11.7.95

'Pay as you train' plan considered 
by Labour

By Jon Hibbs Political Staff

PLANS for employees to pay small sums - maybe 50 pence a week - towards the cost of improving their skills at work are being considered by Labour in a move likely to be denounced by the Tories as a "tax on training".

The suggestion of an employee contribution is being advocated in an attempt to overcome continuing resistance from employers to Labour's proposals to persuade them to invest in adequate training.

Labour is pledged to introduce a statutory framework governing the provision of training 
and has been consulting employers.

So far the favoured option has been the introduction of individual "learning accounts" in which employers make contributions to a portable fund for each worker, which the employee in turn can use to spend on improving career skills.

Harriet Harman, the shadow employment spokesman, is said to favour a further refinement in which a regular employee contribution would trigger a larger investment by the employer, in the same way that companies top up pensions.

"If they chip in a small sum, such as 50 pence a week, then the employer would have to respond with a multiple of that on a weekly basis. It would be a deal in the workplace between employer and employee and they could both talk about how the money would be spent," said a source.

The proposal, floated in a policy document to be published shortly, is likely to be seized on by the Conservatives as evidence that Labour has a hidden tax-raising agenda that will hit individuals and companies.

Ms Harman's latest thinking represents a further retreat from the policy on which Labour fought the last election, under which companies would be forced to provide training or pay part of the cost of Government provision.A revised version of this system remains one option under consideration in the forthcoming document.

Another option is to give employees a legal entitlement to a number of learning days each year, like the so-called "Baker-days" for in-service training offered to teachers piloted by Kenneth Baker when he was Education Secretary.

Some British companies already operate such a system, in which the employers make their commitment by paying for time off.