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 NEW CEO FOR QA-IQ
 In a move that took most of the industry by surprise, John Kauffman has stepped down from his position as Managing Director of QA-IQ Ltd. Over the last eight years Kauffman has led InterQuad Learning from small beginnings to its takeover of QA plc and the rebranding of the combined company as QA-IQ, the largest IT training company in the UK. He will continue as a Non-Executive Director.
QA-IQ has appointed a new Chief Executive to lead the company and develop future opportunities for growth. He is William Macpherson, who was until recently the Chief Executive of Kaplan Professional and International, a major learning services organisation with sales in excess of $500 million. He began heading training companies in 1995 when he became Chief Executive of Financial Training, which he built into one of the UK's largest accountancy training businesses. Jun 2008
LEARNING TREE FOR SALE
 Learning Tree International, which is listed on the US Nasdaq exchange, has set up a special committee of its independent directors to solicit offers for the company. In a brief press release, it says “We believe this is an appropriate time to solicit offers to determine if a sale is the best way to maximize shareholder value. A sale would also address the desires of our two founders, who remain our principal shareholders, for diversification and liquidity to accommodate their charitable interests". It goes on to say that it has not ruled out either continuing as a stand-alone company “or pursuing some other strategic alternative”. Learning Tree’s UK subsidiary is ranked second in this year’s Top 50 compiled by IT Skills Research. Jun 2008
EMPLOYERS CLAIM THEY SPEND £38 BILLION ON TRAINING ...
The National Employer Skills Survey 2007, just released by the Learning and Skills Council (LSC), says companies in England spent £38.6 billion on training last year, up 16% from 2005. The LSC claims the survey “reveals a nation more committed to training than ever before” and that “employers are committing more money and time towards training”. It says that last year, over two thirds (67%) of the country’s businesses spent a combined total of 218 million days training their workforces, and that the average money spent per employee on training increased by 11% per cent from £1,550 in 2005 to £1,750 in 2007. (But see next story!) Jun 2008
... OR IS IT £2.6 BILLION?
The TUC has published a critique of the LSC’s National Employers Skills Survey (above), which puts some of the report’s more dubious claims into context. It points out that the £38.6 million figure includes normal wage costs of employees when they are training, on the basis that this should be treated as 'lost production'. This accounts for just over £18 billion or 47% of the total estimate. In addition, wage costs of internal staff involved in managing and delivering training account for over £14 billion or another 37% of the total estimate. The amount that employers spent on fees to external providers (including colleges) was £2.6 billion – a mere 7% of the total estimated spend of £38.6 billion [and an average of just £118 per head]. In fact, says the TUC, this figure has remained static and is exactly the same for 2007 as it was in 2000. The survey also found that 33% of employers questioned admitted they did not do any training. The TUC says it is “a shocking indictment that a third of employers are still not providing any form of training for their staff”. Jun 2008
HP TO ACQUIRE EDS
 HP and EDS have signed an agreement under which HP will purchase EDS for approximately $13.9 billion. The transaction is expected to close in the second half of 2008, and will more than double HP's services revenues. The companies' combined services businesses had revenues of more than $38 billion in FY2007, and a total of 210,000 employees. Jun 2008
CHAPMAN SPEAKS OUT
Robert Chapman, outspoken CEO of Firebrand Training, has painted a bleak picture of companies going bust while IT salaries soar – and all because of a lack of a skilled IT workforce. Writing for TrainingZone, he says that in the last five years the UK has seen a decline in skilled IT professionals and a major shortfall in other areas such as digital media. 200,000 basic IT jobs will be offshored by 2010, but employers are no longer satisfied just with technical skills: increasingly businesses are looking for well-rounded individuals who can combine their technical knowledge with negotiation, management and interpersonal skills. "The IT industry will soon be beyond the point of no return", says Chapman. "The government needs to take action and encourage companies to focus on training in order to close the skills gap. It is unrealistic to expect it to front all of the costs associated with training – an alternative would be to offer tax breaks for companies who give their staff time off to train." Jun 2008
CISCO UNIFIED COMMUNICATIONS PM TRAINING FROM GLOBAL KNOWLEDGE
Global Knowledge has launched a Cisco Unified Communications Project Management course. The 5-day course is designed for Cisco engineers and other technical professionals responsible for VoIP implementation, including voice/data integration. It follows the formal project management training framework as defined by the Project Management Institute (PMI), as well as the Cisco Lifecycle Approach of prepare, plan, design, implement, operate and optimise (PPDIOO). Jun 2008
PROMOTION FOR NICK BEARD
Nick Beard, Chief Learning Officer for UK & Ireland at Sun Microsystems, is to be Sun's CLO for the US from 1st June. Nick has been an active and committed member of IT Skills Research, and we wish him every success. We understand his current position will remain open until a suitable successor has been recruited. Jun 2008
BCS JOINS INDUSTRY LEADERSHIP BOARD
The BCS has joined the e-Skills Industry Leadership Board (ILB), a European skills body which was created last year to develop and implement the EU's long-term e-skills and digital literacy agenda. ILB is working in partnership with public authorities across Europe and other industry sectors to build on European Commission recommendations and other initiatives on e-skills. As a board member, BCS will assist in developing the agenda and will also provide leadership, coordinate industry advice, and pool resources and expertise in support of EU and member states' policies to promote ICT practitioner, user and e-business skills and digital literacy. Jun 2008
TOWARDS MATURITY
The e-skills UK 'Towards Maturity' project, funded by the LSC and aimed at helping organisations improve the impact of e-learning at work, was formally closed on 31st March 2008. The programme was deemed a great success, and has now taken on a life of its own with the formation of an independent community interest company –Towards Maturity CIC – which will publish its latest news, stories and research via a monthly newsletter and on its website Jun 2008
SFIA VERSION 4 - CONSULTATION NOW OPEN
Consultation has now begun on the development of version 4 of the Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA). IT professionals, their employers and those responsible for their education and training are invited to comment on the existing skills definitions and make suggestions for new content. The consultation will run through to September and SFIA version 4 is due to be released before the end of 2008. SFIA is now used by more than 1,000 organisations to produce job descriptions and role profiles, support resource planning, and improve business effectiveness. Jun 2008
SKILLSOFT UNVEILS LIVE LEARNING
 SkillSoft has launched Live Learning, which provides a schedule of live online classes in high-demand certification areas such as Project Management, Cisco, Microsoft and CompTIA using instructor-led training (ILT) over the Web. Live Learning is a virtual classroom product that was previously sold under the KnowledgeNet and NETg names prior to their 2007 acquisition by SkillSoft, and is now available on SkillSoft’s SkillPort LMS. Learners can select class times from a Live Calendar, and can also view recorded sessions on demand for up to one year. Jun 2008
SPEED LEARNING FROM HAPPY COMPUTERS
Happy Computers has introduced an innovative way to learn. On a Speed Learning day, every student chooses a different subject to learn every hour and creates their own course. Happy's first Speed Learning day was fully booked with 72 delegates, switching between up to 14 different choices every hour. Following the popularity of this event, Happy Computers is planning a more in the coming months. A repeat general Speed Learning day in September is already booking up, and days specialising in Excel, Access, management training and online social networking are also planned. Jun 2008
APPDEV OPENS IN UK
 Back in December 2007 we reported that US-based AppDev Technical Publishing, an ILT courseware provider focused on Microsoft technologies, was making its courseware available to training companies in the UK. AppDev has now opened an office in Henfield, West Sussex to support its UK and European customers, and Neil Slater – formerly with components vendor FarPoint Technologies – has been appointed to head up this division. Jun 2008
E-SKILLS UK INVITES INPUT TO NEW PLAN
e-skills UK has released a consultation on its five-year strategic plan for England, seeking input from employers, educationalists and other stakeholders with an interest in the UK's IT & Telecoms skills base. The consultation is focused on five strategic objectives and the approaches proposed to address them. The consultation material also contains the key facts that underpin these objectives, the vision the objectives support, and the targets to be achieved. IT training providers are likely to want to contribute, since the plan will include measures for improving access to learning for IT professionals, and for making the best use of public funding for training provision. Jun 2008
OPTIMISM IN SOFTWARE AND IT SERVICES SECTOR
SMEs in the software and IT services sector are challenging gloomy economic projections according to a survey from Intellect, the UK technology trade body. With 53% of respondents forecasting double-digit growth for 2008 (compared with 49% who predicted double-digit growth last year) the mood amongst SMEs remains bullish, despite the global financial squeeze. The sectors most likely to generate this growth, according to respondents, are Services, Telecoms, the Public Sector and Banking. Jun 2008
CEDEFOP RECOMMENDS PUBLIC/PRIVATE COST SHARING
Cedefop, the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training, says that to meet the challenges of global competition, European countries will have to raise participation in lifelong learning and look for innovative funding solutions. It says there is a trend towards a more demand-led approach to better respond to learners’ training needs, and that cost-sharing policies have improved the flexibility and quality of training arrangements and seem to positively influence attitudes towards learning – but that investment in VET needs to increase and cost sharing policies and instruments to be further developed. It also believes schemes should more specifically target SMEs and low-skilled and older workers. Jun 2008
IT SECTOR TO SHARE IN £200M TRAINING CASH
The IT sector is to get a share of £200m of government capital to be invested in new training facilities. The investment, to be made over the next three years, is part of a wider move signalled by John Denham, secretary of state for Innovation, Universities and Skills, that the government will focus attention on developing skills in a number of strategic sectors. It says government research estimates UK businesses will be looking for more than 160,000 extra IT staff by 2014. This is in addition to the 190,000 IT professionals identified by the report Working Futures 2004-2014 who are needed to replace those currently working in IT who will retire or otherwise leave the industry over the next seven years. The money will come from existing further education budgets rather than additional funding, and IT's slice of the pie has yet to be announced. (Reported by Computer Weekly) Jun 2008
TRAINING QUALITY STANDARD LAUNCHED
A new accreditation system has been launched, aimed at delivering specialist excellence in training provision to help address the UK’s skills gaps. The Training Quality Standard is intended to give employers a simple benchmark for choosing training provision and is therefore meant to reflect employers' priorities and expectations. The standard has been created by the LSC and is the outcome of a year-long process of development and testing. It is open to both publicly and privately funded organisations providing workforce training. Jun 2008
FEWER ADULTS IN LEARNING
There has been a fall of 3% in the number of adults participating in learning in the last year. This is the headline finding of the annual Counting the Cost survey published by the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (NIACE). The survey shows the proportion of adults currently learning, or having done so in the last 3 years, has fallen from 41% in 2007 to 38% in 2008. There is also a sharp drop in the number of adults planning to take up learning in the future (45% in 2006, 43% in 2007 and 36% in 2008) and surprisingly the fall is most dramatic among current learners (88% to 72%). Alan Tuckett, Director of NIACE, said: “This survey poses sharp challenges. Its major finding, that participation has fallen among key target groups for the government’s learning and skills strategy, calls into question the balance of current policy instruments". Jun 2008
BRIGHTWAVE ROLLS OUT E-LEARNING FOR ATOC
The Association of Train Operating Companies (ATOC) and Ptarmigan Transport Solutions have selected Brightwave to design and deliver a national e-learning programme for ticket office retail staff on the new ticketing system for rail fares. The aim is to enable staff to offer customers the most appropriate ticket for their individual needs. The modules take around 90 minutes to complete and are followed by an assessment to record level of knowledge and understanding. They will be undertaken both at learner's desks and in training rooms and have been made available on the internet as well as by CD-ROM. Jun 2008
IDEAL SUPPORTS NHS FRAMEWORK
 Ideal Training is working with key influencers from the NHS Connecting for Health (CfH) programme to develop and roll out a framework of accredited training courses to support government plans to improve uptake of level 2 qualifications by staff in the NHS. Ideal is adding bespoke and customised vocational awards to the Care Information System User Competencies and Qualification (CIS UCQ), mapping to the Knowledge and Skills Framework (KSF) and the Health Informatics National Occupational Standards (HINOS). The courses include Information Governance, National Care Record Service, Choose and Book, PACS, Change Management and Essential Computer Skills, and have been designed to comply with the NHS CfH Health Informatics Quality Scheme (HIQS). Ideal is able to offer partnerships with NHS Trusts, SHAs, PCTs, GP practices and NHS suppliers to accredit local in-house training delivery. Jun 2008
IT VITAL TO UK ECONOMY – BUT SKILLS ARE KEY
Intellect, the UK technology trade association, has published a health-check covering the performance of the technology industry and the value of its contribution to the UK economy.
It concludes that IT is a cornerstone of the economy. It says one in 20 of the UK workforce is an IT professional and the competitiveness of the UK is underpinned by a strong technology sector; and that the industry by itself contributes 10% of UK GDP, but its indirect contribution through other industries is even greater. However the report says that government and the industry need to pay careful attention to six key areas, or it will not continue to grow and will not reach its full potential: top of the list is the need for more skills in the workforce, followed by higher professional standards in the sector. Jun 2008
GIUNTI LABS HONOURED BY IBM ...
Giunti Labs has received an IBM Public Sector Top Star Award at IBM's Business Partner Leadership Conference in Los Angeles. Giunti Labs has worked with IBM to provide clients with solutions for learning content and digital asset management, in national government and higher education. Giunti Labs was also a finalist for an IBM Beacon Award for Innovation Excellence in Education. Jun 2008
... AND BY IMS
Giunti Labs has won a Platinum Learning Impact Award from the IMS Global Learning Consortium. Giunti Labs’ learn eXact learning content management system won the award for its application with Volkswagen Group Italia. The same application also won two ‘best in category’ awards, for the best corporate training solution and the best learning system. The application addresses individual training needs by defining key competencies and skill gaps, and Volkswagen uses this analysis to plan tailored training programmes to develop individuals’ key competencies. IMS Global Learning is a membership body, supported by over 115 organisations, that promotes learning technology in the education and corporate learning sectors. Jun 2008
LAUNCH OF SPREADSHEET SAFE
Q-Validus, in conjunction with BPP Learning Media and BTL, has launched a training and certification programme called Spreadsheet Safe. The programme has been created in response to the growing requirement for organisations to reduce the risks posed by unsafe end-user developed spreadsheets. Q-Validus is a newly established international certification solutions provider; BPP Learning Media is a publisher of study materials for professional exams and business; and BTL is an assessment and learning company. Jun 2008
TDA AWARDS BTL E-ASSESSMENT CONTRACT
BTL Group Ltd, an independent learning and assessment solutions provider, has won a 3-year contract with the Training and Development Agency for Schools for the content development of the Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) skills tests. Passing the skills tests in numeracy, literacy and ICT is one of the standards that all trainee teachers in England have to meet before they can be recommended for the award of QTS, with over 30,000 candidates each year taking over 100,000 tests. The new contract will see BTL develop content using its content production system CP3 for the numeracy and literacy tests and its Flash-based simulation tool, The Virtual Desktop, for the ICT tests. Jun 2008
KINEO APPOINTS E-LEARNING CREATIVE DIRECTOR
Kineo has recruited Sharon Spencer as its new Creative Director, and says her appointment is a key step in Kineo’s focus on visual creativity in e-learning. She joins from her role as Head of Art Direction at Epic, and was previously a Senior Design Manager for the Kingfisher group. Jun 2008
ON A LIGHTER NOTE ...
Smiling too much at work can seriously damage your health, German scientists have claimed. Researchers say 'professional smilers', such as flight attendants, sales personnel, call centre operators, waiters, and others in contact with the public for extended periods of time [like trainers?], are at risk of seriously harming their health. Speaking at the end of the two-year study, Professor Dieter Zapf, a researcher into human emotions who led psychologists at Frankfurt University, said that fake friendliness leads to depression, stress, and a lowering of the immune system. "Every time a person is forced to repress his true feelings, there are negative consequences for his health," Zapf said. (Reported by personneltoday.com) Jun 2008
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