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GFTU Educational Trust
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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
underpin our educational work which have
taken into account the near disappearance of
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.