Education secretary Damian Hinds has today officially kick-started the much-anticipated National Retraining Scheme.
The scheme – worth £100m – was originally announced in 2017, but details have not been forthcoming, and as recently as in April, apprenticeship and skills minister Anne Milton told a committee in Parliament it was still in the very early stages.
The NRS will aim to support adults to adapt to changes in the workplace, and is a "key part" of the government’s industrial strategy.
According to today's announcement, the scheme's first service, Get Help to Retrain, will support and retrain adults whose jobs could be obsolete or change due to technological advances and will be rolled out in the Liverpool city region.
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Get Help to Retrain will assist adults in identifying their existing skills, explore local job opportunities and direct them towards training courses to gain the skills they need to progress.
Today's announcement comes as figures reveal that 35 per cent of jobs could be at risk of changing as a result of automation over the next decade.
'A big and complex challenge'
Mr Hinds said that the scheme would be pivotal in helping adults across the country to get on the path to a new, more rewarding career.
He said “This is big and complex challenge, which is why we are starting small, learning as we go, and releasing each part of the scheme only when it’s ready to benefit its users.”
Steve Rotheram, Metro Mayor of the Liverpool City Region, said that he was pleased the scheme was launching in Liverpool City.
“It is also clear that, because regional economies like ours differ so much from those of London and the South East, the government needs to deliver real devolution of powers and funding for training so that we can ensure our residents have the skills that our economy needs,” he said.
The National Retraining Scheme is led and overseen by the National Retraining Partnership – a partnership between government, the CBI and the TUC.
