§ Mr. MossTo ask the Secretary of State for Employment what plans he has for the staffing of training and enterprise councils in the longer term.
§ Mr. HowardOn 26 July 1991 I wrote to the chairmen of all TECs proposing that discussions should begin with TECs, with the relevant trade unions and with seconded staff about arrangements to secure the objective of freeing TECs to be the direct employers of their staff on terms and conditions decided by TECs.
I am writing today to TEC chairmen setting out the broad arrangements for phasing out secondments to TECs from the civil service by October 1996. These will give TECs the freedom to offer secondees employment in their TEC. Secondees in turn will be free to accept TEC employment or return to the Department when their secondment period ends. TECs will be provided with the funding to offer former secondees pension provisions broadly comparable with the principal civil service pension scheme. Subject to normal parliamentary procedures for notifying the giving of non-statutory guarantees and indemnities, I also propose to meet the costs of redundancy entitlements for past civil service employment in the event of a redundancy arising as a direct result of Government action within the first five years of the start of former secondee's employment in a TEC.