UCU response to Labour's skills report

The union added that Labour could not expect more for less from the further education workforce and must not attack teachers when criticising the coalition's record on education.

UCU General Secretary, Sally Hunt, said: 'We agree that college lecturers should have the opportunity to spend more time in industry, but there has to be mechanisms in place to ensure employers are fully committed to providing that support.

'We desperately need better options for our young people. Record numbers of them are not working or training and politicians are right to look to education to solve the problem. However, improvements will not be achieved by simply expecting more of our excellent further education workforce and cannot be done on the cheap.

'Further education has a well-qualified, hard-working, professional workforce and the Labour Party needs to support it with commitments to invest to raise the nation's skills.'

Labour's One Nation Skills Taskforce can be downloaded here (.pdf).