Cotton and Allied Textile Industrial Training Board Collection

The archive is believed to be a complete record of publications of the Cotton and Allied Textiles Industrial Training Board between 1968 and 1982.

The collection includes recommendations, training packages and instruction units for the training of both administrative staff and workers on the factory floor. There are several documents concerning health and safety, booklets which give guidance for changing to metric and also guides to the recruitment of new staff. In addition, the collection includes annual reports on the grants scheme and levy exemption scheme.

The Cotton and Allied Textile Industrial Training Board was set up by Statutory Instrument in July 1966 as a result of the Industrial Training Act of 1964. The main aim of this board and the fifteen similar bodies in other sectors of industry, was to provide better provision for training in industry and commerce. All boards were composed of an equal number of employers and trades union representatives and a small number from the field of education.

The main functions of the Industrial Training Boards were as follows: 1) To provide or organise sufficient training courses for the employers in their respective industries; 2) To make recommendations about length, nature, standard and content of each training scheme; 3) To pay a grant to the employers who provided training; 4) To impose a levy on employers in their particular industry in order to carry out the above functions.

After the Employment and Training Act of 1973, most of the responsibilities of the Industrial Training Boards were transferred to the Manpower Services Commission and were then carried out by the Training Services Agency. In November 1981, the secretary of state for employment announced changes which would lead to the dissolution of the ITBs. After this time, all responsibility for training was taken on by the industries themselves and it is for this reason that the record of publications from the Cotton and Allied Textiles Industrial Training Board only goes up to 1982.

The collection is open to any accredited reader.

The archive was received from the Sheffield branch of the Department for Education and Employment in late March 2000. Due to reasons of space, the Department for Education and Employment were being forced to find a new home for the collection or otherwise destroy it.

Photocopies and photographic copies of material in the archive can be supplied for private study purposes only, depending on the condition of the documents.

A number of items within the archive remain within copyright under the terms of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988; it is the responsibility of users to obtain the copyright holder's permission for reproduction of copyright material for purposes other than research or private study.

Prior written permission must be obtained from the Library for publication or reproduction of any material within the archive. Please contact the Head of Special Collections, John Rylands Library, 150 Deansgate, Manchester, M3 3EH.

Records relating to government oversight of the training boards can be mostly found in Ministry of Labour series, LAB 18 (The National Archives).

The Library has custody of the archive of the Amalgamated Association of Cotton Spinners, which includes file on the union's relationship with the Cotton Training Board ACS/6/6/23 deals with the union's connections with the Board