TEC policy failure: Evidence from the baseline follow-up studies

The UK Employment Department's follow-up research to the 1989-90 study Baseline Study Prior to the Inception of Training and Enterprise Councils (ECOTEC, 1990) has recently been published. This final overall report TEC Baseline Follow-up Studies, provides damning evidence which supports recent Employment Committee claims that Training and Enterprise Councils (TECs) have made only a 'modest contribution to improvement of the system of training for the unemployed'. This article reviews the Baseline Study Prior to TEC inception and then offers an insight into TEC policy failure by deconstructing the Baseline Follow-up Study and the findings of the Merseyside TEC case study. Based on the evidence that TECs are failing to produce a skills revolution, the article concludes by raising questions on the ulterior motives for embarking on labour market programme decentralization.