. That was a

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