ISOLATE training costs from all others,
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certainly for the next financial year. This advice was given to transport operators last week by Mr. W. D. Seymour, a member of the Central Training Council and a consultant, addressing the Kettering and Northants branch of the British Institute of Management. He was suggesting that firms' estimated training costs would, he accepted by Industrial Training Boards for the first year hut that, subsequently, andited annual figures would be required.
As a guide to the sort of costs likely to be chargeable to training, Mr. Seymour revealed that a questionnaire to employers by the Engineering Industrial Training Board included the " rental " of machinery and the floor space of equipment used for training. (This could mean that instructors' wages and vehicle costs might be chargeable in the case of a vehicle used for drivertraining, and loss of use of the vehicle for normal work might also be chargeable.)
Asked about the likely levy per -head, Mr, Seymour said figures which had been bandied about for several industries were pure speculation. The picture would be clearer when the Ministry of Labour had collated the details on the
engineering industry questionnaires, which were returnable on January 18.
Many questions showed hostility to the training schemes, and concern was expressed at the elaborate bureaucratic structure for their administration, but the speaker pointed out that even if the Training Boards system was like taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut. it would not have been necessary if industry had done the job in the first place. He quoted a Chinese proverb: " If you're planning for a year, plant corn; for 10 years, plant trees: but if you're concerned with a lifetime, grow men."
Mr. Seymour said that under the Act, eight regional offices with "advisory and inspectional " duties would be set up.
In engineering, training costs as a percentage of payroll totals of firms already undertaking training would be used to determine the percentage of the levy to be applied over the whole industry. Operative training would take precedence over supervisory and management schemes: for the first year, firms with fewer than five employees would he ignored. but their respite would be brief.