Interesting that all of the other European countries listed are strongly in favour of staying in. I thought Eurosceptic parties had done well across Europe in the European Elections in May.
Even Syriza in Greece does not want to leave the EU or get out of the Euro !
Nice to know he went back energised and wanting to go into the industry. Good job.
I'm slightly surprised you expected a 15-year old to know things like polymorphism and inheritance, yet alone human factors/interfaces in any great detail. Perhaps he should have known of them, but I would have thought that those were better taught at uni as there are so many other programming concepts to cover in the little time allotted at GCSE level? The basic concepts are simple; the details are rather complex and messy.
In the same way I wouldn't expect a 15-year old to be able to code me a microkernel in ARM assembler. Unless he was a very precocious 15-year old...
As an aside in this increasingly off-topic conversation, it's common in some companies to give work experience kids or students off main-line work. One company got very good results by putting everyone (including would-be marketeers) in the test department; both for the laborious running of tests, setting up equipment and writing test scripts in various languages. You see a heck of a lot of the company from a test department.
Many of the best coders I've known (the 'stars' I keep on wittering on about) are self-taught well before school, as indeed was I (and from your age, I guess you were as well). Self-teaching is the slowest way of learning, but also, if you can hack it, the best as you learn from your mistakes. Hopefully items like the Raspberry Pi will do what the ZX Spectrum and BBC B did, and get kids interested in real coding at a young age.
It took me two hours to explain to him inheritances, polymorphism and interfaces. He grasped it pretty quickly when I went through code in our framework that used it. It seems to me that omitting the very reason to use an oop languange such as c# is a great omission. These kids are more than bright enough.
When I went to school ours was the first year to do GCE computer science. We were taught on spectrums and zx 81's. Part of the course was a project that had to be handed in. Software we wrote. Nearly all of the class handed in stuff that consisted almost entirely of Z80 machine code. Frankly that is probably harder to learn than basic idea's of inheritance and polymorphism. I was totally gobsmacked by his teachers reaction to the code he wrote. We taught him to write good code she taught him to pass an exam. I suspect what we taught him will stand him in better stead than what he learnt in school
My area is as a general software engineer who masters problem domains quickly and not only writes what is required but comes up new idea's in those domains. To give you a view
(snip resume)
I am currently creating software to enable the design and statistical validation of games for the online casino industry
Non software wise I have also squeezed in a career as a trawlerman, and a professional poker player
That sounds fairly different to my area, which was generally (although not exclusively) embedded consumer electronics, including drivers and some chip development. I.e. very low-level to mid-level stuff.
Your last line is particularly interesting: many softies I know have a wide and varied career: as a youth I used to work on building/demolition sites and chemical plants, and have (*) a sideline in long-distance walking. (**). A mate used to work at the NPL, and there's more than a smattering of ex-teachers.
But I feel another change coming on. I'm slightly bored with software after nearly twenty years in the job, and I'm wary about both Mrs J and myself working in the same sector, and sometimes even the same company.
(*) should really be 'had': a child rather stops you disappearing for weeks at a time. (**) not exactly a profitable occupation, but great fun!
"I can assure you that there is a shortage in the areas I work in (and companies are desperate to hire)"
How much do those companies spend on training and staff development? If they can't find enough people fully qualified there will be a reason and/or they need to look at other ways of getting the numbers up.
A problem, anecdotally but widely perceived among managers, is that large companies spend money on training people who then leave to earn a bit more with small companies who've saved in it. Back in the 1990s when we were chewing over what Labour should offer (hello, deja vu) a policy which I liked which didn't make the cut was that companies of a non-trivial size should pay a training levy on top of NI, which they could earn back and indeed make a profit from if they offered training courses to staff and (if they wished) outsiders, so long as the courses resulted in an approved qualification in the area. So companies who offered good training facilities would make a profit from them and companies who couldn't be arsed would pay more.
Coming from a big company with lots of training, I thought it a good idea, and still do, but it was spiked by Tony Blair as too dirigiste.
O/T, that's a seriously good SNP poll, and must make NOM more likely.
As an example of how times have changed, when I joined IBM in the UK in the late 60s, one of our female programmers was sent home for coming to work in what was then called a trouser suit. She was a good programmer who had got a degree in zoology.
In my experience of working with women, in several countries on 2 continents - they tend to be more detail oriented, but overall less big picture. To say they don't have the ability or aptitude is nonsense.
In all my work experience, the best managers I have worked for have been female.
There is no reason on an individual level that women cannot be every bit as good as men in the software business, or pretty much any other.
Formula 1 is probably an exception, but that is purely physiological, not based on skills or ability.
Past research has shown that the fear of immigration is often based somewhat counter-intuitively not in areas with large immigrant populations, but in areas nearby. Anticipation of the potential effects of immigration versus the far more positive reality.
....
..
But I am fairly sure my experience is unusual, and I am most reluctant to label my fellow Brits, with understandably less heart-warming stories, as "racist".
No - why would anuone label people they do not know as anything, I mean you would never get kippers jumping to assumptions about Romanians and Bulgarians would you? However I think when people actually talk about bongo bongo land and the like and people defend that comment - as people certainly did on the web - they are telling us about themselves.
The expression "bongo bongo land" was notoriously used by Alan Clark well before Godfrey Bloom. Alan Clark was not a kipper. I am pretty confident neither of those facts is known to you.
I am currently intending to vote tory as I usually do; but as I'm in a safe tory seat anyway I am increasingly tempted to vote Ukip in protest against the ignorance, malice and intellectual yahooism of the pbtories. Well done.
I poor excuse. There were reports at the time of Bloome's remarks, Clarke faced a race row over it. Following all that in fact Bloome was clearly being deliberately provicative. Clarke was pretty 'nationalistic'. He invented the phrase 'lions led like donkeys' and paraded it as the truth. His admitted economy with the truth caused the collapse of the matrix Churchill trial. He could be regarded as a prototype Farage. Did he have some useful opinions - absolutely yes - but typical of the right wing he goes nuts and ruins his cause.
There are arguments to be made about immigration and the EU. Rational ones not ones couched in UKIP dog whistles. Has anyone invented the comments made by UKIP officials and candidates? Are you trying to tell me the comment about ting tongs made without ignorance and malice? The endless parade of exuses has long worn a bit thin from UKIP, not least Farage's defence of himself and others that they are only 'jokes'.
Its ignorance and malice that dismays me. Its certainly something I can do without on the right wing of politics.
Coming from a big company with lots of training, I thought it a good idea, and still do, but it was spiked by Tony Blair as too dirigiste.
You should propose it again. Now that Labour once again have a dirigiste, anti-business leadership with no interest in what promotes prosperity, I expect it will be taken up.
Work experience for 15 year olds is generally a waste of everyone's time. Some companies, including it would seem yours make a genuine effort (my son did his with the Royal Navy and had a fantastic time on a well structured two week course), but for most children it is as you say a time spent on making the tea and doing very menial tasks with no learning value. With full-time education being extended to 18 it is time to scrap the Work Experience idea.
More importantly I was disappointed but not surprised to read that your company does not spend money on developing your skills and those of your colleagues. Mr. Jessop up thread also made a comment about a lack of training "for the usual reasons". Companies not prepared to spend on developing their staff are preparing to go out of business.
I may have given the wrong impression about my current company as I have recently agreed a training budget for my team. That however is not true of my company in general they are still generally of the idea that is cheaper to hire in talent rather than training them and frankly they are currently right. However since I took over my team and shown them what can be done they are willing to listen to me a lot more. We have cut development time for a new game concept from 2 months to two weeks by developing the team.
Interestingly I was not hired because of my software background but because of career as a professional gambler which they felt would give me an insight into the industry
I disagree however that work experience is bad for 15 year olds, stop using companies that won't do it properly and it is worth their time and gives them information they need to make a decision on whether it is a job they like. In our case our young trainee loved it because we took the time to give him real tasks. The pride on his face when we gave him the ok to check his code into the source repository was a pleasing sight. He also has my email address and the go ahead to ask for coding advice.
We also employed the last work experience guy straight out of school
Work experience for 15 year olds is generally a waste of everyone's time. Some companies, including it would seem yours make a genuine effort (my son did his with the Royal Navy and had a fantastic time on a well structured two week course), but for most children it is as you say a time spent on making the tea and doing very menial tasks with no learning value. With full-time education being extended to 18 it is time to scrap the Work Experience idea.
More importantly I was disappointed but not surprised to read that your company does not spend money on developing your skills and those of your colleagues. Mr. Jessop up thread also made a comment about a lack of training "for the usual reasons". Companies not prepared to spend on developing their staff are preparing to go out of business.
Yes, but I can sort of understand why a lack of training occurs in the tech industry, especially as the companies I worked for tend to be rather small (10-200 employees). I don't agree with it though.
Once, after a promotion, I asked for some training into my new role: I knew a fair bit about it, but was aware that there were holes in my knowledge. The request was refused because we were too busy, then because it was too costly unless we could get several people to go. I finally went on the course about a year or two later.
It was a few months after I'd been moved to a totally different role ...
As an aside, we desperately need to being back apprenticeships in a meaningful way. Perhaps things have changed recently, but no companies I was involved with seem to use them.
Past research has shown that the fear of immigration is often based somewhat counter-intuitively not in areas with large immigrant populations, but in areas nearby. Anticipation of the potential effects of immigration versus the far more positive reality.
....
..
But I am fairly sure my experience is unusual, and I am most reluctant to label my fellow Brits, with understandably less heart-warming stories, as "racist".
No - why would anuone label people they do not know as anything, I mean you would never get kippers jumping to assumptions about Romanians and Bulgarians would you? However I think when people actually talk about bongo bongo land and the like and people defend that comment - as people certainly did on the web - they are telling us about themselves.
The expression "bongo bongo land" was notoriously used by Alan Clark well before Godfrey Bloom. Alan Clark was not a kipper. I am pretty confident neither of those facts is known to you.
I am currently intending to vote tory as I usually do; but as I'm in a safe tory seat anyway I am increasingly tempted to vote Ukip in protest against the ignorance, malice and intellectual yahooism of the pbtories. Well done.
I poor excuse. There were reports at the time of Bloome's remarks, Clarke faced a race row over it. Following all that in fact Bloome was clearly being deliberately provicative. Clarke was pretty 'nationalistic'. He invented the phrase 'lions led like donkeys' and paraded it as the truth. His admitted economy with the truth caused the collapse of the matrix Churchill trial. He could be regarded as a prototype Farage. Did he have some useful opinions - absolutely yes - but typical of the right wing he goes nuts and ruins his cause.
There are arguments to be made about immigration and the EU. Rational ones not ones couched in UKIP dog whistles. Has anyone invented the comments made by UKIP officials and candidates? Are you trying to tell me the comment about ting tongs made without ignorance and malice? The endless parade of exuses has long worn a bit thin from UKIP, not least Farage's defence of himself and others that they are only 'jokes'.
Its ignorance and malice that dismays me. Its certainly something I can do without on the right wing of politics.
Why are the signs in Covent Garden warning would be pickpockets that undercover police are in the area in Romanian?
"I can assure you that there is a shortage in the areas I work in (and companies are desperate to hire)"
How much do those companies spend on training and staff development? If they can't find enough people fully qualified there will be a reason and/or they need to look at other ways of getting the numbers up.
A problem, anecdotally but widely perceived among managers, is that large companies spend money on training people who then leave to earn a bit more with small companies who've saved in it. Back in the 1990s when we were chewing over what Labour should offer (hello, deja vu) a policy which I liked which didn't make the cut was that companies of a non-trivial size should pay a training levy on top of NI, which they could earn back and indeed make a profit from if they offered training courses to staff and (if they wished) outsiders, so long as the courses resulted in an approved qualification in the area. So companies who offered good training facilities would make a profit from them and companies who couldn't be arsed would pay more.
Coming from a big company with lots of training, I thought it a good idea, and still do, but it was spiked by Tony Blair as too dirigiste.
O/T, that's a seriously good SNP poll, and must make NOM more likely.
Nick, the idea that if you train people they will leave and someone else will benefit from your expense is one of the most pernicious thought-viruses ever to affect the management class. It is total hogwash, but almost impossible to eradicate.
I think it a shame Labour kicked your idea into touch. A mandatory training levy on all but the smallest of businesses is possibly the only way we will get UK managers to properly invest in their people. If they are paying for training they will probably do it and get their money's worth.
Past research has shown that the fear of immigration is often based somewhat counter-intuitively not in areas with large immigrant populations, but in areas nearby. Anticipation of the potential effects of immigration versus the far more positive reality.
....
..
But I am fairly sure my experience is unusual, and I am most reluctant to label my fellow Brits, with understandably less heart-warming stories, as "racist".
No - why would anuone label people they do not know as anything, I mean you would never get kippers jumping to assumptions about Romanians and Bulgarians would you? However I think when people actually talk about bongo bongo land and the like and people defend that comment - as people certainly did on the web - they are telling us about themselves.
The expression "bongo bongo land" was notoriously used by Alan Clark well before Godfrey Bloom. Alan Clark was not a kipper. I am pretty confident neither of those facts is known to you.
I am currently intending to vote tory as I usually do; but as I'm in a safe tory seat anyway I am increasingly tempted to vote Ukip in protest against the ignorance, malice and intellectual yahooism of the pbtories. Well done.
I poor excuse. There were reports at the time of Bloome's remarks, Clarke faced a race row over it. Following all that in fact Bloome was clearly being deliberately provicative. Clarke was pretty 'nationalistic'. He invented the phrase 'lions led like donkeys' and paraded it as the truth. His admitted economy with the truth caused the collapse of the matrix Churchill trial. He could be regarded as a prototype Farage. Did he have some useful opinions - absolutely yes - but typical of the right wing he goes nuts and ruins his cause.
There are arguments to be made about immigration and the EU. Rational ones not ones couched in UKIP dog whistles. Has anyone invented the comments made by UKIP officials and candidates? Are you trying to tell me the comment about ting tongs made without ignorance and malice? The endless parade of exuses has long worn a bit thin from UKIP, not least Farage's defence of himself and others that they are only 'jokes'.
Its ignorance and malice that dismays me. Its certainly something I can do without on the right wing of politics.
Yeah well, the Conservatives have failed to keep their campaign promises over immigration. Compared to that, complaints about dog-whistles, or bad manners, are pretty trivial matters to centre-right voters.
Having been in the I.T. space as everything from mainframes to PCs, programmer to manager to business owner, I have always felt that it is the individual's responsibility to make sure that his or her skill set remains up to date, rather than blaming somebody else for the lack of it.
"I can assure you that there is a shortage in the areas I work in (and companies are desperate to hire)"
How much do those companies spend on training and staff development? If they can't find enough people fully qualified there will be a reason and/or they need to look at other ways of getting the numbers up.
A problem, anecdotally but widely perceived among managers, is that large companies spend money on training people who then leave to earn a bit more with small companies who've saved in it. Back in the 1990s when we were chewing over what Labour should offer (hello, deja vu) a policy which I liked which didn't make the cut was that companies of a non-trivial size should pay a training levy on top of NI, which they could earn back and indeed make a profit from if they offered training courses to staff and (if they wished) outsiders, so long as the courses resulted in an approved qualification in the area. So companies who offered good training facilities would make a profit from them and companies who couldn't be arsed would pay more.
Coming from a big company with lots of training, I thought it a good idea, and still do, but it was spiked by Tony Blair as too dirigiste.
O/T, that's a seriously good SNP poll, and must make NOM more likely.
Nick, the idea that if you train people they will leave and someone else will benefit from your expense is one of the most pernicious thought-viruses ever to affect the management class. It is total hogwash, but almost impossible to eradicate.
I think it a shame Labour kicked your idea into touch. A mandatory training levy on all but the smallest of businesses is possibly the only way we will get UK managers to properly invest in their people. If they are paying for training they will probably do it and get their money's worth.
The answer is simple. Allow companies to provide training buy ins. They pay for the training from which the employee benefits. If he leaves within a certain time he recompenses the company for the training.
Nick, the idea that if you train people they will leave and someone else will benefit from your expense is one of the most pernicious thought-viruses ever to affect the management class. It is total hogwash, but almost impossible to eradicate.
I think it a shame Labour kicked your idea into touch. A mandatory training levy on all but the smallest of businesses is possibly the only way we will get UK managers to properly invest in their people. If they are paying for training they will probably do it and get their money's worth.
You are making the classic mistake of thinking that sending someone on an expensive 'training course' teaches them something, whereas working with them on actually doing a real job doesn't. So this proposal is just yet another way of penalising small creative companies and giving an advantage to bloated box-ticking bureaucracies who can claim they've 'trained' people because they've put them in front of a 23-year old whose only expertise is pressing the Next button on a tedious PowerPoint presentation.
It took me two hours to explain to him inheritances, polymorphism and interfaces. He grasped it pretty quickly when I went through code in our framework that used it. It seems to me that omitting the very reason to use an oop languange such as c# is a great omission. These kids are more than bright enough.
When I went to school ours was the first year to do GCE computer science. We were taught on spectrums and zx 81's. Part of the course was a project that had to be handed in. Software we wrote. Nearly all of the class handed in stuff that consisted almost entirely of Z80 machine code. Frankly that is probably harder to learn than basic idea's of inheritance and polymorphism. I was totally gobsmacked by his teachers reaction to the code he wrote. We taught him to write good code she taught him to pass an exam. I suspect what we taught him will stand him in better stead than what he learnt in school
A similar story here. In an act of almost criminal stupidity, some of my coursework was refused by my teacher because he did not understand assembler, and I had to rewrite the bits I could in Basic, of all things. That still rankles to this day.
But a software course nowadays would surely have to teach a lot more than it did back then? I don't know what the syllabus is like now, but there was a limit to what you could do on a Z80. Now there is so much more that could be taught: web programming, data storage, high-level languages, low-level languages. Heck, if they're doing it properly they should cover some of the myriad of development processes, source control and testing which are just as vital as pure coding skills.
I wouldn't have a clue how to start even designing a GCSE computing/programming syllabus. But if I did, I probably wouldn't let them near a computer until they understood the development process. When I was involved with recruiting, I saw too many graduates who had no idea about source control ...
Having been in the I.T. space as everything from mainframes to PCs, programmer to manager to business owner, I have always felt that it is the individual's responsibility to make sure that his or her skill set remains up to date, rather than blaming somebody else for the lack of it.
Indeed you are right. However sometimes companies wish you to train in things that wont advance your career but merely advance the companies profits.
Also sometimes companies would rather bring in someone who is already perfectly skilled rather than allowing current staff to grow into it.
"I can assure you that there is a shortage in the areas I work in (and companies are desperate to hire)"
How much do those companies spend on training and staff development? If they can't find enough people fully qualified there will be a reason and/or they need to look at other ways of getting the numbers up.
A problem, anecdotally but widely perceived among managers, is that large companies spend money on training people who then leave to earn a bit more with small companies who've saved in it. Back in the 1990s when we were chewing over what Labour should offer (hello, deja vu) a policy which I liked which didn't make the cut was that companies of a non-trivial size should pay a training levy on top of NI, which they could earn back and indeed make a profit from if they offered training courses to staff and (if they wished) outsiders, so long as the courses resulted in an approved qualification in the area. So companies who offered good training facilities would make a profit from them and companies who couldn't be arsed would pay more.
Coming from a big company with lots of training, I thought it a good idea, and still do, but it was spiked by Tony Blair as too dirigiste.
O/T, that's a seriously good SNP poll, and must make NOM more likely.
Nick, the idea that if you train people they will leave and someone else will benefit from your expense is one of the most pernicious thought-viruses ever to affect the management class. It is total hogwash, but almost impossible to eradicate.
I think it a shame Labour kicked your idea into touch. A mandatory training levy on all but the smallest of businesses is possibly the only way we will get UK managers to properly invest in their people. If they are paying for training they will probably do it and get their money's worth.
The answer is simple. Allow companies to provide training buy ins. They pay for the training from which the employee benefits. If he leaves within a certain time he recompenses the company for the training.
That's quite common among smaller companies in the US. Typically the time period is 12 months.
It's usually specified in your employment contract.
Coming from a big company with lots of training, I thought it a good idea, and still do, but it was spiked by Tony Blair as too dirigiste.
You should propose it again. Now that Labour once again have a dirigiste, anti-business leadership with no interest in what promotes prosperity, I expect it will be taken up.
Labour are currently more right-wing on the economy than they were under Blair.
"... As an aside, we desperately need to being back apprenticeships in a meaningful way..."
Absolutely! We have become too obsessed by degrees in this country. There is no good reason why someone needs a degree to become a good programmer, solicitor, accountant or numerous other trades. Apprenticeships or articled clerkships can do provide the necessary training, topped up as necessary by day release at a local college.
Nick, the idea that if you train people they will leave and someone else will benefit from your expense is one of the most pernicious thought-viruses ever to affect the management class. It is total hogwash, but almost impossible to eradicate.
I think it a shame Labour kicked your idea into touch. A mandatory training levy on all but the smallest of businesses is possibly the only way we will get UK managers to properly invest in their people. If they are paying for training they will probably do it and get their money's worth.
You are making the classic mistake of thinking that sending someone on an expensive 'training course' teaches them something, whereas working with them on actually doing a real job doesn't. So this proposal is just yet another way of penalising small creative companies and giving an advantage to bloated box-ticking bureaucracies who can claim they've 'trained' people because they've put them in front of a 23-year old whose only expertise is pressing the Next button on a tedious PowerPoint presentation.
If you employ a trainer or training company that uses PowerPoint that is your own damn silly fault.
A problem, anecdotally but widely perceived among managers, is that large companies spend money on training people who then leave to earn a bit more with small companies who've saved in it. Back in the 1990s when we were chewing over what Labour should offer (hello, deja vu) a policy which I liked which didn't make the cut was that companies of a non-trivial size should pay a training levy on top of NI, which they could earn back and indeed make a profit from if they offered training courses to staff and (if they wished) outsiders, so long as the courses resulted in an approved qualification in the area. So companies who offered good training facilities would make a profit from them and companies who couldn't be arsed would pay more.
Coming from a big company with lots of training, I thought it a good idea, and still do, but it was spiked by Tony Blair as too dirigiste.
O/T, that's a seriously good SNP poll, and must make NOM more likely.
Nick, the idea that if you train people they will leave and someone else will benefit from your expense is one of the most pernicious thought-viruses ever to affect the management class. It is total hogwash, but almost impossible to eradicate.
I think it a shame Labour kicked your idea into touch. A mandatory training levy on all but the smallest of businesses is possibly the only way we will get UK managers to properly invest in their people. If they are paying for training they will probably do it and get their money's worth.
The answer is simple. Allow companies to provide training buy ins. They pay for the training from which the employee benefits. If he leaves within a certain time he recompenses the company for the training.
That's quite common among smaller companies in the US. Typically the time period is 12 months.
It's usually specified in your employment contract.
It may be common in the US but it seems uncommon in the UK. I would happily agree to a reasonable tie in time for relevant training. It has never been offered however.
Example....when I worked for ICI It was in the 1990's I wrote a complete relational database system for them using dr codds theories. However despite doing that I have never been given the opportunity to use SQL style database in any job as I have no experience with SQL. I know sql front to back because I have trained myself but have no commercial experience to point to. I can answer all the technical questions on stored procedures, triggers, joins etc but no commercial experience no job. How do you suggest I get this commercial experience?
"... As an aside, we desperately need to being back apprenticeships in a meaningful way..."
Absolutely! We have become too obsessed by degrees in this country. There is no good reason why someone needs a degree to become a good programmer, solicitor, accountant or numerous other trades. Apprenticeships or articled clerkships can do provide the necessary training, topped up as necessary by day release at a local college.
I'm quite proud of not having a degree. It's fun when you're managing a project team that contains people with doctorates.
"What, you worked for six years whilst I was out having fun and now I'm your boss? Mwuhahahaha!"
But I hit the industry at the right time (in fact, I was probably five or ten years later than optimal). It would be much harder, although not impossible, for someone without a degree to get a good job in the software industry. That's wrong; there should be avenues in, and the focus on degrees is farcical given the state many graduates leave university.
Also, I agree with the consensus that Nick's idea of incentives to encourage companies to set up training programmes is an excellent idea.
I live in hope that, one day, a mainstream party will have the guts to say that businesses have responsibilities to society, rather than their only job being to make themselves as rich as possible.
"I can assure you that there is a shortage in the areas I work in (and companies are desperate to hire)"
How much do those companies spend on training and staff development? If they can't find enough people fully qualified there will be a reason and/or they need to look at other ways of getting the numbers up.
A problem, anecdotally but widely perceived among managers, is that large companies spend money on training people who then leave to earn a bit more with small companies who've saved in it. Back in the 1990s when we were chewing over what Labour should offer (hello, deja vu) a policy which I liked which didn't make the cut was that companies of a non-trivial size should pay a training levy on top of NI, which they could earn back and indeed make a profit from if they offered training courses to staff and (if they wished) outsiders, so long as the courses resulted in an approved qualification in the area. So companies who offered good training facilities would make a profit from them and companies who couldn't be arsed would pay more.
Coming from a big company with lots of training, I thought it a good idea, and still do, but it was spiked by Tony Blair as too dirigiste.
O/T, that's a seriously good SNP poll, and must make NOM more likely.
Nick, the idea that if you train people they will leave and someone else will benefit from your expense is one of the most pernicious thought-viruses ever to affect the management class. It is total hogwash, but almost impossible to eradicate.
I think it a shame Labour kicked your idea into touch. A mandatory training levy on all but the smallest of businesses is possibly the only way we will get UK managers to properly invest in their people. If they are paying for training they will probably do it and get their money's worth.
The answer is simple. Allow companies to provide training buy ins. They pay for the training from which the employee benefits. If he leaves within a certain time he recompenses the company for the training.
That's quite common among smaller companies in the US. Typically the time period is 12 months.
It's usually specified in your employment contract.
I offer that to everyone my company. If you leave a month afterwards it's full repayment. Then I drop the repayment in 1/12ths each month until the obligation is gone.
Past research has shown that the fear of immigration is often based somewhat counter-intuitively not in areas with large immigrant populations, but in areas nearby. Anticipation of the potential effects of immigration versus the far more positive reality.
....
..
But I am fairly sure my experience is unusual, and I am most reluctant to label my fellow Brits, with understandably less heart-warming stories, as "racist".
No - why would anuone label people they do not know as anything, I mean you would never get kippers jumping to assumptions about Romanians and Bulgarians would you? However I think when people actually talk about bongo bongo land and the like and people defend that comment - as people certainly did on the web - they are telling us about themselves.
The expression "bongo bongo land" was notoriously used by Alan Clark well before Godfrey Bloom. Alan Clark was not a kipper. I am pretty confident neither of those facts is known to you.
I am currently intending to vote tory as I usually do; but as I'm in a safe tory seat anyway I am increasingly tempted to vote Ukip in protest against the ignorance, malice and intellectual yahooism of the pbtories. Well done.
I poor excuse. There were reports at the time of Bloome's remarks, Clarke faced a race row over it. Following all that in fact Bloome was clearly being deliberately provicative. Clarke was pretty 'nationalistic'. He invented the phrase 'lions led like donkeys' and paraded it as the truth. His admitted economy with the truth caused the collapse of the matrix Churchill trial. He could be regarded as a prototype Farage. Did he have some useful opinions - absolutely yes - but typical of the right wing he goes nuts and ruins his cause.
There are arguments to be made about immigration and the EU. Rational ones not ones couched in UKIP dog whistles. Has anyone invented the comments made by UKIP officials and candidates? Are you trying to tell me the comment about ting tongs made without ignorance and malice? The endless parade of exuses has long worn a bit thin from UKIP, not least Farage's defence of himself and others that they are only 'jokes'.
Its ignorance and malice that dismays me. Its certainly something I can do without on the right wing of politics.
Why are the signs in Covent Garden warning would be pickpockets that undercover police are in the area in Romanian?
I know, is it that a lot of the non UK shoplifters and pick pockets are Romanian?
"... As an aside, we desperately need to being back apprenticeships in a meaningful way..."
Absolutely! We have become too obsessed by degrees in this country. There is no good reason why someone needs a degree to become a good programmer, solicitor, accountant or numerous other trades. Apprenticeships or articled clerkships can do provide the necessary training, topped up as necessary by day release at a local college.
Indeed - as I said earlier one of the programmers I worked with at IBM had a degree in zoology, so other than as a yardstick of achievement it was irrelevant.
Just before I left school I was planning to be articled to become a solicitor, at the firm which is still my UK solicitors. Then I interviewed at IBM, and that was that.
Labour are currently more right-wing on the economy than they were under Blair.
Right-wing? I've no idea what you mean by that, except perhaps that they have reluctantly been dragged into a position of grudgingly accepting that maybe the laws of arithmetic might have a smidgen of relevance. Blair, and Brown until 2008/9, didn't have that problem, because the golden legacy of the Thatcher reforms, combined with following Ken Clarke's policies for the first term and the benign world economic conditions, meant that the money was pouring into the coffers, most notably from the City.
What I actually said was that Labour is now anti-business, which is a slightly different point. To be fair to Blair and Brown, the 'prawn cocktail offensive' wasn't just spin; they really had changed Labour so that it was no longer anti-business, and that change lasted for the full 13 years. I bow to no-one in my contempt for Gordon Brown, but at least he understood that tax revenues and prosperity come from business, and he never forgot that lesson. Ed Miliband has never learnt it, and Labour now is hardly even bothering to hide its anti-business stance. Chuka Umanna makes a few token attempts, but it's clear he doesn't really have Ed's backing.
It may be common in the US but it seems uncommon in the UK. I would happily agree to a reasonable tie in time for relevant training. It has never been offered however.
Example....when I worked for ICI It was in the 1990's I wrote a complete relational database system for them using dr codds theories. However despite doing that I have never been given the opportunity to use SQL style database in any job as I have no experience with SQL. I know sql front to back because I have trained myself but have no commercial experience to point to. I can answer all the technical questions on stored procedures, triggers, joins etc but no commercial experience no job. How do you suggest I get this commercial experience?
Not something I've done, but open source *can* be a way in to proving your skills. In fact, years ago we hired someone on the basis of his open source work - we could see he was an excellent coder. In the interview he could explain the code clearly and rationally, and even detailed the uncommitted test scripts he'd written for the code.
Another option might be to design a website for someone (or just yourself) that uses complex tables and SQL commands, implement it, and use it as a demonstration. Show you know your stuff. If you do it for a client, even better.
Also, I agree with the consensus that Nick's idea of incentives to encourage companies to set up training programmes is an excellent idea.
I live in hope that, one day, a mainstream party will have the guts to say that businesses have responsibilities to society, rather than their only job being to make themselves as rich as possible.
Actually companies that look after their people and spend time and effort developing them are likely to make more money than companies that do not. So it works to benefit the company and the staff. Thus it is not a case of forcing companies to accept that they have wider responsibilities, it is more a matter of getting our bone headed management class (which sometimes don't seem to have moved on from the 1970s) to act in their own best interests.
"... As an aside, we desperately need to being back apprenticeships in a meaningful way..."
Absolutely! We have become too obsessed by degrees in this country. There is no good reason why someone needs a degree to become a good programmer, solicitor, accountant or numerous other trades. Apprenticeships or articled clerkships can do provide the necessary training, topped up as necessary by day release at a local college.
I'm quite proud of not having a degree. It's fun when you're managing a project team that contains people with doctorates.
"What, you worked for six years whilst I was out having fun and now I'm your boss? Mwuhahahaha!"
But I hit the industry at the right time (in fact, I was probably five or ten years later than optimal). It would be much harder, although not impossible, for someone without a degree to get a good job in the software industry. That's wrong; there should be avenues in, and the focus on degrees is farcical given the state many graduates leave university.
That apart from age is one of my problems...no degree. I was offered a place but as I left home at 16 and was the sole supporter of my young lady at the time could not take it up. When speaking to the agents who were putting my CV out and querying why instead of getting the normal 1 interview per three CV's I was use to the ratio was more like 1 to 60 I was told
"Well you are seen as to old and even if thats not a problem mostly hr are binning your cv due to no degree. They are mostly in their mid thirties and assume anyone without a degree is the bottom of the intelligence scale"
Past research has shown that the fear of immigration is often based somewhat counter-intuitively not in areas with large immigrant populations, but in areas nearby. Anticipation of the potential effects of immigration versus the far more positive reality.
....
..
But I am fairly sure my experience is unusual, and I am most reluctant to label my fellow Brits, with understandably less heart-warming stories, as "racist".
No - why would anuone label people they do not know as anything, I mean you would never get kippers jumping to assumptions about Romanians and Bulgarians would you? However I think when people actually talk about bongo bongo land and the like and people defend that comment - as people certainly did on the web - they are telling us about themselves.
The expression "bongo bongo land" was notoriously used by Alan Clark well before Godfrey Bloom. Alan Clark was not a kipper. I am pretty confident neither of those facts is known to you.
I am currently intending to vote tory as I usually do; but as I'm in a safe tory seat anyway I am increasingly tempted to vote Ukip in protest against the ignorance, malice and intellectual yahooism of the pbtories. Well done.
I poor excuse. There were reports at the time of Bloome's remarks, Clarke faced a race row over it. Following all that in fact Bloome was clearly being deliberately provicative. Clarke was pretty 'nationalistic'. He invented the phrase 'lions led like donkeys' and paraded it as the truth. His admitted economy with the truth caused the collapse of the matrix Churchill trial. He could be regarded as a prototype Farage. Did he have some useful opinions - absolutely yes - but typical of the right wing he goes nuts and ruins his cause.
There are arguments to be made about immigration and the EU. Rational ones not ones couched in UKIP dog whistles. Has anyone invented the comments made by UKIP officials and candidates? Are you trying to tell me the comment about ting tongs made without ignorance and malice? The endless parade of exuses has long worn a bit thin from UKIP, not least Farage's defence of himself and others that they are only 'jokes'.
Its ignorance and malice that dismays me. Its certainly something I can do without on the right wing of politics.
Why are the signs in Covent Garden warning would be pickpockets that undercover police are in the area in Romanian?
I know, is it that a lot of the non UK shoplifters and pick pockets are Romanian?
Past research has shown that the fear of immigration is often based somewhat counter-intuitively not in areas with large immigrant populations, but in areas nearby. Anticipation of the potential effects of immigration versus the far more positive reality.
....
..
But I am fairly sure my experience is unusual, and I am most reluctant to label my fellow Brits, with understandably less heart-warming stories, as "racist".
No - why would anuone label people they do not know as anything, I mean you would never get kippers jumping to assumptions about Romanians and Bulgarians would you? However I think when people actually talk about bongo bongo land and the like and people defend that comment - as people certainly did on the web - they are telling us about themselves.
The expression "bongo bongo land" was notoriously used by Alan Clark well before Godfrey Bloom. Alan Clark was not a kipper. I am pretty confident neither of those facts is known to you.
I am currently intending to vote tory as I usually do; but as I'm in a safe tory seat anyway I am increasingly tempted to vote Ukip in protest against the ignorance, malice and intellectual yahooism of the pbtories. Well done.
I poor excuse. There were reports at the time of Bloome's remarks, Clarke faced a race row over it. Following all that in fact Bloome was clearly being deliberately provicative. Clarke was pretty 'nationalistic'. He invented the phrase 'lions led like donkeys' and paraded it as the truth. His admitted economy with the truth caused the collapse of the matrix Churchill trial. He could be regarded as a prototype Farage. Did he have some useful opinions - absolutely yes - but typical of the right wing he goes nuts and ruins his cause.
There are arguments to be made about immigration and the EU. Rational ones not ones couched in UKIP dog whistles. Has anyone invented the comments made by UKIP officials and candidates? Are you trying to tell me the comment about ting tongs made without ignorance and malice? The endless parade of exuses has long worn a bit thin from UKIP, not least Farage's defence of himself and others that they are only 'jokes'.
Its ignorance and malice that dismays me. Its certainly something I can do without on the right wing of politics.
Clarke did not invent the phrase "Lions led by Donkeys". It was used as the title for a book written about the First World War by a former officer in 1927, critical of the way the war was fought.
Since you can't even get this right I would doubt the veracity of any of the rest of your dubious claims.
It may be common in the US but it seems uncommon in the UK. I would happily agree to a reasonable tie in time for relevant training. It has never been offered however.
Example....when I worked for ICI It was in the 1990's I wrote a complete relational database system for them using dr codds theories. However despite doing that I have never been given the opportunity to use SQL style database in any job as I have no experience with SQL. I know sql front to back because I have trained myself but have no commercial experience to point to. I can answer all the technical questions on stored procedures, triggers, joins etc but no commercial experience no job. How do you suggest I get this commercial experience?
Not something I've done, but open source *can* be a way in to proving your skills. In fact, years ago we hired someone on the basis of his open source work - we could see he was an excellent coder. In the interview he could explain the code clearly and rationally, and even detailed the uncommitted test scripts he'd written for the code.
Another option might be to design a website for someone (or just yourself) that uses complex tables and SQL commands, implement it, and use it as a demonstration. Show you know your stuff. If you do it for a client, even better.
BTW, I'm hopeless at SQL, and hate databases.
I hate SQL too and databases in general however more and more jobs require it. Open source is fine but frankly when I leave work I have so many other things to do I really don't have the time for it. I do write code at home and I do sell it however I prefer my efforts to provide income rather than be given away.
Labour are currently more right-wing on the economy than they were under Blair.
Right-wing? I've no idea what you mean by that, except perhaps that they have reluctantly been dragged into a position of grudgingly accepting that maybe the laws of arithmetic might have a smidgen of relevance. Blair, and Brown until 2008/9, didn't have that problem, because the golden legacy of the Thatcher reforms, combined with following Ken Clarke's policies for the first term and the benign world economic conditions, meant that the money was pouring into the coffers, most notably from the City.
What I actually said was that Labour is now anti-business, which is a slightly different point. To be fair to Blair and Brown, the 'prawn cocktail offensive' wasn't just spin; they really had changed Labour so that it was no longer anti-business, and that change lasted for the full 13 years. I bow to no-one in my contempt for Gordon Brown, but at least he understood that tax revenues and prosperity come from business, and he never forgot that lesson. Ed Miliband has never learnt it, and Labour now is hardly even bothering to hide its anti-business stance. Chuka Umanna makes a few token attempts, but it's clear he doesn't really have Ed's backing.
I'm not even sure I see how the current Labour platform is more "anti-business" than New Labour. Sure, there's the energy price freeze, but Blair and Brown had the windfall taxes on the energy companies which essentially has the same logic behind it.
I think Miliband in terms of his personal views is more left-wing than Blair (and perhaps Brown too) and occasionally throws in a bit more left-wing rhetoric, but in terms of the actual policies I really can't see any argument that Labour are more left-wing now. Re-reading the main points from the 1997 manifesto looks like unadulterated Bolshevism compared to the sorry stances they've got going into next year (God how I long for the days when their limit of compromise was to only commit themselves to very modest annual increases in spending, rather than planning years and years of massive cuts).
"... As an aside, we desperately need to being back apprenticeships in a meaningful way..."
Absolutely! We have become too obsessed by degrees in this country. There is no good reason why someone needs a degree to become a good programmer, solicitor, accountant or numerous other trades. Apprenticeships or articled clerkships can do provide the necessary training, topped up as necessary by day release at a local college.
The govt - well the conservative party - are proposing to increase apprenticeships by several million by spending some of the savings in the benefits budget. At least one budget IIRC has spent money to support apprenticeships
One question that has to be adresssed is just what skills and crafts need or benefit from apprenticeships. There are still of course a lot of industrial jobs out there, despite manufacturing forming a smaller percentage of the economy - biut have thoise jobs changed from in the past. By definition of course being an apprentice came with not receiving a brilliant wage until you qualified.
It may be common in the US but it seems uncommon in the UK. I would happily agree to a reasonable tie in time for relevant training. It has never been offered however.
Example....when I worked for ICI It was in the 1990's I wrote a complete relational database system for them using dr codds theories. However despite doing that I have never been given the opportunity to use SQL style database in any job as I have no experience with SQL. I know sql front to back because I have trained myself but have no commercial experience to point to. I can answer all the technical questions on stored procedures, triggers, joins etc but no commercial experience no job. How do you suggest I get this commercial experience?
Not something I've done, but open source *can* be a way in to proving your skills. In fact, years ago we hired someone on the basis of his open source work - we could see he was an excellent coder. In the interview he could explain the code clearly and rationally, and even detailed the uncommitted test scripts he'd written for the code.
Another option might be to design a website for someone (or just yourself) that uses complex tables and SQL commands, implement it, and use it as a demonstration. Show you know your stuff. If you do it for a client, even better.
BTW, I'm hopeless at SQL, and hate databases.
I hate SQL too and databases in general however more and more jobs require it. Open source is fine but frankly when I leave work I have so many other things to do I really don't have the time for it. I do write code at home and I do sell it however I prefer my efforts to provide income rather than be given away.
I should point out however I am not anti open source for instance myself and a small group are working on a project that will be open sourced. It will however not be a popular piece of software in certain quarters.
I think Miliband in terms of his personal views is more left-wing than Blair (and perhaps Brown too) and occasionally throws in a bit more left-wing rhetoric, but in terms of the actual policies I really can't see any argument that Labour are more left-wing now. Re-reading the main points from the 1997 manifesto looks like unadulterated Bolshevism compared to the sorry stances they've got going into next year (God how I long for the days when their most ambitious was to commit themselves to very modest annual increases in spending, rather than planning years and years of massive cuts).
You prove my (first) point very neatly: you clearly see the whole question as one of the amount of public spending, and this in turn as completely unrelated to the inconvenient reality of tax revenues.
No-one, and certainly not George Osborne, let alone Ed Balls, is planning 'massive cuts' for the fun of it. They are planning massive cuts in some areas because there ain't no dosh, and such dosh as there is is going to be swallowed up by the NHS and care for the elderly. It's as simple as that.
That apart from age is one of my problems...no degree. I was offered a place but as I left home at 16 and was the sole supporter of my young lady at the time could not take it up. When speaking to the agents who were putting my CV out and querying why instead of getting the normal 1 interview per three CV's I was use to the ratio was more like 1 to 60 I was told
"Well you are seen as to old and even if thats not a problem mostly hr are binning your cv due to no degree. They are mostly in their mid thirties and assume anyone without a degree is the bottom of the intelligence scale"
That was a paraphrase of what I was often told
Yep. I used to recruit graduate engineers for junior engineer roles, and it was an evil job. You get hundreds of identikit CVs. You therefore concentrated on the ones that were different, work placements being particularly notable gold dust. In fact, a self-taught person sometimes stood out from the ravenous hordes of graduates.
Employment agencies were evil. Some insisted on rewriting client's CV's to remove some information such as phone numbers. This led to formatting errors and missed information. In one hideous case, we had someone turn up to an interview and the CV we'd been given was not his, despite his name being on it. Fortunately he had brought along his own copy which we could use. That agency was soon dropped ...
We still found it hard to fill roles, though. It was not that we were being picky. Many people we rejected were excellent engineers. It was just that they were trained in the wrong areas for us, because universities were not producing the right sort of graduates. That's still the case, and UK universities do not seem keen to tailor courses for SME's. They'll bend over backwards for MS, Oracle or Google, but not smaller firms.
As an aside, back in 1999 or so I recruited a pimply 22-year old into a junior position at a company. A couple of years ago I got an offer of some work from a startup. When I turned up, that pimply youth was now the CEO. As a joke, he handed me the coding test I'd given him in his interview ...
"... As an aside, we desperately need to being back apprenticeships in a meaningful way..."
Absolutely! We have become too obsessed by degrees in this country. There is no good reason why someone needs a degree to become a good programmer, solicitor, accountant or numerous other trades. Apprenticeships or articled clerkships can do provide the necessary training, topped up as necessary by day release at a local college.
The govt - well the conservative party - are proposing to increase apprenticeships by several million by spending some of the savings in the benefits budget. At least one budget IIRC has spent money to support apprenticeships
One question that has to be adresssed is just what skills and crafts need or benefit from apprenticeships. There are still of course a lot of industrial jobs out there, despite manufacturing forming a smaller percentage of the economy - biut have thoise jobs changed from in the past. By definition of course being an apprentice came with not receiving a brilliant wage until you qualified.
As usual the tories go nanny state and subsidise stuff. Let companies sort out their training needs by allowing tie in contracts don't waste tax payers money on it as it will be mis spent by companies who will merely take the subsidy to employ someone to sweep the floor.
"... As an aside, we desperately need to being back apprenticeships in a meaningful way..."
Absolutely! We have become too obsessed by degrees in this country. There is no good reason why someone needs a degree to become a good programmer, solicitor, accountant or numerous other trades. Apprenticeships or articled clerkships can do provide the necessary training, topped up as necessary by day release at a local college.
The govt - well the conservative party - are proposing to increase apprenticeships by several million by spending some of the savings in the benefits budget. At least one budget IIRC has spent money to support apprenticeships
One question that has to be adresssed is just what skills and crafts need or benefit from apprenticeships. There are still of course a lot of industrial jobs out there, despite manufacturing forming a smaller percentage of the economy - biut have thoise jobs changed from in the past. By definition of course being an apprentice came with not receiving a brilliant wage until you qualified.
Why are you talking about industrial jobs? Blue collar work. I was talking about white collar jobs and professions, software engineers, lawyers, accountants and so forth and using apprenticeships/articles as an alternative to a degree as an entry point.
The salary thing is neither here nor there. Yes it starts low and climbs each year until you finally qualify. Earning even a little is better than borrowing £9k a year for three years and then not being guaranteed a job at the end of it.
Re the SNP poll, I hate to say this, AGAIN, but I WAS COMPLETELY RIGHT
I predicted:
1. No would (narrowly) win 2. Salmond would then resign (tbf I thought he'd wait til after GE 2015, but hey) 3. The Scots would then give the Nats a huge consolation vote at GE 2015 as a way of saying sorry, I'm still proudly Scots, here's the proof
Moreover, the Vow means that for brainy Scots the 2015 GE is a no-brainer. If you want maximum leverage for Scotland, and the maximum benefit to your Scottish self, in the devomax negotiations of 2015-2020 then you MUST vote for the SNP as the Scots party.
All other parties are compromised, ESPECIALLY Labour which is, ironically, most hostile to devomax, as devomax is guaranteed to diminish Labour's power in London, as EVEL necessarily follows (and it will, in some form or other).
I cannot see any way around this. Labour are bound to lose 10-30 seats in Scotland. I reckon Murphy will maybe staunch the wound, but he will not heal it.
Labour's Scottish recovery will begin in Holyrood in 2016, when I predict they, and the Tories, will begin to make inroads, from the right, against an SNP party equipped with serious new tax-raising powers.
NPXMP is right. As Labour collapse in Scotland, NOM becomes evermore likely. As of today a Miliband NOM is the best bet. But it's all marginal.
The one rider to this is that the SNP had a massive lead in general election polls until a few months before the 2010 election, and then a year later the exact opposite happened with Labour having a big lead in the Holyrood polls until a couple of months before the election. The Scottish pollsters don't seem very good at getting people to distinguish between their preferences for the different type of elections, until an election is really imminent.
That said, it's also very possible the referendum has torn up the whole old rulebook and the past examples aren't a good guide.
Past research has shown that the fear of immigration is often based somewhat counter-intuitively not in areas with large immigrant populations, but in areas nearby. Anticipation of the potential effects of immigration versus the far more positive reality.
....
..
But I am fairly sure my experience is unusual, and I am most reluctant to label my fellow Brits, with understandably less heart-warming stories, as "racist".
No - why would anuone label people they do not know as anything, I mean you would never get kippers jumping to assumptions about Romanians and Bulgarians would you? However I think when people actually talk about bongo bongo land and the like and people defend that comment - as people certainly did on the web - they are telling us about themselves.
The expression "bongo bongo land" was notoriously used by Alan Clark well before Godfrey Bloom. Alan Clark was not a kipper. I am pretty confident neither of those facts is known to you.
I am currently intending to vote tory as I usually do; but as I'm in a safe tory seat anyway I am increasingly tempted to vote Ukip in protest against the ignorance, malice and intellectual yahooism of the pbtories. Well done.
There are arguments to be made about immigration and the EU. Rational ones not ones couched in UKIP dog whistles. Has anyone invented the comments made by UKIP officials and candidates? Are you trying to tell me the comment about ting tongs made without ignorance and malice? The endless parade of exuses has long worn a bit thin from UKIP, not least Farage's defence of himself and others that they are only 'jokes'.
Its ignorance and malice that dismays me. Its certainly something I can do without on the right wing of politics.
Yeah well, the Conservatives have failed to keep their campaign promises over immigration. Compared to that, complaints about dog-whistles, or bad manners, are pretty trivial matters to centre-right voters.
And your point is? Wow - yet another excuse to gloss over a bunch of crass ignorant remarks from and endless list of inept UKIP politicians. Are you trying to say they have not made them or just that you cannot be bothered to work out what they actually mean?
You can still back the SNP in all bar three of the Labour-held seats in Scotland at odds against. The SNP's poll lead over Labour since the referendum has been large and durable, and if anything seems to be strengthening. At present the SNP should be odds-on in many Labour-held seats in Scotland, given current polling.
That apart from age is one of my problems...no degree. I was offered a place but as I left home at 16 and was the sole supporter of my young lady at the time could not take it up. When speaking to the agents who were putting my CV out and querying why instead of getting the normal 1 interview per three CV's I was use to the ratio was more like 1 to 60 I was told
"Well you are seen as to old and even if thats not a problem mostly hr are binning your cv due to no degree. They are mostly in their mid thirties and assume anyone without a degree is the bottom of the intelligence scale"
That was a paraphrase of what I was often told
Yep. I used to recruit graduate engineers for junior engineer roles, and it was an evil job. You get hundreds of identikit CVs. You therefore concentrated on the ones that were different, work placements being particularly notable gold dust. In fact, a self-taught person sometimes stood out from the ravenous hordes of graduates.
Employment agencies were evil. Some insisted on rewriting client's CV's to remove some information such as phone numbers. This led to formatting errors and missed information. In one hideous case, we had someone turn up to an interview and the CV we'd been given was not his, despite his name being on it. Fortunately he had brought along his own copy which we could use. That agency was soon dropped ...
We still found it hard to fill roles, though. It was not that we were being picky. Many people we rejected were excellent engineers. It was just that they were trained in the wrong areas for us, because universities were not producing the right sort of graduates. That's still the case, and UK universities do not seem keen to tailor courses for SME's. They'll bend over backwards for MS, Oracle or Google, but not smaller firms.
As an aside, back in 1999 or so I recruited a pimply 22-year old into a junior position at a company. A couple of years ago I got an offer of some work from a startup. When I turned up, that pimply youth was now the CEO. As a joke, he handed me the coding test I'd given him in his interview ...
Which was my point our education system is geared to passing exams not preparing out students for real life work.
An example I will quote was a friend who was doing an hnc in computing he asked for my help with his project. His project was to solve quadratic equations typed in. I taught him how to write a recursive descent parser. It worked perfectly. He could explain how it worked. His compatriots offered solutions that often failed to work. He got a C on the grounds that he hadn't documented his code in the way his examiner felt he should have. His compatriots with failed programmes got better marks than him on the grounds they had documented the code well.
I completely fail to see why the government should have anything to do with corporate apprenticeships.
Because it thinks its a good thing which would benefit us all and, to use the word 'benefit' in another context, it wants to effectively force people off benefits into meaningful work.
I completely fail to see why the government should have anything to do with corporate apprenticeships.
Because it thinks its a good thing which would benefit us all and, to use the word 'benefit' in another context, it wants to effectively force people off benefits into meaningful work.
Bollocks it is more tory welfare for corporations that will elicit nothing more than I suggested earlier. They will take apprentices. Fail to train them then take a new set of apprentices because government subsidies give them an incentive to take on floor sweepers on less than minimum wage
"... As an aside, we desperately need to being back apprenticeships in a meaningful way..."
Absolutely! We have become too obsessed by degrees in this country. There is no good reason why someone needs a degree to become a good programmer, solicitor, accountant or numerous other trades. Apprenticeships or articled clerkships can do provide the necessary training, topped up as necessary by day release at a local college.
The govt - well the conservative party - are proposing to increase apprenticeships by several million by spending some of the savings in the benefits budget. At least one budget IIRC has spent money to support apprenticeships
One question that has to be adresssed is just what skills and crafts need or benefit from apprenticeships. There are still of course a lot of industrial jobs out there, despite manufacturing forming a smaller percentage of the economy - biut have thoise jobs changed from in the past. By definition of course being an apprentice came with not receiving a brilliant wage until you qualified.
As usual the tories go nanny state and subsidise stuff. Let companies sort out their training needs by allowing tie in contracts don't waste tax payers money on it as it will be mis spent by companies who will merely take the subsidy to employ someone to sweep the floor.
How very insightful. The natgion has got itself into a total mess with millions on benefits rather than work. Sod the nation eh? The conservstive 'nanny state' is actually planning to cut benefits. Its political opponents will parade that like Herod killing the firstborne - good to see you have the brains to speak out against that. Cutting benefts and encouraging apprenticeships is a funny kind of nanny state. The only thing I see you cutting is your nose to spite your face.
"... As an aside, we desperately need to being back apprenticeships in a meaningful way..."
Absolutely! We have become too obsessed by degrees in this country. There is no good reason why someone needs a degree to become a good programmer, solicitor, accountant or numerous other trades. Apprenticeships or articled clerkships can do provide the necessary training, topped up as necessary by day release at a local college.
The govt - well the conservative party - are proposing to increase apprenticeships by several million by spending some of the savings in the benefits budget. At least one budget IIRC has spent money to support apprenticeships
One question that has to be adresssed is just what skills and crafts need or benefit from apprenticeships. There are still of course a lot of industrial jobs out there, despite manufacturing forming a smaller percentage of the economy - biut have thoise jobs changed from in the past. By definition of course being an apprentice came with not receiving a brilliant wage until you qualified.
As usual the tories go nanny state and subsidise stuff. Let companies sort out their training needs by allowing tie in contracts don't waste tax payers money on it as it will be mis spent by companies who will merely take the subsidy to employ someone to sweep the floor.
How very insightful. The natgion has got itself into a total mess with millions on benefits rather than work. Sod the nation eh? The conservstive 'nanny state' is actually planning to cut benefits. Its political opponents will parade that like Herod killing the firstborne - good to see you have the brains to speak out against that. Cutting benefts and encouraging apprenticeships is a funny kind of nanny state. The only thing I see you cutting is your nose to spite your face.
Listen tory shill we have been here before with the previous tory scheme. It resulted on people being taken on to sweep the floor because they were cheap enough to employ and no backlash for them being sacked when the subsidy expired and taking on new ones. It is not a solution.
Allow companies to indenture people for training as long as it doesn't allow companies to force that indenture on them and it actually gets companies training people in the skills they need and employing them on an on going basis. Your scheme just allows the companies to employ people to do the chores they wouldn't otherwise bother with at tax payers expense. Being a typical tory I realise you feel the tax payer should subsidise companies else you would have revoked tax credits. You are the problem not the solution
I completely fail to see why the government should have anything to do with corporate apprenticeships.
Because it thinks its a good thing which would benefit us all and, to use the word 'benefit' in another context, it wants to effectively force people off benefits into meaningful work.
If it is in a company's interest to establish an apprentice program, it will do so.
If the government wants to do something useful, it should establish a stable and dependable environment in which companies can invest, grow, and provide jobs. That's a tax and regulation operation rather than throwing taxpayers money around on yet another ill-conceived and alleged 'benefit'.
I completely fail to see why the government should have anything to do with corporate apprenticeships.
Because it thinks its a good thing which would benefit us all and, to use the word 'benefit' in another context, it wants to effectively force people off benefits into meaningful work.
If it is in a company's interest to establish an apprentice program, it will do so.
If the government wants to do something useful, it should establish an environment in which companies can invest, grow, and provide jobs. That's a tax and regulation operation rather than throwing taxpayers money around on yet another ill-conceived and alleged 'benefit'.
No point arguing with him the tory party these days is a left of centre idiocracy. Flightpath is an ardent admirer
''Moreover, the Vow means that for brainy Scots the 2015 GE is a no-brainer. If you want maximum leverage for Scotland, and the maximum benefit to your Scottish self, in the devomax negotiations of 2015-2020 then you MUST vote for the SNP as the Scots party''
Well there is a thought to take us all to bed with... The rational thing for Scots voters to do is vote for the SNP and leave labour with 3 seats in Scotland and thus give the Tories a good run to a majority and defeat the only party with Scottish seats who could form a national government. ??
The devomax proposals have already neen discussed agreed and published and the draft bill is to be published in the new year
I completely fail to see why the government should have anything to do with corporate apprenticeships.
Because it thinks its a good thing which would benefit us all and, to use the word 'benefit' in another context, it wants to effectively force people off benefits into meaningful work.
If it is in a company's interest to establish an apprentice program, it will do so.
If the government wants to do something useful, it should establish an environment in which companies can invest, grow, and provide jobs. That's a tax and regulation operation rather than throwing taxpayers money around on yet another ill-conceived and alleged 'benefit'.
No point arguing with him the tory party these days is a left of centre idiocracy. Flightpath is an ardent admirer
I wasn't arguing with anyone. merely stating the blindingly obvious.
I specialize in the blindingly obvious - it seems to be a rare specialty.
This poll simply confirms voters do not want low skilled immigrants undercutting wages or large extended families claiming off the state, but they do want the educated and skilled who will bring net benefits, especially if there is a shortage for their skills
Survation/Daily Record poll shows Jim Murphy faces huge uphill task to return Labour Party to power in Scotland:
Daily Record Article here:
Headline Figures
Scotland Westminster 2015: CON 16% LAB 24% LD 5% SNP 48% UKIP 4% Others 2%
Holyrood Constituency: LAB 25% SNP 51% LD 5% UKIP 2% GRE 2% AP 1%
Holyrood List: LAB 24% CON 14% SNP 40% LD 6% GRE 9% UKIP 7% AP 1% => The Scottish Green Party and UKIP would secure Holyrood representation
This is the 9th poll in the Survation/Daily Record polling series- the most consistent and most accurate during the Scottish Independence referendum.
Full tables for voting intention including the full questions put are available here.
Keep up to date with all of Survation’s research and analysis on our blog. Follow us on twitter: @survation Find out more about the services Survation provide by following this link. For press enquiries, please call 0203 142 7642 or email enquiry@survation.com
They clearly have far too much money if they can hand out £28k to rich overseas students. Normally it is the other way around, universities taking money from dodgy regimes to admit their offspring e.g. Gaddadi, not handing it out.
This poll simply confirms voters do not want low skilled immigrants undercutting wages or large extended families claiming off the state, but they do want the educated and skilled who will bring net benefits, especially if there is a shortage for their skills
To me though I am not particularly anti immigration does not seem an unreasonable viewpoint
This poll simply confirms voters do not want low skilled immigrants undercutting wages or large extended families claiming off the state, but they do want the educated and skilled who will bring net benefits, especially if there is a shortage for their skills
It's about time - 35 years ago when I emigrated to first Canada and then the USA, in both cases the process was heavily weighted to both skills and youth.
Flightpath Replacing a Labour MP with an SNP MP will make no difference to Tory chances as both MPs would vote down a Tory government. What the Survation poll does show interestingly is unionist voters may be willing to vote tactically for Murphy-led Labour, with 28 per cent of Labour voters, 14 per cent of Tory voters and 22 per cent of Lib Dems saying “I am more likely to vote Labour now Jim Murphy is Scottish Labour leader”. 21 per cent of those intending to vote SNP say they would seriously consider voting Labour, albeit 19 per cent of those intending to vote Labour saying they’d seriously consider voting SNP.
This poll simply confirms voters do not want low skilled immigrants undercutting wages or large extended families claiming off the state, but they do want the educated and skilled who will bring net benefits, especially if there is a shortage for their skills
They clearly have far too much money if they can hand out £28k to rich overseas students. Normally it is the other way around, universities taking money from dodgy regimes to admit their offspring e.g. Gaddadi, not handing it out.
This poll simply confirms voters do not want low skilled immigrants undercutting wages or large extended families claiming off the state, but they do want the educated and skilled who will bring net benefits, especially if there is a shortage for their skills
Does it really say anything new ?
While it does not say anything new can you describe in anyway why it seems
I completely fail to see why the government should have anything to do with corporate apprenticeships.
Because it thinks its a good thing which would benefit us all and, to use the word 'benefit' in another context, it wants to effectively force people off benefits into meaningful work.
If it is in a company's interest to establish an apprentice program, it will do so.
If the government wants to do something useful, it should establish an environment in which companies can invest, grow, and provide jobs. That's a tax and regulation operation rather than throwing taxpayers money around on yet another ill-conceived and alleged 'benefit'.
No point arguing with him the tory party these days is a left of centre idiocracy. Flightpath is an ardent admirer
I wasn't arguing with anyone. merely stating the blindingly obvious.
I specialize in the blindingly obvious - it seems to be a rare specialty.
Who do you think you are, coming on here, confusing us with yer "blindingly obvious" and all that?
The problem is that people are often reluctant to move out of their comfort zone, I remember one man who wanted to make a career in web development but was absolutely against any training for it - he had convinced himself that HTML 3.0 was to be preferred to 4.1, and the vi editor was all he needed. In 2004, but hopelessly outdated even then.
I completely fail to see why the government should have anything to do with corporate apprenticeships.
Because it thinks its a good thing which would benefit us all and, to use the word 'benefit' in another context, it wants to effectively force people off benefits into meaningful work.
If it is in a company's interest to establish an apprentice program, it will do so.
If the government wants to do something useful, it should establish an environment in which companies can invest, grow, and provide jobs. That's a tax and regulation operation rather than throwing taxpayers money around on yet another ill-conceived and alleged 'benefit'.
No point arguing with him the tory party these days is a left of centre idiocracy. Flightpath is an ardent admirer
I wasn't arguing with anyone. merely stating the blindingly obvious.
I specialize in the blindingly obvious - it seems to be a rare specialty.
Who do you think you are, coming on here, confusing us with yer "blindingly obvious" and all that?
Begone with your sorcery.
I give up - you ran rings around me logically with that well thought out, thorough and convincing argument.
Artist The EU poll is very tight, 51-49 for out, could easily swing back the other way, especially if some concessions. Greece and France have only 53% for staying in, the Netherlands 42% for getting out. However, all the countries asked were eurozone nations, had they asked non-eurozone Sweden and Denmark and Hungary they may have found more sceptics. If the eurozone survives it will comprise the EU inner core, if the UK stays in it will be in a non-eurozone outer tier with Sweden, Denmark and a few Eastern European nations, and perhaps eventually non-EU Norway and Switzerland
This poll simply confirms voters do not want low skilled immigrants undercutting wages or large extended families claiming off the state, but they do want the educated and skilled who will bring net benefits, especially if there is a shortage for their skills
Does it really say anything new ?
While it does not say anything new can you describe in anyway why it seems
1) racist 2) unreasonable
I did not say it was either. Why are you attributing something to me which I did not say ? My comment was only a one-liner. which was:
Re the SNP poll, I hate to say this, AGAIN, but I WAS COMPLETELY RIGHT
I predicted:
1. No would (narrowly) win 2. Salmond would then resign (tbf I thought he'd wait til after GE 2015, but hey) 3. The Scots would then give the Nats a huge consolation vote at GE 2015 as a way of saying sorry, I'm still proudly Scots, here's the proof
Moreover, the Vow means that for brainy Scots the 2015 GE is a no-brainer. If you want maximum leverage for Scotland, and the maximum benefit to your Scottish self, in the devomax negotiations of 2015-2020 then you MUST vote for the SNP as the Scots party.
All other parties are compromised, ESPECIALLY Labour which is, ironically, most hostile to devomax, as devomax is guaranteed to diminish Labour's power in London, as EVEL necessarily follows (and it will, in some form or other).
I cannot see any way around this. Labour are bound to lose 10-30 seats in Scotland. I reckon Murphy will maybe staunch the wound, but he will not heal it.
Labour's Scottish recovery will begin in Holyrood in 2016, when I predict they, and the Tories, will begin to make inroads, from the right, against an SNP party equipped with serious new tax-raising powers.
NPXMP is right. As Labour collapse in Scotland, NOM becomes evermore likely. As of today a Miliband NOM is the best bet. But it's all marginal.
For every 1% swing to Labour in Scotland from the SNP, Labour gains 2.5 seats. So much so, if the split was 37% - 31% in SNP's favour, Labour would win 29 seats to the SNP's 26, thanks to FPTP.
The SNP will win many more seats than in 2010 when it won only 6. But many gains would be coming from the Liberals, who could end up with just 2 MPs which will not include Danny boy. Tories could gain 1 or even 2.
This poll simply confirms voters do not want low skilled immigrants undercutting wages or large extended families claiming off the state, but they do want the educated and skilled who will bring net benefits, especially if there is a shortage for their skills
Does it really say anything new ?
While it does not say anything new can you describe in anyway why it seems
1) racist 2) unreasonable
I did not say it was either. Why are you attributing something to me which I did not say ? My comment was only a one-liner. which was:
"Does it really say anything new ?"
Sorry did I make an accusation?
From your previous posts I gathered you disapproved of this sort of attitude I merely asked you to qualify your statement and my question I did not feel implied you felt any particular way.
I was asking two questions
Do you feel it is racist
Do you feel it is unreasonable
Given your previous posturing on such subjects I do not feel it to be unreasonable questions to ask
TimB/Zen/Surbiton It seems the public have the right idea, hopefully the politicans will follow suit
One can always hope, but look at the example here.
Obama's policies and world view are thoroughly rejected by the voters in 2010 - he doubles down.
Obama's policies and world view are even more thoroughly rejected by the voters in 2014 - he doubles down even more.
Nobody can make them listen if they don't want to.
What about 2012? Why leave that election out?
It's almost as if there are two Democratic Parties - one of which is there to elect (or re-elect) Barack Obama, which is very successful, and one to elect all other Democrats, which has been increasingly unsuccessful.
He has run for presidential office twice successfully, in neither case offering any firm policies or world view. By any measure, he is an exception. He also has absolutely zero coat tails, which is unusual.
In 2012 a majority of voters disapproved of his policies and the way the country was going, yet he still won.
TimB/Zen/Surbiton It seems the public have the right idea, hopefully the politicans will follow suit
One can always hope, but look at the example here.
Obama's policies and world view are thoroughly rejected by the voters in 2010 - he doubles down.
Obama's policies and world view are even more thoroughly rejected by the voters in 2014 - he doubles down even more.
Nobody can make them listen if they don't want to.
What about 2012? Why leave that election out?
It's almost as if there are two Democratic Parties - one of which is there to elect (or re-elect) Barack Obama, which is very successful, and one to elect all other Democrats, which has been increasingly unsuccessful.
He has run for presidential office twice successfully, in neither case offering any firm policies or world view. By any measure, he is an exception. He also has absolutely zero coat tails, which is unusual.
In 2012 a majority of voters disapproved of his policies and the way the country was going, yet he still won.
TimB/Zen/Surbiton It seems the public have the right idea, hopefully the politicans will follow suit
One can always hope, but look at the example here.
Obama's policies and world view are thoroughly rejected by the voters in 2010 - he doubles down.
Obama's policies and world view are even more thoroughly rejected by the voters in 2014 - he doubles down even more.
Nobody can make them listen if they don't want to.
His big problem in the mid-terms (apart from unfavourable FPTP effects) is that Democrats can't be arsed to vote in them. That makes doubling down the right response, for fear that they start staying at home in Presidential elections too.
The problem is that people are often reluctant to move out of their comfort zone, I remember one man who wanted to make a career in web development but was absolutely against any training for it - he had convinced himself that HTML 3.0 was to be preferred to 4.1, and the vi editor was all he needed. In 2004, but hopelessly outdated even then.
Ignoring HTML 4 sounds weird but it's 2014 and the vi editor is still all you need.
Tim B Turnout in presidential elections is about 60%, in mid-terms about 30% as EdinTokyo points out, he has a mandate from a majority of the voters, Congress got only a third of the voters to vote for it in the midterms of course he will stay the course. George W Bush did not change course completely after 2006 midterm losses either did he, and rightly so, he had a mandate in 2004
It also depends on what issues you are talking about, on gay marriage, higher taxes for the rich, no groundtroops in Iraq, arguably immigration reform and Cuba, Obama has US public opinion on his side
Comments
When I went to school ours was the first year to do GCE computer science. We were taught on spectrums and zx 81's. Part of the course was a project that had to be handed in. Software we wrote. Nearly all of the class handed in stuff that consisted almost entirely of Z80 machine code. Frankly that is probably harder to learn than basic idea's of inheritance and polymorphism. I was totally gobsmacked by his teachers reaction to the code he wrote. We taught him to write good code she taught him to pass an exam. I suspect what we taught him will stand him in better stead than what he learnt in school
Your last line is particularly interesting: many softies I know have a wide and varied career: as a youth I used to work on building/demolition sites and chemical plants, and have (*) a sideline in long-distance walking. (**). A mate used to work at the NPL, and there's more than a smattering of ex-teachers.
But I feel another change coming on. I'm slightly bored with software after nearly twenty years in the job, and I'm wary about both Mrs J and myself working in the same sector, and sometimes even the same company.
(*) should really be 'had': a child rather stops you disappearing for weeks at a time.
(**) not exactly a profitable occupation, but great fun!
Coming from a big company with lots of training, I thought it a good idea, and still do, but it was spiked by Tony Blair as too dirigiste.
O/T, that's a seriously good SNP poll, and must make NOM more likely.
In my experience of working with women, in several countries on 2 continents - they tend to be more detail oriented, but overall less big picture. To say they don't have the ability or aptitude is nonsense.
In all my work experience, the best managers I have worked for have been female.
There is no reason on an individual level that women cannot be every bit as good as men in the software business, or pretty much any other.
Formula 1 is probably an exception, but that is purely physiological, not based on skills or ability.
Did he have some useful opinions - absolutely yes - but typical of the right wing he goes nuts and ruins his cause.
There are arguments to be made about immigration and the EU. Rational ones not ones couched in UKIP dog whistles. Has anyone invented the comments made by UKIP officials and candidates? Are you trying to tell me the comment about ting tongs made without ignorance and malice? The endless parade of exuses has long worn a bit thin from UKIP, not least Farage's defence of himself and others that they are only 'jokes'.
Its ignorance and malice that dismays me. Its certainly something I can do without on the right wing of politics.
Once, after a promotion, I asked for some training into my new role: I knew a fair bit about it, but was aware that there were holes in my knowledge. The request was refused because we were too busy, then because it was too costly unless we could get several people to go. I finally went on the course about a year or two later.
It was a few months after I'd been moved to a totally different role ...
As an aside, we desperately need to being back apprenticeships in a meaningful way. Perhaps things have changed recently, but no companies I was involved with seem to use them.
I think it a shame Labour kicked your idea into touch. A mandatory training levy on all but the smallest of businesses is possibly the only way we will get UK managers to properly invest in their people. If they are paying for training they will probably do it and get their money's worth.
But a software course nowadays would surely have to teach a lot more than it did back then? I don't know what the syllabus is like now, but there was a limit to what you could do on a Z80. Now there is so much more that could be taught: web programming, data storage, high-level languages, low-level languages. Heck, if they're doing it properly they should cover some of the myriad of development processes, source control and testing which are just as vital as pure coding skills.
I wouldn't have a clue how to start even designing a GCSE computing/programming syllabus. But if I did, I probably wouldn't let them near a computer until they understood the development process. When I was involved with recruiting, I saw too many graduates who had no idea about source control ...
Also sometimes companies would rather bring in someone who is already perfectly skilled rather than allowing current staff to grow into it.
It's usually specified in your employment contract.
"... As an aside, we desperately need to being back apprenticeships in a meaningful way..."
Absolutely! We have become too obsessed by degrees in this country. There is no good reason why someone needs a degree to become a good programmer, solicitor, accountant or numerous other trades. Apprenticeships or articled clerkships can do provide the necessary training, topped up as necessary by day release at a local college.
Example....when I worked for ICI It was in the 1990's I wrote a complete relational database system for them using dr codds theories. However despite doing that I have never been given the opportunity to use SQL style database in any job as I have no experience with SQL. I know sql front to back because I have trained myself but have no commercial experience to point to. I can answer all the technical questions on stored procedures, triggers, joins etc but no commercial experience no job. How do you suggest I get this commercial experience?
"What, you worked for six years whilst I was out having fun and now I'm your boss? Mwuhahahaha!"
But I hit the industry at the right time (in fact, I was probably five or ten years later than optimal). It would be much harder, although not impossible, for someone without a degree to get a good job in the software industry. That's wrong; there should be avenues in, and the focus on degrees is farcical given the state many graduates leave university.
I live in hope that, one day, a mainstream party will have the guts to say that businesses have responsibilities to society, rather than their only job being to make themselves as rich as possible.
Just before I left school I was planning to be articled to become a solicitor, at the firm which is still my UK solicitors. Then I interviewed at IBM, and that was that.
What I actually said was that Labour is now anti-business, which is a slightly different point. To be fair to Blair and Brown, the 'prawn cocktail offensive' wasn't just spin; they really had changed Labour so that it was no longer anti-business, and that change lasted for the full 13 years. I bow to no-one in my contempt for Gordon Brown, but at least he understood that tax revenues and prosperity come from business, and he never forgot that lesson. Ed Miliband has never learnt it, and Labour now is hardly even bothering to hide its anti-business stance. Chuka Umanna makes a few token attempts, but it's clear he doesn't really have Ed's backing.
Another option might be to design a website for someone (or just yourself) that uses complex tables and SQL commands, implement it, and use it as a demonstration. Show you know your stuff. If you do it for a client, even better.
BTW, I'm hopeless at SQL, and hate databases.
"Well you are seen as to old and even if thats not a problem mostly hr are binning your cv due to no degree. They are mostly in their mid thirties and assume anyone without a degree is the bottom of the intelligence scale"
That was a paraphrase of what I was often told
Since you can't even get this right I would doubt the veracity of any of the rest of your dubious claims.
Who the hell saw this coming?
I think Miliband in terms of his personal views is more left-wing than Blair (and perhaps Brown too) and occasionally throws in a bit more left-wing rhetoric, but in terms of the actual policies I really can't see any argument that Labour are more left-wing now. Re-reading the main points from the 1997 manifesto looks like unadulterated Bolshevism compared to the sorry stances they've got going into next year (God how I long for the days when their limit of compromise was to only commit themselves to very modest annual increases in spending, rather than planning years and years of massive cuts).
At least one budget IIRC has spent money to support apprenticeships
One question that has to be adresssed is just what skills and crafts need or benefit from apprenticeships. There are still of course a lot of industrial jobs out there, despite manufacturing forming a smaller percentage of the economy - biut have thoise jobs changed from in the past. By definition of course being an apprentice came with not receiving a brilliant wage until you qualified.
No-one, and certainly not George Osborne, let alone Ed Balls, is planning 'massive cuts' for the fun of it. They are planning massive cuts in some areas because there ain't no dosh, and such dosh as there is is going to be swallowed up by the NHS and care for the elderly. It's as simple as that.
Employment agencies were evil. Some insisted on rewriting client's CV's to remove some information such as phone numbers. This led to formatting errors and missed information. In one hideous case, we had someone turn up to an interview and the CV we'd been given was not his, despite his name being on it. Fortunately he had brought along his own copy which we could use. That agency was soon dropped ...
We still found it hard to fill roles, though. It was not that we were being picky. Many people we rejected were excellent engineers. It was just that they were trained in the wrong areas for us, because universities were not producing the right sort of graduates. That's still the case, and UK universities do not seem keen to tailor courses for SME's. They'll bend over backwards for MS, Oracle or Google, but not smaller firms.
As an aside, back in 1999 or so I recruited a pimply 22-year old into a junior position at a company. A couple of years ago I got an offer of some work from a startup. When I turned up, that pimply youth was now the CEO. As a joke, he handed me the coding test I'd given him in his interview ...
The salary thing is neither here nor there. Yes it starts low and climbs each year until you finally qualify. Earning even a little is better than borrowing £9k a year for three years and then not being guaranteed a job at the end of it.
That said, it's also very possible the referendum has torn up the whole old rulebook and the past examples aren't a good guide.
An example I will quote was a friend who was doing an hnc in computing he asked for my help with his project. His project was to solve quadratic equations typed in. I taught him how to write a recursive descent parser. It worked perfectly. He could explain how it worked. His compatriots offered solutions that often failed to work. He got a C on the grounds that he hadn't documented his code in the way his examiner felt he should have. His compatriots with failed programmes got better marks than him on the grounds they had documented the code well.
Cutting benefts and encouraging apprenticeships is a funny kind of nanny state.
The only thing I see you cutting is your nose to spite your face.
Allow companies to indenture people for training as long as it doesn't allow companies to force that indenture on them and it actually gets companies training people in the skills they need and employing them on an on going basis. Your scheme just allows the companies to employ people to do the chores they wouldn't otherwise bother with at tax payers expense. Being a typical tory I realise you feel the tax payer should subsidise companies else you would have revoked tax credits. You are the problem not the solution
If the government wants to do something useful, it should establish a stable and dependable environment in which companies can invest, grow, and provide jobs. That's a tax and regulation operation rather than throwing taxpayers money around on yet another ill-conceived and alleged 'benefit'.
Sony hack: British university trained North Korean elite in computer security
Westminster University provided bursaries worth £28,000 to teach computer skills to North Korea's top students
Well there is a thought to take us all to bed with...
The rational thing for Scots voters to do is vote for the SNP and leave labour with 3 seats in Scotland and thus give the Tories a good run to a majority and defeat the only party with Scottish seats who could form a national government. ??
The devomax proposals have already neen discussed agreed and published and the draft bill is to be published in the new year
I specialize in the blindingly obvious - it seems to be a rare specialty.
Survation/Daily Record poll shows Jim Murphy faces huge uphill task to return Labour Party to power in Scotland:
Daily Record Article here:
Headline Figures
Scotland Westminster 2015:
CON 16% LAB 24% LD 5% SNP 48% UKIP 4% Others 2%
Holyrood Constituency:
LAB 25% SNP 51% LD 5% UKIP 2% GRE 2% AP 1%
Holyrood List:
LAB 24% CON 14% SNP 40% LD 6% GRE 9% UKIP 7% AP 1% => The Scottish Green Party and UKIP would secure Holyrood representation
This is the 9th poll in the Survation/Daily Record polling series- the most consistent and most accurate during the Scottish Independence referendum.
Full tables for voting intention including the full questions put are available here.
Keep up to date with all of Survation’s research and analysis on our blog.
Follow us on twitter: @survation
Find out more about the services Survation provide by following this link.
For press enquiries, please call 0203 142 7642 or email enquiry@survation.com
Survation is a member of the British Polling Council and abides by its rules. http://www.britishpollingcouncil.org
A glimmer of hope for Labour in a bad poll
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/revealed-daily-record-poll-shows-4851556
1) racist
2) unreasonable
Begone with your sorcery.
It was that obvious :-)
Anti-LGBT preacher Gaylard Williams arrested for 'grabbing and squeezing' man's genitals
"Does it really say anything new ?"
Obama's policies and world view are thoroughly rejected by the voters in 2010 - he doubles down.
Obama's policies and world view are even more thoroughly rejected by the voters in 2014 - he doubles down even more.
Nobody can make them listen if they don't want to.
The SNP will win many more seats than in 2010 when it won only 6. But many gains would be coming from the Liberals, who could end up with just 2 MPs which will not include Danny boy. Tories could gain 1 or even 2.
From your previous posts I gathered you disapproved of this sort of attitude I merely asked you to qualify your statement and my question I did not feel implied you felt any particular way.
I was asking two questions
Do you feel it is racist
Do you feel it is unreasonable
Given your previous posturing on such subjects I do not feel it to be unreasonable questions to ask
He has run for presidential office twice successfully, in neither case offering any firm policies or world view. By any measure, he is an exception. He also has absolutely zero coat tails, which is unusual.
In 2012 a majority of voters disapproved of his policies and the way the country was going, yet he still won.