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GFTU Educational Trust

| Page 44

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.