ELWa and the Welsh Development Agency have produced a booklet which is going out to over 20,000 businesses in Wales explaining the recent shake up of the training and education system.

On the Road to World Class Training and Education outlines the enhanced structures now in place since the creation of ELWa last month and answers many of the questions which have been raised by the business community since the announcement of the reorganisation.

ELWa will manage all the skills programmes - formerly delivered by the Training and Enterprise Councils - that businesses have found invaluable in the past.

These include Modern Apprenticeships, National Traineeships, Work-based Learning for Adults, Skills Related Enterprise Develop-ment, Human Resource development, Small Firms Training Initiative, Investors in People and specialised local skills initiatives. Meanwhile former TEC business support services will be managed by the WDA, which is resuming responsibility after a decade to help people start new businesses and helping very small businesses to survive and grow.

Now, former TEC services such as Business Start-Up, Diagnostic Health Checks, Consultancy Service and the Sole Trader Initiative will be delivered by the Welsh Development Agency alongside the very wide range of existing WDA business support services for established companies.

Launching the booklet, the chairman of the National Council ELWa, Enid Rowlands said: "It is critically important that, as a vital customer, businesses in Wales understand the full range of first class business support that is available to them.

"This booklet will make clear the services on offer and how easy it is to access them. "Businesses understand that skills and people development need to be at the very heart of Wales' economic strategic priorities.

"We will only move forward by creating a highly skilled and motivated workforce that will boost our economic growth and place Wales amongst the very best in Europe and the rest of the world."

WDA chairman Sir David Rowe-Beddoe said: "We need to provide a firm bed of support for our business community in Wales from micro enterprises to the large multinationals."