THE LEARNING and Skills Council (LSC) is planning to slash 1,300
jobs. Of these 550 will be in Coventry.
Rob Windsor
Coventry has haemorrhaged manufacturing jobs in the past two years
with the closure of Massey Ferguson and Jaguar and 800 job losses at
Peugeot. It is also horribly ironic that the department responsible for
helping retrain and re-skill former industrial workers is now cutting
its own staff.
These job losses tie in with the other massive civil service cuts
driven by the Gershon report. Face-to-face contact with clients at
benefit offices is being unsuccessfully replaced by call centres. In
Coventry, claimants needing cash urgently are being turned away from
local benefit offices. But it can take two weeks to get through by
phone. Adult and community education services are also being cut.
Blair’s government says it’s put education and training at the top of
its agenda. But employers have not. Qualifications like the NVQ are
mainly based on what bosses want. They may provide skills for the job in
hand but not other, wider skills.
LSC staff have attempted to scrutinise and influence training and
education provided by colleges and other organisations. The cuts will
mean that this scrutiny becomes more and more "light touch". Those
proposing these cuts want these institutions left to their own devices.
A recent LSC report covering Individual Learning Accounts showed
fraud – cash being claimed for non-existent learners involving false
addresses – as "common". This and increasingly poor provision for the
poorest and least-skilled in society will worsen if these cuts go
through.
There has been no preparation for the effects of this review.
Management prefer a short-term approach. They are spending lots on
expensive agency and temporary staff and prefer to spend £70 million on
consultants rather than really consulting their own staff.
Staff are taking action and fighting back, linking up with civil
service union PCS members in the Department for Work and Pensions and
the Inland Revenue to fight to keep civil service jobs. Blair seems hell
bent on "going nuclear" with our public services and needs to be
stopped.
Rally for Jobs and Services
Coventry Council House, Coventry, Saturday 12 November, 10.30am.
Assemble opposite Coventry Council House. 11.00am: Meeting at
Methodist Central Hall.
- Speakers: PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka and Socialist Party
councillor Dave Nellist, who will both be speaking at the Socialism 2005
event in London later.
