ABSTRACT
This chapter shows how in the 1920s and 1930s, the Government Training Centres (GTC) programme was used to meet both the needs of the depressed regions and the buoyant London economy through 'industrial transference'. It illustrates how these same GTCs, contributing to post-war reconstruction in the 1940s, had major implications for the support of business and the unemployed in the London economy of the 1980s. The chapter examines London's Skillcentres in the 1970s and highlights the conflict in purpose between inner-city and national manpower planning policy in the United Kingdom at that time. It also examines different era of conflict in purpose between national and 'local' institutions of labour market governance within Greater London during the 1980s. The chapter describes the closure of the same labour market institutions – marketised and eventually privatised in an attempt to more directly serve the needs of local business.
