On 17th July 2008, The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, today launched the capital's first Skills and Employment Strategy, 'London's Future'. The Strategy, developed by the London Skills and Employment Board, sets out the blueprint for the changes that are needed to improve job and skills opportunities for Londoners and the capital's employers over the next five years.

London's Future aims to address the two key areas of access and support for both employers and employees. The Strategy has three aims and seeks to:

1. to work with employers to better support them in providing more job and skills opportunities to Londoners, to the benefit of their businesses and to keep London's economy competitive



2. support Londoners to improve their skills, job and advancement prospects through integrated employment support and training opportunities



3. create a fully integrated, customer-focused skills and employment system

The system of training in the UK is stuck in the past - and as a result, over three-quarters of a million young people are not in any kind of education, employment, or training.

The Conservative Party's Policy Green Paper 7 which forms part of their Opportunity Agenda proposes a revolution in skills and training, with:

A massive expansion in the provision of real apprenticeships

• Measures to make it easier for companies to run apprenticeships
• Creating 100,000 additional apprenticeships every year with a £775 million injection of funds
• A £2,000 bonus for each apprenticeship at a small or medium-sized enterprise

More community learning to improve skills and employability

• A £100 million NEETs fund aimed at youngsters not in any kind of education, training or employment
• £100 million injection into the adult community Learning Fund

Supply-side reform to set further education fund

• Freeing Further Education colleges from unnecessary bureaucracy
• Allowing new providers to enter the sector

A revolution in careers advice

• Providing a careers adviser in every secondary school and college in the country
• Creating a new all-age careers advice service

ChangeUp - Capacity Building and Infrastructure Framework for the Voluntary and Community Sector is a Home Office funded initiative which sets out a 10 year vision for building the capacity of front line Voluntary and Community Sector (VCS) organisations and putting in place the infrastructure support that they need.

It aims to ensure that the VCS can play an active part in meeting the diverse needs of its communities as well as respond to the Government's desire to increase the sustainability of the sector and prepare it for new opportunities to tender for, and play a greater role in the delivery of services.

In May 2006 a strategy was published outlining the three year plan to develop the Central London's VCS workforce so that the sector can meet the challenges and maximise the opportunities presented by Government policy. It has been supported by Learning and Skills Council London Central.

Subsequently, the Central London ChangeUp Consortium is organising a special event on 27th March for Colleges and the VCS to look at ways of working together and drive towards establishing more effective working links between adult education providers and the VCS.

This Bill was introduced in the Queens Speech on 15th November 2006 and contains a range of measures designed to reform the FE system in order to equip learners with high quality skills for productive, sustainable employment.

In summary, the Bill will make provision;

• relating to the LSC's structure and function
• about institutions within the further education sector
• with respect to industrial training levies
• about the formation of, and investment in, companies and charitable incorporated organisations by higher education corporations

and

• will enable the making of Assembly Measures in relation to the field of education and training; and for connected purposes

This briefing sets out the latest evidence on the correlation between workplaces being 'high performing', having high levels of union membership and having good training arrangements in place. In particular, it looks at the impact of the union influence on the training agenda in workplaces via the role of the bargaining agenda and also through the activities of union learning reps.