Fears are growing that employers could withdraw their support from
government-backed IT training initiatives following serious delays
to the Government's plans to reform the its flagship national
training organisations (NTOs).
Ministers announced plans to replace the training organisations
with new employer-led sector skills councils in September last
year, but although the NTOs were effectively abolished at the end
of March, there is still no clear timetable for their
replacement.
The delays have left the training organisations in limbo, and will
to lead to a slow down in important training projects, critics
claim.
It is feared that work by the E-Skills NTO on initiatives such as
the Modern Apprenticeship Programme for IT and its regular
forecasts of the IT training needs of businesses could be affected.
Although few of the NTOs are willing to jeopardise their chances of
being selected to become a sector skills council by speaking
publicly about the delays, privately they are scathing about the
Government's policies.
"Really important work is slowing down. I think the risk is serious
disengagement by employers. It impacts on the ability of national
training organisations to make a difference," one senior IT
training official told Computer Weekly.
Ian Bruce, former vice-chairman of parliamentary IT group Pitcom,
said there is a growing risk that the former NTOs, which have been
given funding to "tick over" until their replacements are in place,
will lose the support of employers if the delays continue.
"Even if the NTOs get funding, they are losing a lot of their
credibility. Even if industry, the people who need to be trained
and trainers are all in agreement, they are being stopped from
moving forward by the Government," he said.
The NTOs believe it will be at least August, and possibly longer,
before all the new sector skills councils are in place, leaving
months of uncertainty both for the former NTOs and the employers
that are supposed to be backing the new bodies.
Geoff McMullen, former president of the British Computer Society,
said he was alarmed by the delays. "It is quite presumptuous of the
people who made that decision to think that business will continue
to offer support. This gap is unfortunate because it could
discourage volunteers," he said.
bill.goodwin@rbi.co.uk