House of Commons - Train to gain: Developing the skills of the workforce

Train to gain: Developing the skills of the workforce - Public Accounts Committee Contents

2 Increasing the effectiveness of training

11. Success for a learner in Train to Gain is the achievement of a qualification or other learning objective. The LSC monitors the success rates of providers. In 2006-07, the overall success rate was 71%, and the success rates of the largest 100 training providers ranged from 8% to 99%. 26 of these providers achieved less than the proposed 'minimum level of performance' of 65%.[24]

12. The Department considers that the LSC has focused first on the numbers of learners and employers reached by Train to Gain, and secondly on the quality of provision. Because Train to Gain was a new programme, in its first three years the LSC did not apply the framework for quality control that was in place on colleges and other programmes. From next year, Train to Gain providers will be subject to the same quality framework as other programmes.[25]

13. The LSC acknowledges that a relatively small number of providers have delivered poor success rates, which it considers is a typical pattern across its programmes. It considers that it takes action quite quickly where providers are identified as under-performing, issuing a 'notice to improve' and holding back on agreeing further contracts until progress has been made. For the 2009-10 academic year, the LSC has reduced 239 provider contracts and taken away 29 contracts, although it has not provided information on how many of these changes related directly to poor quality provision.[26]

14. Effective training should provide benefits to employers. There have been limited benefits to employers in terms of improved profit margins and increased sales and turnover (Figure 4). The LSC considers that longer term financial benefits such as profitability might be regarded as a by-product of Train to Gain, and that there are social benefits such as increased literacy and numeracy of people in the workforce.[27] The Department highlighted research from the Institute of Fiscal Studies that found that a 1% increase in the proportion of employees trained is associated with an increase in productivity of 0.6%.[28] It notes that 66% of employers considered that Train to Gain had improved their long term competitiveness.[29]

15. The Department told us that its new Skills Strategy, which was announced in the House during our hearing, would aim to focus training provision more on areas that are economically critical, with £100 million—about 10% of the programme—earmarked for training focused on growth areas and new industry job-related areas. Another £50 million would be used to work with the Sector Skills Councils to secure co-funding from businesses particularly for higher level training at levels 3 and 4. The Skills Strategy also presented an opportunity to focus more on increasing skills rather than just accrediting existing skills, though the LSC considers that accrediting skills has value because qualifications are portable and improve employment opportunities.[30]

Figure 4: Employers' financial and operational benefits from training