Education secretary Ruth Kelly and Trade and Industry secretary Alan Johnson have announced that the Financial Services Skills Council has been successful in its bid to create a National Financial Services Academy.
The NFSA is scheduled to open in September 2006, with an initial three centres in London, Manchester and Norwich. Further centres will be developed in other areas, likely to include Birmingham, Bristol and Leeds.
The aim of the Academy will be to provide solutions to some of the long-standing skills problems facing financial services employers - in particular, improving the employability of young people, providing entry-level training of high quality and facilities for retraining and continuing professional development.
Employers will decide on the programmes offered, which might include new education and work-based routes to employment and flexible, short programmes.
The academies will be led and sponsored by employers, and be funded by both the private and public sector.
Employers signing up to the bid include Nationwide Building Society and Norwich Union Insurance. Other partners include the UK Career Academy Foundation, the London Development Agency and the Corporation of the City of London.
Education secretary Ruth Kelly said: "National Skills Academies are an opportunity for Government and employers to achieve common goals, to pursue a mutually beneficial endeavour and build a Britain of enterprise and opportunity."
FSSC chief executive Teresa Sayers said: "The creation of a National Financial Services Academy will represent an important step forward in encouraging financial services employers to work in partnership with the public education sector to ensure that the skills that the industry needs are the skills that it gets."
