§ Mr. Craigenasked the Secretary of State for Employment what consideration has been given to strengthening the role and performance of the industry training boards in manpower planning.
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§ Mr. GoldingThe Manpower Services Commission in its"Review and Plan 1978"emphasises that industry training boards—ITBs—have a key role in helping companies in their industries to develop relevant manpower plans. The boards are expected to accept wider responsibilities for assessing the training needs of their industries, and the resources necessary to do this are reviewed regularly by the commission with the boards.
Under the commission's "Training for Skills" programme, national training bodies, including ITBs, are asked to demonstrate that they have systematically analysed the manpower, training and further education needs of their industries, and to put forward proposals to meet them. Special attention is drawn to the need for intakes of young people into occupations requiring lengthy training to be adequate to long term needs.