Theme Partnerships Update—Hartlepool Learning Skills Partnership
‘A personal view from Tom Sant—Learning Skills Partnership Representative’“I have been attending the above partnership meetings for approximately two years after a gap of one year in which I stood down to let another member attend, but this did not work out.
HVDA Manager Keith Bayley is also a member but as a representative of the Hartlepool Voluntary Sector, not the Community Network. The people on this Partnership come from a large variety of educational and work establishments. They represent all the major Education Schools, Six Form Colleges, Hartlepool College of Further Education and all the Council’s Adult Education establishments. The discussions and debates cover everything in relation to Education, Funding, Skill Levels, and all types of work related problems that Employers may be facing in lack of skills in the work force. It discusses Budgets, Strategies, Applications, N.V.Q. Levels and how to apply them to the best advantage in the Hartlepool area. It also examines whether the above are achieving the aims of the Skills Councils and the Government Directives. It is sometimes hard to get the group to understand where the Voluntary Sector can be of assistance as quite a few of the professionals do not fully understand how professional the Voluntary Sector can be in the delivery of services. It is a role I enjoy very much and although some of the Agencies are a little wary of the Voluntary Sector I feel they are becoming more aware as the meetings progress. A lot of help comes from Keith Bayley and Council Officers, who we meet on a regular basis at other meetings over the year.
To finish; this is not a position where you should expect immediate results as it has to be realised we are trying to change attitudes and ways of approaching these problems with professional people with a long history of doing things their way and we can only hope some of the good Government Directives are implemented and will be taken on board”.
