ASSOCIATION OF LEARNING PROVIDERS CHIEF AWARDED OBE

Award recognises the contribution the work-based learning sector is making to the Government’s employment and skills agenda

The chief executive of the Association of Learning Providers (ALP), Graham Hoyle, has been awarded an OBE for services to skills training.

Mr Hoyle said: “I am very grateful for the recommendation that has resulted in this honour and I sincerely hope that more honours will follow for individuals in the independent learning and skills sector that make such a difference to the lives of people who frequently come from the most disadvantaged backgrounds. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the ALP board of directors, ALP’s member organisations and the hard-working ALP secretariat for all of their support and input in helping to make the Association a positive and influential voice in the FE sector.”

The ALP was launched in 2002 to predominantly represent the interests of voluntary and private sector learning providers which deliver employment and skills programmes for government departments and the developed administrations. Its membership has grown to 440 organisations since its founding, including 60 further education colleges that are involved in work-based learning.

ALP’s chairman and chief executive of Skills Training UK, Martin Dunford, said: “On behalf of ALP’s members, I would like to extend my warmest congratulations to Graham on the awarding of his OBE. The fact that the Association of Learning Providers has become such an influential voice on employment and skills issues is in no small part due to the role that Graham has played in promoting the views of vocational learning providers in a diplomatic but firm fashion in recent years.

“It is particularly pleasing that this announcement has been made in the same week when the Government has published its latest set of proposals for closer integration of policy formulation and implementation of employment and skills programmes which currently sit under two different Whitehall departments. Until Lord Leitch published his review of skills in 2006, ALP had been almost a lone voice in advocating a more integrated approach. ALP members and I look forward to continue working with Graham and his team in helping to further influence policies that result in improved productivity in British businesses and increases in sustainable employment levels.”