Fixing care’s recruitment and retention issue
31/07/2024 Ben Weatherall, co-founder and director of Curam, looks at what local authorities can do to fix the care sector’s recruitment and retention issue. |
New Advanced CPD Set to Combat False Fire Alarms
22/07/2024 Advanced is pleased to announce the launch of its latest Continuing Professional Development (CPD) course: Managing False Fire Alarms: Tools & Techniques. |
Care sector needs 540,000 workers by 2040
18/07/2024 The care sector will need 540,000 additional social care posts by 2040 to cope with the aging population, care workforce body Skills for Care estimates. |
Six tips to improve public services in the UK
15/07/2024 From social care and schools to bins and the criminal justice system, public services touch the lives of everyone. Here are six tips for improving them. |
Local Government Apprentice of the Year announced
24/05/2024 Sara Jenner-Akehurst from Cambridgeshire County Council has been named as the 2024 Local Government Apprentice of the Year. |
SkillGate’s Classroom Booking System - Training course booking made easy!
29/04/2024 Streamline your training course booking operations with SkillGate’s Classroom Booking System. |
UltraCrete wins Employment and Skills Award at RSTA Annual Conference
18/04/2024 UltraCrete are delighted to announce that they have been presented with the coveted Employment and Skills Award at the 2024 RSTA Annual Conference. |
LGA announces 2024/25 Sector Support programme
12/04/2024 The Local Government Association (LGA) has announced the 2024/25 Sector Support programme to help councils ‘deliver critical services to communities.’ |
UltraCrete partners with Salford City College
27/03/2024 A new UltraCrete and Salford City College Group partnership will see Highways Maintenance Skilled Operative Apprenticeship students become UCARS Accredited. |
National Apprenticeship Week: The importance of a national skills strategy
05/02/2024 Nichola Hay MBE, director of Apprenticeship Strategy and Policy at BPP, discusses the importance of a national strategy with a regional approach. |
Study reveals ‘worrying’ state of local government leadership
25/01/2024 Just over half of council leaders and managers believe their local authority isn’t ensuring accountability for failure, an alarming new study has revealed. |
Social care career reforms ‘only scratch the surface’
10/01/2024 The Government today announced new measures to improve the career prospects of social care staff but concerns remain that this ‘may only scratch the surface’. |
Skills shortage ‘putting brakes’ on net zero
12/12/2023 The skills shortage is undermining efforts to reduce carbon emissions and effectively tackle the climate crisis, local authority leaders in London have warned. |
VR training on coercive control rolled out
07/11/2023 An immersive training programme that aims to raise awareness of gender-based violence and support those affected has been rolled out in Greater Manchester and North Wales. |
County leaders call for ‘adult education revolution’
04/09/2023 County council leaders have urged the Government to ‘fast track’ devolution deals to help boost the number of people taking part in adult education. |
Councils face £18m bill from new housing standards
08/08/2023 Local authorities could be stuck with an £18m bill to implement new government housing standards, the Local Government Association (LGA) has warned. |
LGA: ‘Radical shift’ towards local employment support needed
25/07/2023 Council leaders have called for a ‘radical shift’ from centralised employment support after a consultation emphasised the benefits of 'local involvement'. |
Skills shortage set to worsen with end of European fund
21/07/2023 Local authority leaders have warned that the ongoing skills shortage could get worse as the European Social Fund (ESF) finishes at the end of this year. |
MPs call for devolution of employment support
19/07/2023 The delivery of support aimed at helping people into employment should be devolved to groups of local authorities, MPs have said. |
Government backtracks on ‘employment only’ adult education outcomes
17/07/2023 The Department for Education (DfE) has scrapped its plans to end funding for adult education courses that are not directly linked to employment outcomes. |
Skilled worker shortage undermining net zero drive
01/06/2023 A skilled worker shortage means that at the current rate of heat pump and insulation installation it could take ‘several hundred years’ to meet net zero. |
Council chiefs welcome £165m skills fund
25/05/2023 Local authority leaders have welcomed the launch of a £165m skills fund but say councils should be given more powers to help people into employment. |
Guidance to support social care digitisation published
18/05/2023 The Government has published new guidance to help local authorities and care providers develop digital skills and drive digital transformation. |
Government launches £500,000 know-your-rights scheme
19/04/2023 Social housing tenants in seven cities are to be offered a place on a Government-funded training scheme aimed at helping them hold their landlords to account. |
Council welcomes ‘significant’ £20m Blyth investment
24/02/2023 The Government has announced a multi-million-pound funding package to help spread opportunity and boost local pride in Blyth. |
Council chiefs call for devolution of skills powers
24/02/2023 Local authority leaders have called for the devolution of skills budgets and powers to help them support young people into education, employment or training. |
Solving the homelessness sector’s workforce crisis
14/02/2023 Rick Henderson, chief executive of Homeless Link, discusses the first ever accredited qualification for the homelessness workforce. |
Khan announces £14m to restore trust in Met
27/01/2023 The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has set out proposals for £14.2m of new funding to rebuild the trust and confidence of London’s communities in the Met Police. |
First ever qualification for homelessness workforce launched
24/01/2023 The first ever accredited qualification for the homelessness workforce has been launched to help frontline staff develop their skills. |
Be Part of a Net-Zero Future – BEIS-funded training available through the Retrofit Academy
23/01/2023 Retrofit Academy secures funding to deliver over 1200 retrofit courses in England to help the UK achieve its net zero goals by building a skilled workforce. |
Nine in 10 councils experiencing staffing issues
20/01/2023 Council leaders have warned that the workforce crisis is threatening local services as a survey reveals nine in 10 councils are experiencing staffing issues. |
Better together: how to retain IT talent in the public sector
21/12/2022 Arun Kumar, regional director at ManageEngine, looks at how the public sector can get over its digital skills problem. |
Government’s £4bn annual skills spend ‘failing to deliver’
14/12/2022 Council chiefs have called for an end to the centralised approach to training as report finds that the Government’s £4bn skills spend is ‘failing to deliver’. |
DWP urged to devolve employment support to councils
02/12/2022 Local authority leaders have called for all employment support to be devolved to councils rather than contracted out to large providers. |
How tech can help councils handle customer vulnerability
30/11/2022 Paul Mander outlines how local government can use tech to spot vulnerable individuals. |
Thousands of apprentices quit due to ‘poor quality’ of scheme
28/11/2022 Thousands of people who have taken up apprenticeships to help them develop new skills have dropped out due to the poor quality of schemes, research reveals. |
Social care vacancies up by a record 52%
11/10/2022 The number of vacant posts in adult social care has increased by a record 52% in one year, an alarming new report has revealed. |
Nearly half of teachers not confident teaching sex education
29/09/2022 Almost half of secondary school teachers say they don’t feel confident teaching sex and relationships education, a new survey has revealed. |
Council chiefs welcome call for £1bn skills funding
22/09/2022 Council leaders have welcomed a call to move away from the top-down approach to skills, and to provide communities with the funding needed to boost employment. |
£500m social care workforce fund approved
10/08/2022 The Government has announced a support package worth hundreds of thousands of pounds in an effort to tackle the social care staffing crisis. |
Councils urged to boost local digital skills
06/06/2022 Councils urged to do more to help small businesses with digital training as evidence suggests businesses are struggling with the social media revolution. |
Devolve powers to tackle jobs crisis, council chiefs say
17/05/2022 Local authority leaders have called on the Government to devolve more powers to councils to free them up to tackle the growing job crisis at the local level. |
Training carers key priority for social care sector
12/05/2022 Reform and training carers are two of the key priorities for the social care sector during the year ahead, according to the annual report of the CSW Lyn Romeo. |
Adult social care workforce receives £500m boost
05/04/2022 People working in adult social care in England are set to benefit from a £500m boost that will go towards improving the recruitment and retention of staff. |
Social housing staff training review confirmed
18/01/2022 The Government today confirmed a review of the training of social housing staff after receiving thousands of complaints in the wake of the Grenfell tragedy. |
Mayor Khan announces £600,000 fund to ‘rewild’ London
15/12/2021 Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has launched a new fund to help restore wildlife sites and create more natural habitats for plants and animals across the capital. |
Council chiefs call for devolution of skills powers
30/11/2021 Local authority leaders are urging MPs to support measures that would see councils have more say in the delivery of skills development at the local level. |
Government launches £7m flexible apprenticeship scheme
03/08/2021 Anyone looking to get experience and training to work in adult social care will now be able benefit from new flexible apprenticeships, the Government says. |
Homes England invites council officers to join summer training programme
17/05/2021 Homes England are inviting council officers to join a Summer Learning Programme aimed at sharing knowledge on topics that could enhance home-building efforts. |
UC claimants given access to longer work-related training
01/04/2021 An initiative aimed at increasing access to training for UC claimants will see an extension to the time people can receive UC during work-focused study. |
PM pledges to transform skills and training system
29/09/2020 The Prime Minister has outlined plans to transform the training and skills system to help the country recover from the coronavirus pandemic. |
Council cuts damaging ‘grassroots’ grass pitches
30/10/2019 Local authority austerity and budget cuts have had a damaging effect on ‘grassroots’ grass pitches, a groundskeeping organisation says. |
Funding to train nurses should be expanded to public health workers, council chiefs say
11/09/2019 Funding to train nurses should be expanded to cover public health workers including health visitors and school nurses, the Local Government Association says. |
Shell is helping power the journey towards a circular paving industry with Shell Bitumen LT R, a new product for roads that uses plastics destined for landfill as part of the additives to make the bitumen.
Effective Energy Group is now offering its support to the 40 Local Authorities who have received a share of the £430m to deliver their projects on the ground by surveying properties and installing measures.
Dougie Belmore explains how one of the main interfaces between you and Bacs is about to change.