DAVID HARBOURNE, chief executive of the Learning And Skills Council North Yorkshire, lists his New Year resolutions...

LIKE many other business people across York and North Yorkshire, I view the closure of one year and the opening of the next as a natural time for deliberation.

I will honestly examine what the Learning And Skills Council North Yorkshire (LSC) has achieved over the last 12 months and prioritise what we must do over the coming year.

This has been a very eventful and productive year for the sub-region, with a range of major new programmes being launched and existing initiatives gathering pace.

Workforce development will continue to top the agenda during 2004. Government attention remains firmly focused on the need to develop the country's workforce to enable us to compete effectively on an increasingly demanding global stage. You only need to look at recent news headlines to comprehend the huge importance of training and reskilling the workforce as the service industry threatens to follow the trend set by manufacturing - of migrating overseas.

Our role will be to continue to work with businesses to identify exactly what skills and expertise they are going to need to deliver their objectives and remain competitive. We will then work with training and education providers to make sure that the training is delivered and those objectives are met.

So, my first New Year's resolution is to continue to meet as many people working in the frontline of York and North Yorkshire's businesses as possible. I want to be sure that I have the latest details from you about where gaps and shortages are already apparent, or are threatened in the near future.

And, of course, I want the LSC to work with business to exploit new growth potential to keep this region as a beacon on the UK's commercial map.

However, it is all very well knowing from employers what it is you want to see, the other big challenge is encouraging people back into learning. For many adults the idea of returning to learn can be off-putting - it often brings back dark memories of school life.

Maybe they had a bad time in the classroom and have been put off learning, maybe they feel they just have not got the time or the energy once they have done a hard day's work, or maybe they just do not realise what learning can offer them and how accessible it is.

So that's my second resolution, to continue to do my utmost to work with my team at the LSC to develop innovative ways of encouraging adults back into learning.

The return of Bite Size in January should give that resolution a kick start. It is a multitude of one-hour introductory courses on a range of subjects which will give people just a taste of what they could be doing with the rest of their lives.

Updated: 14:38 Tuesday, December 16, 2003