Company retraining Tata steelworkers shuts office

The Multiply programme has supported adult learners across south Wales, including people affected by Tata redundancies

A company which provided retraining courses to dozens of steelworkers affected by Port Talbot redundancies has closed its office in the town.

It comes ahead of cuts to some UK government support, with Welsh colleges and councils also calling for clarity on ministers' long-term funding plans.

Tata Steel announced last year that it was cutting 2,800 jobs, mostly in Port Talbot.

The UK government said it had extended a wider fund, and that steelworkers would be able to access upskilling support via a separate transition pot for those impacted at Tata.

Over the past two years Whitehead-Ross has provided courses to 1,200 adult learners across south Wales.

The work has been funded by the UK government's Multiply programme via local authorities.

However, Multiply - which is aimed at adults wanting to develop their numeracy skills - will end in March.

As a result Whitehead-Ross said it had closed its Port Talbot office and was making 16 members of staff in Wales redundant.

"It gets to the point how far can you cut?" the company's chief executive, Ian Ross, told the BBC's Politics Wales programme.

"We know there's the need out there, and there's a need in Wales to get economically inactive individuals back to work.

"But the support needs to be there and you can only tackle those challenges by investing in those services, not cutting them."

Mr Ross said his company had helped reskill about 40 people in the past six months who were being made redundant at Tata.

Ian Ross says investment is required to get people needing help back into work

Sioned Williams, Plaid Cymru's Senedd Member for South Wales West, said Whitehead-Ross's situation was "very concerning".

"We know that this is something that works," she said.

"We need a whole mix of ways to get people back into the workplace and to reskill and retrain them and this was one element of that."

Colleges Wales, which represents Welsh further education institutions, also said there was concern within the sector over how organisations would be able to "support ongoing community aspirations and expectations" after the funding ends.

Multiply is part of the Shared Prosperity Fund (SPF), set up to replace the money Wales and other parts of the UK used to receive from the European Union before Brexit.

Whilst Multiply is being wound up, SPF as a whole has been extended for another year.

A UK government spokesman said that while the "ringfenced" funding for the Multiply programme was ending, Welsh local authorities would "have the flexibility to spend their [Shared Prosperity Fund] allocation however they wish, including on adult numeracy programmes".

That was welcomed by councils, with the Welsh Local Government Association (WLGA) saying the Multiply funding had been "tightly restricted" to numeracy schemes.

"We consistently pushed for more flexibility so funding could support other initiatives," a WLGA spokesman said.

However, Colleges Wales and WLGA have called for clarity over how SPF will be replaced from 2026.

Meanwhile, on a recent visit to Port Talbot, the Welsh secretary said there would still be significant funding available for local steelworkers to learn new skills.

Jo Stevens was in the town to announce investment worth £8.2m in a new project that she said would create 100 jobs.

The money is being made available from the UK government's £80m transition fund, set up to help the community respond to the job losses at Tata.

Asked if UK ministers were giving with one hand but taking away with the other, Stevens said: "Not at all."

"We're talking about hugely different amounts of money here specifically for people to retrain and if they want to do numeracy training they will be able to access that through the funds that we have."

Stevens also said the UK government was "in discussions" with Welsh ministers about how SPF should be replaced.

• Politics Wales is on BBC One Wales at 10:00 GMT on Sunday 9 February and on iPlayer