Question

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how much money has been paid to the Union Learning Fund (1) in the past three years, and (2) in total since its inception; which trade unions were provided with assistance from the Fund last year and how much each trade union was provided with; and whether they have any plans to end those payments or assess their efficacy.

The Union Learning Fund (ULF) was established in 1998 and funding has been provided by a number of different Departments. Between 1998-9 and 2006-7, around £70m of funding was allocated to support the ULF.

Since 2006, the ULF has been administered by Unionlearn (the TUC's learning organisation) and by the end of this financial year around £116m in total will have been distributed to ULF projects in respect of the financial years 2007-8 to 2015-16 of which £36.4m is in the last three of those years.

An independently chaired ULF Assessment Panel recently reviewed a number of bids from unions for ULF grants for 2016-17. The Department for Business, Innovation & Skills is currently finalising internal budgets following the spending review and will confirm the amount that is available for the 2016-17 financial year in early 2016.

The total amount of funding received by all trade unions from the ULF for the financial year 2014-15 is set out in the table below.