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Training Reaches Another Royal High

LondonLearning NewsThe Training Foundation

The Training Foundation, winners of the Queen's Award for Enterprise: Innovation 2005, were invited back to this year's winners celebratory event on April 24th held at the Gladstone Library, Whitehall, London in the presence of HRH the Princess Royal.

"Each year, a previous winner of the prestigious Innovation Award is invited to present to the new winners and outline how winning a Queen's Award benefited their business' explains Training Foundation chairman Nick Mitchell, 'In 2005 there were 38 Innovation Award winners, so it was a tremendous recognition of The Training Foundation's unique success that we were asked to present on behalf of the innovation category. It shows that people development is now high on the national agenda."

Last year's Award to The Foundation was given for the Trainer Assessment Programme (TAP®) which enables the skills of professional trainers and those with occasional training responsibility to be measured and assessed against best-practice models. In the awards' 41 year history, The Training Foundation is the only organisation to receive the innovation award for a training skills qualification

Nick Mitchell told the 145 winners in attendance that winning had dramatically raised the Foundation's profile and had enabled the organisation to enter into various strategic alliances with national bodies, such as its partnership with the Financial Services Skills Council. Under this arrangement, signed in July 2005, The Training Foundation provides Quality Assurance and trainer assessment services to the sector.

The Award also attracted many new clients from across all strands of the public and private sectors. Nick Mitchell listed some of these to the audience, including Barclays Bank, Rolls Royce, Eurocontrol, BAe, the BBC, Orange, Legal & General and Lloyds TSB.

The Queen's Awards for Enterprise are the UK's most prestigious awards for business performance. They recognise and reward outstanding achievement by UK companies and awards are made each year by the Queen, on the advice of the Prime Minister, who is assisted by an Advisory Committee that includes representatives of Government, industry and commerce and the trade unions.