Welsh Government
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£68 million boost to skills economy
The ProAct scheme will receive £48m of Welsh Assembly Government funding, including £30m from the Convergence European Social Fund, to cover the year 2009-10 and the current pilot phase. ProAct assists employers and employees to deal with a fall-off in orders and provides an alternative to redundancy by way of short time working and retraining during the days not being worked. This programme will also include support to apprentices to complete their training, whose employers are struggling to see them through to the end of the course.
To support apprenticeships during the economic downturn a further £20m will be made available, subject to support from European Structural Funds, for the creation of a package of measures to help sustain and encourage new apprenticeship recruitment.
John Griffiths said:
As we respond to the global economic downturn, as Government, we must make every effort to support businesses, employees and our learners.
This substantial package of funding will protect those already undertaking apprenticeships, while ensuring there are opportunities available for those who want to acquire valuable knowledge and skills to support the economy and gain employment.
First Minister Rhodri Morgan said:
When the downturn started to bite in the Autumn, we initiated our Economic Summits involving businesses and the trade union leaders. The basic idea for ProAct came from those summits. While Welsh industry appreciated the importance of the ReAct scheme, which deals with post-redundancy retraining and re-employment, the lack of an equivalent scheme to deal with the pre-redundancy situation emerged as a top priority.
It is far better to keep people in jobs and prevent them from being made redundant and far better, if the orders just aren’t there, to use the short-time for upgrading your training than to be paid to sit at home. Most governments on the continent have introduced that kind of ‘sit at home’ short-time working subsidy scheme.
We believe subsidising retraining is a far better way of preparing for the economic upturn, when it comes. We do not underestimate the challenges our economy will face over the next few months, and the announcement of this funding is another significant example of how we are trying to make this recession as short and shallow as possible.
Education Minister Jane Hutt said:
The £68m for ProAct and apprenticeships shows our commitment to building solid skills foundations. This funding will provide valuable support for apprentices while encouraging new apprenticeship recruitment.
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