D. FINANCING OF MANPOWER ACTIVITIES In the United States, as members are aware, the disparate segments of our manpower machinery are financed in a number of ways. Manpower retraining activities are financed from general revenues, through the annual appropriation process. Our vocational education system is financed jointly from State revenues and through Federal grant assistance. The Federal-State employment service is financed entirely from Federal sources, most of it stemming from the earmarked Federal unemployment tax. In Norway, the unemployment insurance system finances relocation allowances, daily allowances for participants in some vocational training courses, and scholarships under the State Loan Institution for Young Students. Unemployment insurance funds also finance twothirds of the cost of administration of the county employment offices and labor exchanges. In Britain, the training system, as described above, will eventually be financed largely by levies on the component firms in each industry. Unemployment insurance is financed by equal contributions by the employer, the employee, and out of the exchequer. The labor exchanges and other activities of the Ministry of Labor are financed directly out of general revenues. In Sweden and in Denmark, as has been mentioned, unemployment insurance is not operated by the government as such, but is financed and run by independent funds, originally set up by the trades unions. The public manpower policy programs in these countries are run from general revenues. IV. CONCLUSIONS The committee did not come away from the four countries visited feeling they had seen Utopia, nor that all the questions facing the United States had been anticipated, faced, and answered by the British and Scandinavians. But we were unquestionably impressed. An overall comparison between our own experiences and institutions and those tried in the countries visited must center on one fact. In the United States, our employment service systems, our training programs, our area redevelopment, and our public works programs benefit from such coordination as may take place by informal cooperation among agencies, by occasional statutory requirements for coordination, and by the workings of the limited tools the President has for overall direction of the executive branch. In these other countries, most notably in Sweden, all of these aspects of an active manpower policy are looked upon as precisely that as aspects of one policy, administered by one agency. Decisions to emphasize training in one area or in another, to encourage the relocation of industry or the relocation of workers, to defer or to speed up public works or even private construction-all these decisions are made in the light of the needs of the conservation, development, and wisest use of the country's most valuable natural resource-its manpower. It is the view of the members of the committee who made this trip that we in the United States can no longer assume that we will have a permanent surplus of manpower, and that Government programs in this area can continue to operate in splendid isolation. A manpower policy, bringing together the operation of employment services, manpower training and retraining, devices to expand employment opportunities, and devices to assure the wisest use of scarce skills, is essential if we are to continue to enjoy the benefits of economic growth, wage and price stability, and full employment. 9 V. APPENDIX The following is the text of the British Industrial Training Act of 1964, and a progress report on the operations of that act received after the delegation returned to the United States. (See comments in pt. III-B of the report.) INDUSTRIAL TRAINING ACT 1964 CHAPTER 16 ARRANGEMENT OF SECTIONS Section 1. Establishment of industrial training boards. 2. Functions of industrial training board. 3. Establishment of committees. 4. Levies. 5. Grants and loans, etc. 6. Power to obtain information from employers. 7. Proposals for exercise of board's functions and for levies. 8. Reports and accounts of industrial training boards. 9. Amendment or revocation of industrial training order. 10. Accidents happening in connection with training provided or approved by industrial training board. 11. Central Training Council. 12. Appeal tribunals. 13. Special provisions for cotton industry. 14. Power of industrial training board with respect to training for employment overseas. 15. Disqualification for membership of House of Commons. 16. Powers of education authorities. 17. Contributions out of National Insurance Fund towards Minister's expenses in connection with certain courses. 18. Financial provisions. 19. Short title and extent. SCHEDULE: Industrial training boards. Establishment of industrial training boards. Elizabeth II 1964 CHAPTER 16 AN ACT TO make further provision for industrial and com- Be it enacted by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows: 1. (1) For the purpose of making better provision for the training of persons over compulsory school age (in Scotland school age) for employment in any activities of industry or commerce the Minister may make an order specifying those activities and establishing a board to exercise in relation to them the functions conferred on industrial training boards by the following provisions of this Act. (2) In this Act "industrial training board" means a board established under this section; "industrial training order" means an order under this section; "the industry", in relation to an industrial training board, means the activities in relation to which it exercises functions; and "the Minister" means the Minister of Labour. (3) The provisions of the Schedule to this Act shall have effect with respect to industrial training boards. (4) Before making an industrial training order the Minister shall consult any organisation or association of organisations appearing to him to be representative of substantial numbers of employers engaging in the activities concerned and any organisation or association of organisations appearing to him to be representative of substantial numbers of persons employed in those activities; and if those activities are carried on to a substantial extent by a body established for the purpose of carrying on under national ownership any industry or part of an industry or undertaking, shall also consult that body. (5) An industrial training order may provide for any incidental or supplementary matter for which it appears to the Minister to be necessary or expedient to provide. (6) The power to make an industrial training order shall be exercisable by statutory instrument, which shall be subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament. 2. (1) An industrial training board (a) shall provide or secure the provision of such courses and other facilities (which may include residential accommodation) for the training of persons employed or intending to be employed in the industry as may be required, having regard to any courses or facilities otherwise available to such persons; (b) may approve such courses and facilities provided by other persons; (c) shall from time to time consider such employments in the industry as appear to require consideration and publish recommendations with regard to the nature and length of the training for any such employment and the further education to be associated with the training, the persons by and to whom the training ought to be given, the standards to be attained as a result of the training and the methods of ascertaining whether those standards have been attained; (d) may apply or make arrangements for the application of selection tests and of tests or other methods for ascertaining the attainment of any standards recommended by the board and may award certificates of the attainment of those standards; (e) may assist persons in finding facilities for being trained for employment in the industry; (f) may take part in any arrangements made by the Minister under section 2(2) of the Employment and Training Act 1948 with respect to the industry or in similar arrangements made by a local education authority (or, in Scotland, and education authority) under section 10 of that Act; (g) may carry on or assist other persons in carrying on research into any matter relating to training for employment in the industry. (2) An industrial training board may enter into contracts of service or apprenticeship with persons who intend to be employed in the industry and to attend courses or avail themselves of other facilities provided or approved by the board. (3) An industrial training board may, at the request of another industrial training board, provide courses and other facilities for the training of persons employed or intending to be employed in the industry for which that other board is established. (4) An industrial training board may— (a) pay maintenance and travelling allowances to persons attending courses provided or approved by the board; Functions of industrial training board. Establishment of committees. Levies. Grants and loans, etc. (b) make grants or loans to persons providing courses or other facilities approved by the board; (c) pay fees to persons providing further education in respect of persons who receive it in association with their training in courses provided or approved by the board. (5) An industrial training board shall exercise its functions under this section in accordance with proposals submitted to the Minister and approved by him under section 7 of this Act. (6) An industrial training board shall give to the Minister such information or facilities for obtaining information with regard to the exercise of its functions, in such manner and at such times as he may reasonably require. 3. (1) An industrial training board may, in accordance with proposals submitted to and approved by the Minister under section 7 of this Act (a) appoint committees (which need not include members of the board); (b) join with one or more other industrial training boards in appointing joint committees consisting of such persons (whether or not members of an industrial training board) as may be determined by the boards; and delegate to any such committee, to such extent as may be stated in the proposals, all or any of the functions conferred on the board by section 2 of this Act. (2) An industrial training board may pay or, as the case may be, join in paying, to the members of such a committee such travelling, subsistence and other allowances as the board or boards may determine, and to the chairman such remuneration as the board or boards may with the approval of the Minister and the Treasury determine. (3) Subject to any directions of the board or boards which appointed it, a committee appointed under this section may regulate its own procedure and fix a quorum for its proceedings. 4. (1) For the purpose of raising money towards meeting its expenses an industrial training board shall from time to time impose, in accordance with an order made by the Minister (in this section referred to as a levy order), a levy on employers in the industry, other than such (if any) as may be exempted by the levy order or the industrial training order. (2) A levy order shall give effect to proposals submitted to and approved by the Minister under section 7 of this Act, and such proposals may provide for the amendment of a previous levy order and may make different provision in relation to different classes or descriptions of employer. (3) A levy order may contain provisions as to the evidence by which a person's liability to the levy or his discharge of that liability may be established and as to the time at which any amount payable by any person by way of the levy shall become due and recoverable by the industrial training board, and shall give any person assessed to the levy a right of appeal to an appeal tribunal constituted under this Act. (4) The power to make a levy order shall be exercisable by statutory instrument, which shall be subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament. 5. (1) The Minister may with the approval of the Treasury make grants and loans to an industrial training board out of moneys provided by Parliament. (2) An industrial training board may, with the consent of the Minister or in accordance with the terms of any authority given by him, borrow temporarily from any other person by way of overdraft or otherwise such sums as it may require. (3) The aggregate of the grants and loans made under subsection (1) of this section shall not exceed £50 million or such greater amount as the Minister may from time to time by order made by statutory instrument determine, but no such order shall be made unless a draft thereof has been laid before and approved by each House of Parliament. |