WINNING a National Training Award is a major event for any commercial

concern. It is hard proof that its efforts to improve business

performance through training and development of its employees have been

recognised at a high level, and in competition with many of its peers.

Successful companies are presented with a small trophy and a

much-coveted certificate. They are also able to identify themselves as

award winners in company marketing material.

It was to draw wider importance to the importance of effective

training in an increasingly competitive world marketplace that the

National Training Awards were launched in 1987.

In March of this year the then employment secretary, Gillian Shepherd,

indicated that training-award judges would be focusing ''much more

sharply on employers who are applying the Investors In People standard

and are developing a qualified workforce, drawing on the NVQ framework,

and individuals who are committed to personal development through

NVQs.''

It is vital that some recognition be given to the best and most

effective among them and the NTA organisers were gratified to see no

fewer than 1500 entries submitted for this year's awards.

A hundred of them were from Scotland, and 14 of these emerged with

regional awards after the initial selection stages. Representatives of

these 14 took part in a special Scottish award ceremony earlier this

year at Cameron House Hotel on Loch Lomondside, after travelling down by

specially chartered train and boat.

Yesterday's ceremony, at the QE2 Conference Centre at Westminster and

addressed by Employment Secretary David Hunt, was the climax to several

months of judging by a high-powered selection panel drawn from all

sections of business and industry.