MPs attack Government scheme to boost skills

Targets set under the Train to Gain scheme were "unrealistically ambitious" and the level of demand was overestimated, it was claimed.

The Public Accounts Committee said the programme had supported 1.4 million learners by last summer, around 5 per cent of the workforce, but the MPs complained there had been "serious weaknesses" in the way it was managed by the Learning and Skills Council, which comes under Lord Mandelson's Business Department.

In the first two years of Train to Gain, the scheme underspent by 151m against a budget of 747m, said the MPs.

Half of employers whose staff received training under the scheme said they would have arranged similar training without the public subsidy, said the report.

The Government was accused of "discourtesy" by the committee after announcing a new national skills strategy as the MPs were holding hearings on Train to Gain.

Edward Leigh, Conservative MP for Gainsborough and chairman of the committee, said: "Despite providing work-based training for around five per cent of the workforce, the Train to Gain programme has been mismanaged from the outset.

"In the face of evidence of what was achievable, targets for the first two years were unrealistically ambitious. The number of learners, the level of demand from employers and the capacity of training providers were at first all overestimated.

"By the third year, demand for training, fuelled by substantially widened eligibility for the programme and by the recession, had increased to the point where the programme could no longer be afforded.

"Funding to training providers has been stop-start, with many now having to run down the capacity they had been encouraged to build up. Employers with new requirements are being turned away.

"What must happen now is for spending to be brought under control."