Workplace learning in the UK – a new institutionalisation? Professor Helen Rainbird, Birmingham Business School, University of Birmingham, UK

Introduction  The UK – a liberal market economy cf coordinated economies (Hall and Soskice, 2001)  Organised cooperation and rules of exchange between competitors and opposing groups (Crouch and Streeck, 1997)  Voice mechanisms  Institutional, responsive and reactive partnerships on learning (Wallis and Stuart, 2004)  Skills as a collective good – market failure ‘endemic and inevitable’ (Streeck,. 1989)  The UK – any change since Labour came to power in 1997?

Structure  The UK context: an increasingly centralised role for the state in VET  Towards more participative management of learning in the workplace?  The public sector: a more propitious context for institutional approaches to skill development?  Discussion and conclusion

The context  Dismantling of VET institutions under the Conservatives – shift from a tripartite to a neo-liberal regime (King, 1993)  Centralisation of VET policy under the Learning and Skills Councils and voluntarism in the workplace  Sector Skills Councils – limited capacity for voluntary collaboration  ‘Crowding out’ of other stakeholders by the state (Keep, 2004)

A more participative management of learning in the workplace?  Rhetoric of partnership but lack of institutions involving dual agency  Union learning representatives – create demand  No rights to consultation on company training plan (1999 Employment Relations Act – only applies to workplaces recognised under statutory procedures and excluded from Information and Consultation Regulations 2004)  Reactive partnerships emerge in a crisis  Based on ‘enthusiastic local actors’ but institutionally fragile  Extremely weak or unenforceable legal entitlements  Possible basic platform of entitlement to NVQ level 2 – from 2006/7 free tuition for first full level 2 qualification

The public sector: a more propitious context for institutional development?  Skills Strategy White Paper ‘public sector leading by example’  Modernisation agenda plus UNISON as industrial union with workplace learning strategy  Development of partnerships and employee entitlement  Increasing national coordination especially in health  Northern Ireland – union-driven, multi- employer co-ordination in regional and local partnership boards

Discussion and conclusion  Uneven process of institutionalisation – centralisation but no employer coordination or cooperation  Union learning representatives but Confederation of British Industry resistance to encroachment on employer prerogative  Achievements based on bargaining strength, new learning provision and possible basic floor of rights  Responsive approach to partnership in the public sector  Public sector exceptionalism: ‘good employer’ or the continuation of British industrial relations tradition of ‘collective laissez-faire’?

Research projects  Munro, A. and H. Rainbird, Evaluation of Unison/employer partnerships on workplace learning in Northern Ireland.  Rainbird, H. K. Evans, P. Hodkinson and L. Unwin Improving Incentives to Learning at Work. End of Award Report submitted to the ESRC Teaching and Learning Researc Programme.  Rainbird, H., A. Munro and L. Holly, Multi-employer partnerships in health and social care. Report for Unison. London, Unison.  Rainbird, H., A. Munro and L. Holly, Evaluation of the Skills Escalator Approach in NHS Professionals. Report Prepared for the NHSU. University College Northampton.  Rainbird, H. A. Munro, L. Holly and R. Leisten, The Future of Work in the Public Sector: Learning and Workplace Inequality. ESRC Future of Work Programme Discussion Paper No. 2, University of Leeds.  Rainbird, H. J. Sutherland, P. Edwards, L. Holly and A. Munro, Employee Voice and Training at Work: Analysis of Case Studies and WERS 98. Department of Trade and Industry, Employment Relations Research Series, No. 21.