HC Deb 12 June 1978 vol 951 cc366-7W
Mrs. Renée Short

asked the Secretary of State for Employment how many women are receiving training through the industrial training boards.

Mr. Golding

At present, information about the numbers of women in training is not generally collected in industries covered by industrial training boards. However, the Manpower Services Commission will shortly issue guidelines to industrial training boards designed to improve the availability of statistics on industry-based training generally. These guidelines will contain recommendations about the provision of statistics on numbers in training in certain key occupations—for example, at craft and technician level—according to sex and by region and whether the trainee is a young person or adult. Industrial training boards will also be asked to provide information about the employment of men and women by occupational group.

A national training survey was carried out in 1975 by the MSC. The survey was designed to obtain information from a large sample of individuals about their employment history and courses of training undertaken. Data from the survey is currently being analysed and statistics on vocational training received by women are expected to be available in the autumn of 1978.