Minister looks for lower training levies
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• A "significantly greater" exemption of small firms from levy schemes under the Industrial Training Boards has been forecast by Mr Robert Carr, the Employment Secretary.
He made this point during a Commons explanation of Government thinking about the future of the boards.
Their work, said Mr Carr, was an important part of manpower policy generally, which included the Government's direct training activities and the whole range of employment policies and services.
He thought it right to consider the future of industrial training within this broader framework before concluding whether, and if so how, its present organization should be modified.
These were complex and important questions and he anticipated that it would be some months before he was in a position to publish a consultative document.
In the meantime, the industrial training boards would have to submit further proposals to him for financing their activities, and were looking to him for guidance.
Mr Carr outlined the financial policies which he would like the boards to develop, though he recognized that there might be some exceptions.
Steps had to be taken to control the cost of grant schemes and the administrative expenditure of boards more effectively, he said. Better control and a more selective choice of training priorities should enable some reduction in levy rates to be introduced progressively.
A proposal to increase the rate of levy would not normally be approved, he went on. Arrangements for "netting" levy payments against grant return should be introduced generally.
As in the past, said Mr Carr, boards would be expected to have consulted their industries before submitting proposals for his approval and to have borne in mind in framing their proposals the need to give employers, educational authorities and colleges of further education sufficient warning of changes.
These steps, which some training boards had already -taken, would, he believed, go some way to reducing the difficulties which had arisen in the operation of the Industrial Training Act and should help the boards to gain wider support for the development of their constructive work.