Tata steel workers retraining shuts office
Tata Steel who closed its furnaces recently and Sioned Williams, Plaid Cymru’s Senedd Member for South Wales West, said Whitehead-Ross’s situation was “very concerning”.
“We know that this is something that works,” she said.
“We need a whole mix of ways to get people back into the workplace and to reskill and retrain them and this was one element of that.” referring to ex workers at Tata Steel.
Colleges Wales, which represents Welsh further education institutions, also said there was concern within the sector over how organisations would be able to “support ongoing community aspirations and expectations” after the funding ends.
Multiply is part of the Shared Prosperity Fund (SPF), set up to replace the money Wales and other parts of the UK used to receive from the European Union before Brexit.
Whilst Multiply is being wound up, SPF as a whole has been extended for another year.
A UK government spokesman said that while the “ringfenced” funding for the Multiply programme was ending, Welsh local authorities would “have the flexibility to spend their [Shared Prosperity Fund] allocation however they wish, including on adult numeracy programmes”.
That was welcomed by councils, with the Welsh Local Government Association (WLGA) saying the Multiply funding had been “tightly restricted” to numeracy schemes.
“We consistently pushed for more flexibility so funding could support other initiatives,” a WLGA spokesman said.
However, Colleges Wales and WLGA have called for clarity over how SPF will be replaced from 2026.
Meanwhile, on a recent visit to Tata steel in Port Talbot, the Welsh secretary said there would still be significant funding available for local steelworkers to learn new skills.
Jo Stevens was in the town to announce investment worth £8.2m in a new project that she said would create 100 jobs.
The money is being made available from the UK government’s £80m transition fund, set up to help the community respond to the job losses at Tata Steel.
Asked if UK ministers were giving with one hand but taking away with the other, Stevens said: “Not at all.”
“We’re talking about hugely different amounts of money here specifically for people to retrain and if they want to do numeracy training they will be able to access that through the funds that we have.”
Stevens also said the UK government was “in discussions” with Welsh ministers about how SPF should be replaced.
