Estimating the Demand for Union-Led Learning in Scotland

This research paper was commissioned and funded by the Scottish Trade Union Congress (STUC). It is being disseminated through the TUC’s unionlearn High Road project. The project is part of a community programme called Equal – a European Social Fund initiative that tests and promotes new means of combating all forms of discrimination and inequality in the labour market. The GB Equal Support Unit is managed by ECOTEC. Unionlearn is the TUC organisation that supports union-led strategies on learning and skills. It helps unions open up learning and skills opportunities for their members and to develop trade union education for their representatives and officers.

More effective skills utilisation : shifting the terrain of skills policy in Scotland

This paper examines shifts in skills policy in Scotland towards emphasising the importance of effective skills utilisation. Turning policy into practice, however, requires a better understanding than currently exists of skills utilisation in order to facilitate better measurement, evaluation and intervention. This paper aims to contribute to such an understanding. We suggest that effective skills utilisation comprises two distinct elements: the use of better skills and the better use of skills, with the former crucial to the development of a high skills economy and the latter crucial to realising existing untapped workforce potential. We further argue that skills utilisation is most likely where workers have the ability, motivation and opportunity to deploy their skills effectively. We conclude by advocating greater collaboration in skills utilisation practice and research between relevant stakeholders, drawing on European experiences and an approach – which we call ASPiRRE – that envelops actors, structures, protocols, responsibilities, resources and expertise in order to align distinct stakeholder interests and encourage innovative practice in skills deployment

Estimating the demand for union-led learning in Scotland

The evidence contained here is the first comprehensive and formal statistical analysis of demand for union-led learning in Scotland or the UK. A high degree of consistency of outcome resulted from each of the data sources used. This provides reliable evidence that there is considerable current demand and latent demand for union-led learning in Scotland, and that increased union activity in this area is likely to further stimulate demand. Any expansion of union-led learning would, of course, place additional learning demands on ULRs and would highlight further the need for them to be appropriately supported by unions and employers

Calm seas or choppy waters? The role of procurement in supporting fair work

Fair work is now firmly on the political agenda in Scotland and there is ongoing debate about how best to drive it. After considering the policy context in which debates on fair work have emerged, and examining the Scottish approach to fair work, this article considers the role of public procurement as a lever of fair work. While not focussing in any depth on the procurement of lifeline ferry services, the arguments presented here are relevant to any competitive tendering process for these services. This article argues that recent statutory guidance illustrates the potential of procurement to support fair work due to the impact of fair work on the quality of service provision and its role in delivering economically advantageous outcomes. While there may be medium term changes to the procurement environment post-Brexit, devolution of responsibility for procurement means that scope to support fair work should remain in relatively calm waters, so long as there is political will to use procurement creatively for this important purpose

Skills and the social value of work

Skills matter, and not just to the people who have them. Skills are crucial supports for work and employment and for individual economic prosperity, but are valuable far beyond this, impacting upon social mobility, health and well-being and social and civic life. Employers also have a direct interest in skills, their acquisition, formation, development and, perhaps most crucially, how skills are deployed, as is clear from numerous discussions of, and programmes in, talent management. Worker skills are valuable to capital, and employers have a strong vested interest not just in the effectiveness of how they access, develop and retain skills but also in how public policy and public investment supports national education and skills systems. Skills also serve a crucial social function, providing the basis not just for wealth creation but also underpinning success, broadly defined, for families, communities and civil society

Contemporary work: Its meanings and demands

This article addresses recurrent trends in the forces shaping work and its meanings. Using evidence from large-scale surveys and qualitative case studies it maps the changing picture of work and employment, particularly in the UK and Australia. It does so by focusing on insecurity, demanding work, performance management, work–life boundaries and dis/engagement. Whilst identifying a number of negative impacts of change such as growing insecurity and excessive work pressures, the article emphasises that these are trends not universals and don’t affect all workers or in the same way.We need to be more careful about how trends are translated into over-arching theoretical constructs that give a misleading picture. In policy terms, attention should be given to the intersection of labour process and labour market factors, the changing boundaries between and shared aspirations of ‘standard’ and ‘nonstandard’ workers, and to a more nuanced understanding of the positive elements of ‘bad’ jobs and the more negative elements of ‘good’ ones. Keyword

Influence of birth weight, sex, age and adiposity on central leptin and insulin sensitivity in young growing sheep, as indicated by changes in voluntary food intake

Non peer reviewedPublisher PD

Central and peripheral insulin resistance in a large animal model of obesity

Non peer reviewedPublisher PD

Review of Partnership Working in NHS Scotland

[Abstract unavailable