A COUNCIL is pioneering a training scheme that will help its workers learn basic skills.

Labour-run Durham City Council has teamed up with five unions, Durham County Council and TUC Learning Services to create Push Ahead.

The project aims to give employees, particularly manual workers, the chance to learn skills such as spelling, computer literacy, numeracy and understanding invoices.

Learning representatives from the unions will receive training and will spend three months finding out from their colleagues what their training needs are.

Durham County Council, the education authority, will analyse the "want" lists that the representatives produce and devise training programmes - some online and some in classes.

The city council's community services department and its joint trades union committee have won £6,500 from the regional TUC Learning For All Fund to set up Push Ahead.

Unions at the council - Unison, GMB, Amicus, Ucatt and the TGWU - support the scheme because it encourages workers who are often overlooked for normal training programmes.

The council's director of community services, David Marrs, said: "The most difficult people to reach in any training programme are those who, for one reason or another, have not mastered skills for life.

"Although they may be able to carry out their work very well, they can find their career routes blocked because they cannot understand forms, read, or a use a computer.

"Push Ahead will make a huge difference to our workers who fall into this category."