e-business.nto and ITNTO to merge

The Boards of the e-business.nto and the Information Technology National Training Organisation (ITNTO) have confirmed today that the two organisations will merge into a single National Training Organisation (NTO) which will have responsibility for the entire IT remit.

NTOs are employer led organisations, accredited by government as the voice of employers on skills and competitiveness issues for their sectors. The new NTO, which will be operational in July 2000, will have strong employer leadership. It will perform three key roles. Firstly, it will represent the IT Industry, as the national body for the sector; secondly, it will address the skills needs of employers of IT practitioners across UK industry; and thirdly, it will work to improve the IT user skills of the entire UK workforce.

Strong representative Boards of employers and key stakeholders are being established for each of the three communities and key appointments will be announced in the near future. The CEO will be Karen Price (the current CEO of e-business.nto).

The Chairman of the new NTO will be Gareth Cadwallader (Enterprise Solutions and Services Group Director, Compaq), who said, "The global competitiveness of the IT sector in the UK and the growth of IT skills at all levels are critical to the UK’s future in the knowledge-driven economy of the 21st century. This merger represents a major step forward in addressing inhibitors to growth. For the first time, there will be a co-ordinated approach across the whole remit of IT skills, which will better serve the needs of the NTO member companies and the UK’s workforce as a whole."

Alwyn Welch, Chairman of ITNTO said, "Bringing together the ITNTO with the e-business.nto is clearly, in the minds of the ITNTO Board, the right way forward to ensure that we build on the excellent work of both organisations. The UK needs a single clear and empowered voice in IT skills; we sincerely wish that all the people in both NTOs will play a critical role in the future to make sure we get just that. This is of prime importance for IT competitiveness and capability in the UK and we look forward to even stronger employer involvement as a result."