Examination of Witnesses (Questions 400-401)
MR TOM
WILSON, MR
WES STREETING,
MS ANNE
MADDEN AND
MR ALAN
TUCKETT
9 JULY 2008
Q400 Mr Cawsey: Wes?
Wes Streeting: I endorse much
of that. I agree certainly with the assertion that the employer
voice has a disproportionate influence and the difficulty with
that is very often that leads to a very short-termist approach
to decision-making. A statistic that always struck me was a finding
by the Scottish Institute for Enterprise which said that over
the course of their lifetime an average graduate will undertake
around seven different careers, three of which have yet to be
invented. The idea that employers come in and say, "These
are the needs for today" has a detrimental impact on meeting
the skills needs for tomorrow which is why, again, the lifelong
learning structures and giving people the inability to dip in
and out of education becomes so important. Certainly there is
something of a renaissance taking place as far as the learner
voice is concerned and on that I very much congratulate the Government
for taking a real moral lead because this has had such a real
impact on sector agencies and institutions in both further and
higher education who are now far more meaningfully beginning to
engage the voice of learners. The challenge for us is that for
organisations both locally and nationally that have championed
the widening participation agenda for a long time we have been
really slow to catch up. Certainly as I begin my first few weeks
as NUS president it strikes me that a lot of these learners are
really difficult parts to reach, but that does not mean that we
ought to be doing more or we can be complacent about it. Certainly
in terms of the central challenge of capturing those people who
currently are not benefitting there is a lot more that we can
do in partnership with trade unions and Union Learning Reps in
particular to make sure we are representing learners and also
the people we want to see engaged in learning. I think that is
going to keep me busy for the next year or two.
Chairman: Ian Stewart was very much behind
this session so I will give him the very last word before we go
and pray.
Q401 Ian Stewart: Bearing in mind
the statements made earlier about trade unions not being organised
in the majority of companies in this country, the potential expansion
of the concept of trade union learning reps, is there a role,
for example, in trade union learning reps not only being involved
in the devising of the training materials but in the delivery?
Secondly, you will be aware, Tom, of the concept of roving health
and safety reps who are allowed to go into companies that are
not trade union organised, could there be such a potential future
role for learning reps?
Tom Wilson: Very much so. It is
something we have been pressing for for quite a while. Interestingly,
most employers we talk to would support that because what they
want is a level playing field. What they are concerned about is
if they are investing in training they want to make sure the company
down the road is investing in training. If they are investing
in training because they have a union organisation and ULRs and
so on are active, they are more than happy for their ULRs to go
and preach the gospel down the road. We have strong support for
that. One way in which we could help to answer that idea is through
the notion of a super ULR, the next stage up. It might perhaps
need a little bit more training. They could certainly do the IAG
role through the advancement agency, there might well be a particular
role for ULRs like that, but they could also be the roving ULRs
who could help spread the word and spread the benefits of unionisation,
of course, beyond that third.
Chairman: It is a pity Ian Gibson has
left because that would have been music to his ears as well. Could
I thank you very much indeed Tom Wilson, Wes Streeting, Anne Madden
and Alan Tuckett. Thank you very much for your presence this morning.
My thanks to my colleagues.
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