Skills Policy

The TUC has long campaigned to raise the skills of Britain's work force. It's good for the country's competitiveness and helps people find more fulfilling and better paid jobs. Here are links to our most recent policy and research work on skills, education and lifelong learning. You can find older material using the search facilities. The TUC is also actively involved in promoting lifelong learning through unionlearn.

Unionlearn was formed from the merger of TUC Education and Learning Services in May 2006. This new initiative has been developed by the TUC to help unions meet the education and skills needs of their members.

Unionlearn aims:

  • to help unions become learning organisations
  • to help unions to broker learning opportunities for their members
  • to research union priorities on learning and skills

For further information on unionlearn, visit http://www.unionlearn.org.uk


The most recent documents available on this subject are:

TUC response to ‘Traineeships' discussion paper

In November 2012, Matthew Hancock, Skills Minister announced that BIS would be introducing "Traineeships". The premise of the programme is that as Apprenticeships improve in quality, young people may need to undertake a programme which equips them w...

8 February 2013
TUC Response to the Richard Review

The Government asked the entrepreneur, Doug Richard, to carry out an overarching review of Apprenticeships in the summer of 2012. The TUC responded to the review - you can download the response here.

5 September 2012
Employer Ownership of Skills Pilot

The government is currently piloting major changes to the skills funding regime in England. At present the vast majority of the government subsidy for workforce training (including apprenticeships) is distributed by the Skills Funding Agency and Nati...

PDF version available for download
19 July 2012
Rethinking Apprenticeships - Making quality count: The Union View

This chapter focuses on TUC's current strategy to support high-quality apprenticeships. By Fred Grindrod and Iain Murray.

24 November 2011
Students at the Heart of the System

TUC response to the Higher Education White Paper. In brief the central message of the TUC's response to the HE White Paper is that the decision to allow tuition fees to be increased significantly, allied with a range of other government announcements...

13 October 2011
New Challenges, New Chances

TUC submission to the government consultation. The TUC welcomes the opportunity to comment on the government's consultation on the next steps in implementing the Further Education Reform Programme. However, the TUC is seriously concerned that aspects...

PDF version available for download
13 October 2011



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