• Industry Training Review Released
• Artworks Launched
• Benefits, Super Up In April
• Extra Social Workers Taken On
• Hospitality Industry School
• Government And The Voluntary Sector
• TEAC Report Roadshow

Industry Training Review Released

Prime Minister Helen Clark and Associate Education (Tertiary Education) Minister Steve Maharey released a review of New Zealand's industry training system last week. The Government wants to ensure industry training further contributes to the efforts to raise skill levels in the New Zealand workforce and help New Zealand's economy to thrive in the twenty-first century.

Not all sectors of the economy have ITOs or integrated industry skills and training strategies and firms have limited ability to anticipate economy-wide shortages, resulting in a restricted supply of skilled workers in some sectors.

The review was conducted by the Department of Labour and the Ministry of Education in conjunction with Skill New Zealand. It focuses on six key areas:

• improving access to and responsiveness to training;
• the funding of industry training;
• developing the generic, transferable skills of New Zealand's workforce;
• raising the level of foundation skills;
• providing better information for decision-makers and planners; and,
• exploring some of the implications for government agencies.

While skilled workforce is vital to our economic growth, standard of living, and our international competitiveness the review found that a disturbing numbers of New Zealanders do not have a basic level of literacy and numeracy essential for most jobs.

The public consultation document Skills for the Knowledge Economy: Ngä möhiotanga mö te köhanga whai mätauranga presents a number of options for boosting foundation skills training, including funding this area at a higher rate than other training, setting up a separate fund for foundation skills training and including a literacy/numeracy component in entry-level qualifications.

The Industry Training Review has been closely aligned with the work of the Tertiary Education Advisory Commission, whose second report, Shaping the System, was recently released.

* copies of Skills for the Knowledge Economy: Ngä möhiotanga mö te köhanga whai mätauranga are available on the Department of Labour website at www.dol.govt.nz/itr.htm. Submissions on the discussion document close on April 11

Artworks, a new employment programme to create real paying jobs in the creative sector, was launched last week by Social Services and Employment Minister Steve Maharey. The arts and arts based organisations provide viable avenues to employment which the Government wants to back.

Artworks supports new and established businesses and offers the creative industries an opportunity to showcase the employment poential of the sector:

• by providing arts related workers the oppportunity to get real paying jobs in the sector;
• by increasing the level of artistic and business-related skills in the sector;
• by investing in the strength of arts organisations so that they can offer real paying sustainable jobs; and,
• by increasing the profile of the creative sector and its economic potential.

Mr Maharey launched Artworks at Auckland's Moving Image Centre. The company sits at the cutting edge of the digital arts industry and is an excellent learning environment. The Community Eemployment Group (CEG) will help with business planning, the development of new curatorial training opportunities and marketing.

Other arts organisations contracted by CEG to date to develop Artworks programmes include the Cleveland Living Arts Centre and the Dunedin City Council (Dunedin), Toi Mana Art Gallery and Blah Blah Entertainment Trust (Christchurch), Pablos Arts Studio and Arts Access Aotearoa (Wellington), Exhibit Art and Craft Collective and Korou Kore Marae (Northland).

Benefit payments, student allowances, NZ Superannuation/Veteran's Pension and war pensions all increase from April 1 as part of the annual cost of living adjustment. The increase of 3.98 percent in the net rates equates to the increase in the cost of living for the year to December 2000 as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI). Examples of the increases in the after-tax weekly rates are:

• for an unemployed person receiving the community wage, or a full time student living away from home aged over 25, up $5.92 to $154.56;
• for a married couple on the community wage with no children, up $9.86 to $257.58;
• for a single person aged 18-19 years on the community wage living at home, up $3.94 to $103.03;
• for a single person over 18 receiving the invalid's benefit, up $7.39 to $193.18;
• for a sole parent with one child, up $8.47 to $221.37;
• for a married couple who both qualify for New Zealand Superannuation, up $13.82 to $360.82; and,
• for a war disablement pensioner receiving 100% disability rate, up $5.85 to $152.75.

Six new social workers are to be taken on in Hamilton as part of a strategy to assist Child, Youth and Family to tackle its backlog of unallocated cases in the city.

Funding has been provided to enable the Department to take on two new permanent staff in the Hamilton office. In addition agreements have been concluded with Parentline, the Salvation Army and Maatua Whangai which will see four staff employed by the Department for four days per week for the next four months. The four social workers will continue to work one day a week for their usual employer.

Associate Education (Tertiary Education) Minister Steve Maharey opened a new hospitality industry training school in Auckland. The Académie Accor will provide hospitality training for New Zealand employees of the Accor Group, the world's largest accommodation and hotel group. Developed in conjunction with the Hospitality Standards Institute, its qualifications and programmes will be accepted on both sides of the Tasman.

Community and Voluntary Sector Minister Steve Maharey joined Tina Reid of the NZ Federation of Voluntary Welfare Organisations; Stella Gukibau of Ngati Whatua Health and Community Services and Community and Voluntary Sector Working Party member John Stansfield at UNITEC this week to discuss the characteristics of a healthy relationship between government and the voluntary sector. Mr Maharey said the relationship was going through a transformation after the individualist policies and the narrow contractualist paradigm of the 1990s. The clear message from consultation with the third sector carried out by the Community and Voluntary Sector Working Party is that things need to change.

Volunteers committed to working for civic good have increasingly found themselves spending their time as unpaid administrators and quasi-public servants. The establishment of the Working Party signalled the new Government's intent to promote open dialogue and to generate a greater understanding of the issues faced by the third sector and its aspirations for the future.

Mr Maharey said the Working Group is due to report to him soon and it is not proposing the development of a formal compact or agreement at this stage. Instead it plans to recommend a number of immediate steps to strengthen the relationship and to reduce the compliance costs associated with programmes which are fully or partly Government funded.

Associate Education (Tertiary Education) Minister and Tertiary Education Advisory Commission Chair Russell Marshall have begun a 10-centre tour to seek feedback on the Commission's report. Last week at meetings in Wellington and Palmerston North Mr Maharey stressed the potential of the report's proposals to contribute to regional economic growth. Both cities have strong knowledge-based industry sectors. If implemented, the proposed Tertiary Education Commission has the potential to further strengthen regional educational clusters and better connect them to the needs of their local economies.

* remaining regional forums being held during March are in Greymouth (20th), Christchurch (22nd), Nelson (23rd), Gisborne (28th), Auckland (29th) and Dunedin (31st). Further details are available from TEAC, phone (04) 471 5347 or e-mail enquiries@teac.govt.nz