Evaluation of Welsh Government skills support for Tata Steel

In December 2016 the Welsh Government announced a series of major investments as part of an ongoing programme of support to secure the long-term future of Tata Steel UK Limited’s (Tata Steel) works in Wales. The Welsh Government made available a total of £4m of grants for the financial year 2016-17 to support learning designed to improve professional and technical skills relevant both to the steel industry and wider employment market.  

A post implementation evaluation was conducted in 2018.  

The evaluation shows that Welsh Government support has had a positive impact on employees and the business in relation to Tata Steel’s objectives: to transform business performance; to increase the flexibility and capacity of the workforce; to support succession planning and to provide a safe and healthy workplace.

Employees reported very high levels of satisfaction with the training. They felt the training was relevant to their job, had improved motivation and confidence, improved their technical skills, impacted positively on the transferability of their skills and supported their career progression.

In some areas of the business the funding was fully additional, in that the training would not have taken place without Welsh Government funding. In other areas the funding was partially additional and Welsh Government funding was seen to impact in three main ways: speed of implementation, scale of provision and the ability to use more external provision.