David Willetts

Today’s National Audit Office report on Train to Gain shows the Government has spent hundreds of millions of pounds on training which employers would have provided anyway.

David Willetts, Shadow Secretary of State for Universities and Skills, commented:

“This report confirms our fears that much of the Train to Gain budget has been wasted. The shocking price tag for the failure and mismanagement of this programme runs into hundreds of millions of pounds.

“As the National Audit Office concludes, ‘the programme has not provided good value for money’. The Government must refocus Train to Gain on apprenticeships and training of real value to help people in the recession.”

ENDS

Notes to Editors

1. The National Audit Office’s Report into Train to Gain concludes: ‘In our view… over its full lifetime the programme has not provided good value for money.’

Source: National Audit Office, Train to Gain: developing the skills of the workforce, 21 July 2009

2. The report states that £1.47 billion has been spent on Train to Gain. It also says that ‘half of the employers whose employees received training would have arranged similar training without public subsidy’.

This suggests that £725 million has been spent on training which would have happened anyway.

3. The NAO found a lot of Train to Gain funding to be ineffective:

• Some of the largest training providers had Train to Gain success rates as low as 8%.
• A majority of employers using Train to Gain reported no increase in profit margins or sales.
• Only a quarter of learners reported a pay increase, promotion or bonus due to their Train to Gain qualification.
• ‘Recent survey evidence suggests that half the employers (50 per cent) who had arranged training via Train to Gain stated that they would have arranged the same or similar training in the absence of the programme, although this training may not have led to achievement of full qualifications.’

4. The Conservative Party will refocus the Train to Gain budget on new apprenticeship and pre-apprenticeship opportunities.

Source: Conservative Party, Building Skills, Transforming Lives, July 2008; available online: http://www.davidwilletts.co.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/skills-green-paper_no7.pdf