Good work undermined by funding crisis

Have you seen anything in the news about the closure of a key skills sector organisation - and a major sector to boot? Thought not. Skills for Logistics has issued this notice:

Skills for Logistics to end operations

Skills for Logistics, the sector skills council for the freight logistics industry in the UK, will close its business and is considering about placing the company into administration to facilitate the closure.
This has happened due to pressure placed on the business by the trustees of the pension scheme, which SfL joined following its initial set-up in 2003.
Like many similar organisations, the significant pension deficit and subsequent on-going recovery payments has placed extreme pressure on a smaller SfL business in a rapidly changing economic environment.
Skills for Logistics has worked hard to exist and be effective over the last 2-3 years in the 'new world' of substantially reduced public funding for skills initiatives, and now being required to become 100% funded through employer projects, has struggled to both replace revenue streams and continue to fund pension recovery payments.

The organisation and its business plan have remained reasonably strong, however given the reduced activity level in 2015 and obligations to the pension scheme (particularly in the light a new approach by its trustees), the board felt it would be better to seek alternative options for the continuing industry skills projects.

The board is therefore appointing an administrator and starting to work with our stakeholders to find a natural home for any on-going projects.

You'd better make use of their help before they're gone then won't you!
http://www.skillsforlogistics.org/

Somebody's working on it

Communication Skills:
How To Lose Friends And Alienate People

You're being trained

Now, here's something I know from experience. Animals are far more intelligent than you think they are. The vid below seems to be popular because the kitty is doing something cute, (that's 'silly' in modern speak - but you forget at your peril that 'cute' always used to mean 'clever - in a very special way!')

One of my animal acquisitions selected me by doing a version of what this kitty is doing. She knows perfectly well how to get me running after her now by lying on her back waving her feet at me. Yeah, you say, so what? Well, I'm like Pavlov's dog - I always fall for it - going to play with her for her to get up and run off in the direction of 1. food bowl, 2. locked door, or 3. alien creature on her turf outside. Now who's the daft one?

Accountants - where to live!

Apparently, according to a survey done by the Association of Accounting Technicians, there are five cities in the UK where accounting technician's believe they have a 'career' and five where they think they just have a job. This distinction is apparently an indicator of 'happiness' with the work role. Careerists are those that get employer support in their training whilst job fillers don't. So where in the UK does an accounting technician stand greater chance of getting employer supported training? Edinburgh, Norwich, Bristol, Sheffield, Southampton and Birmingham it seems. And where are the places to sink into obscurity? Plymouth, Liverpool, Glasgow, Manchester, Cardiff and Leeds apparently. The sharp eyed amongst you will have noticed two bonus cities sneaking into the lists making them the top and bottom six. Time for the AAT's PR department to go back to school perhaps?

Trade

In the absence of a cornflake packet, this morning's reading matter consisted of the latest training catalogue to drop from one of a myriad of magazines passing through the Lobster abode.
Purporting to be CPD qualifying courses for a certain UK profession, I find nothing that could possibly be of interest or use to a person qualified in the said profession. The courses are clearly intended for non-professionals. So what is the point of running them? Hm, thinks I, what does the UK's self-professed biggest training-related professional body provide in its CPD training programme? A quick check confirms a suspicion lurking in the Lobster's feeble brain. Less than a third of the tutors running courses for said profession have the profession's qualification. Those letters really mean something after your name then? It's all trade at the end of the day.