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11 Critical Soc. Pol'y 4 (1991)

handle is hein.journals/critsplcy11 and id is 1 raw text is: Letting the market decide (with public money): Training and Enterprise Councils and the future of labour market programmes JAMIE PECK Abstract hze Training and Enterprise Councils (TEC) initiative is beingpresented as the solution to Britain 's lingeripg skills crisis. The TECs have inherited from the Training Agency the sit of Imake-work schemes, notable YT and ET, deployed by the govertment ii response to the unemployment problems of the 1980s. The paper describes the TEC initiative and specu- lates on the future of these labour market programme. Already there are signs that this provision is being subordinated to the most short-term. needs ofthelabour market, with deleterious consequences for the d4Aeiy ofhigh skill training and for the participation of disadvantaged groups. The launch of the Training and Enterprise Councils (TEC) initiative has been heralded as no less than a 'Skills Revolution', the beginning of a new regime in which Britain's business leaders, having been handed the reins of the country's training system, will be constructing a workforce fit to out- compete the best in the global market-place. As with all revolutions, however, there must be casualties. The casualties of this revolution are likely to be those whom the market has also failed - the long-term unemployed and those with special training needs. For it is 'market forces' which provide the rallying call for the new TECs: with perverse logic, the government has decided that the best way to respond to ostensible market failure in the training system is to mimic the market itself using public funds. The 'owneship' of the training system has been formally handed over to the employer-led TECs - presumably in their capacity as custodians of the 'market logic' - along with a plea to create a training system which is responsive to local labour market needs (Department of Employment, 1988 pp39-43). Business leaders across the country have been asked to come forward with bids for the formation of TECs. Following a little over 18 months of frenetic activity, the basis for a network of 82 TECs - covering the whole of England and Wales - has been set in place. The process of TEC formation in some areas, most notably the London conurbation (London Employers Group, 4

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