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Ted Stanley of UNOCO welcomes Sir Digby Jones announcement about training but says funding is already available

Sir Digby Jones' announcement today that skills training should be made much more accessible has been welcomed by Ted Stanley, chief executive officer of Nottingham based learning and development specialists, the Unoco Group.  Sir Digby also said that training should be offered free of charge as an incentive for business to train staff but according to Ted a significant amount of funding is already available in the region - around £20m.  East Midlands companies however are not taking full advantage of this funding.  According to Ted they could gain a real competitive edge if they were to do so and commit to a programme of training for their work force.   It would enable them to develop the skills and qualifications of their staff which would, in turn, help to increase their efficiency and productivity and ultimately would result in higher profits and growth.

"One of the main reasons for companies not taking advantage of the funding that is available to them for training is they don't know how to go about accessing it," said Ted.  "This is largely due to the fact that it comes from a variety of different sources and there are a lot of different programmes so it is far from straight forward." 

Funded training includes the Train to Gain Service, leading to Level 2 NVQs and Essential Skills in literacy and numeracy and Skills Xtra, a programme designed specifically to support training within organisations that have not traditionally trained their staff or for those that have not taken part in recent Education Training Partnership pilots.

Also included is Train in Work which provides a wide range of heavily subsidised business, vocational and essential skills training; Aspire, a Nottinghamshire project which provides funded training for SMEs to complement the Train to Gain programme and Essential Skills for Care, a programme specifically designed for the healthcare sector.

"We are helping a growing number of local companies to access funding for their training and they are starting to see a real benefit to their business," said Ted.  "We are also working with organisations such as The Nottingham Training Network and training providers to deliver the training."

For further information contact:

Ted Stanley, UNOCO, tel: 0871 4333363
Dianne Allen/Ruth Gross, Gemini PR & Marketing tel: 0115 852 3850