GFTU BGCM Report 2017

GFTU EDUCATIONAL TRUST

1. Eight of the current nine staff at the GFTU have a percentage of their contracts dedicated to Educational Trust work. 2. In 2016 the GFTU established a fully professional finance team to support our work. The new Head of Finance established a new Finance Policy which has been adopted and implemented and is subject to annual review. A range of new protocols were also adopted. 3. Two post-holders dedicated nearly 100% each to the Trust left our employment in 2016 and their responsibilities have been shared between the General Secretary and the Operations Manager. 4. Recruitment and Selection for a new Education Officer, Education Administrator and Office Support worker has been held. 5. We have over the last three years adopted an interrelated strategy which considers our finances, organisation, purpose and important professional development issues about trade union education. Risk assessment of our work is ongoing. 6. Our task financially has been to try and supplement previously exclusive GFTU subsidies to our education programme with alternative funding streams. Our purchase of Quorn Grange Hotel and Nursery and current development plans there have been central to this. We have also developed an ethical shop with New Internationalist, and we are also launching a new international publishing house with them this year called Workable Books. 7. We have sought to re direct our educational partnerships towards higher education and work more closely with supportive academics. A small research project in relation to this was commissioned and positive results from a good number of academics keen to support our work have been achieved. 8. We have adopted a clear set of principles to

government funding for trade union education, the pressures on FE colleges, the urgent need to politicise the curriculum and re develop a sense of history within it, deploy and advocate for progressive arts and cultural work and to ensure that our curriculum meets the needs of GFTU affiliates more closely. The new principles underpinning our education programme state that it will: Provide and develop an understanding of the political and economic context - political economy, labour and capital within which Trade Unions operate; Provide and develop an understanding of the political and economic context within which has shaped, and which continues to shape, the historical development of Trade Unions; Provide the skills and knowledge needed to develop confident and informed activists in order to build collective power; Be informed by our commitment to the values of equality, diversity, and inclusion; Be informed by our commitment to social justice, empowering communities, and internationalism. 9. We have also taken a significant professional lead in cross fertilising the related disciplines of popular education theory and practice with trade union education. We are committed therefore to changing the way trade union education is delivered and what it delivers. We offer our first training courses in this subject this year. 10. Structurally we have established three wholly owned subsidiary companies, one to provide training on the general market, one to run the hotel and one to run the nursery. 11. We tendered for new accountants last year and appointed Sturgess Hutchinson. This has reduced our costs and improved the quality of service. Regular management accounts are produced internally. An annual budget is fixed and assessed monthly. 12. The funding to the Trust from the GFTU depends on its own health financially and this in turn depends on two factors, the number of affiliates and the impact of the triennial pension scheme valuations. One larger GFTU affiliate did not re affiliate last year but five new small and medium sized affiliates joined. The pension scheme valuation was better than predicted, the deficit is reduced somewhat but the annual GFTU payment into this of £70,000 remains the same though to be repaid over a shorter period. In addition the Pension scheme following considerable advice is adopting a new statement of funding principles and investment strategy.

underpin our educational work which have taken into account the near disappearance of

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