David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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850. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the local training initiatives in operation in 2019 and 2020; the location and number of participants in each; his views on further developing the sector; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [21734/20]

Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail)
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Local Training Initiatives (LTIs) are training and work experience programmes carried out in partnership with community and voluntary organisations. They provide a basis for the 16 Education and Training Boards to contract with community bodies to provide a service initiative in a locality where there are identified community needs. Training provision is intended to be sufficiently flexible to address the identified need for the initiative and is typically six to twelve months in duration. Training provision organised through this programme is not intended to be permanent and it is this aspect that gives Education and Training Boards the flexibility to use resources in the community in response to emerging needs.

LTI progammes enable local communities to carry out valuable and necessary projects of benefit to their communities, while training participants in areas related to the project work so that they can go on to gain employment or progress to further training. The LTI programme is focused on addressing the training needs of unemployed learners who are economically, socially, geographically or educationally disadvantaged. Learners are primarily between 18 and 35 years of age, with no formal qualifications or incomplete secondary level qualifications. LTIs provide participants with specific vocational skills, as well as broader general and ICT skills and work experience. The context of training delivery is focused on the progression of projects run by local community groups and for the benefit of the local community, which provides the opportunity for learners to apply their newly developed vocational skills in a work based context.

My Department is committed to the continuing development of Local Training Initiatives and the important services that they provide to learners within communities. I enclose attached details of locations relating to Local Training Initiatives delivered in 2019 and planned for 2020. In addition, the attached also contains details of the LTI reported number of beneficiaries for 2019 and the projected number for 2020.

Reported Beneficiary Numbers for Local Training Initiatives for 2019

Projected Beneficiary Numbers for Local Training Initiatives Planned for 2020