The 2009 annual survey by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development reveals that across all sectors training spend per employee has fallen by almost one third from £300 last year to £220 this year.

The biggest change anticipated over the next five years is a closer integration of learning and development activity with the strategy of the organization with 65 per cent of respondents saying that this is the route they are pursuing to produce more effective results.

Just under half of respondents expect more responsibility to be devolved to both learners and line managers. As a result, half of respondents are making greater use of coaching by line managers, increasingly seen as the key implementers of training. Sixty-one per cent of those surveyed are investing in new programmes to develop the role of line managers.

The greatest area of growth in training methods are in-house development programmes, with over half of respondents saying that they have used them more in the past two years. Similarly, employers also continue to view in-house development and coaching by line managers as the most effective learning and development practices.

The survey is available from CIPD. www.cipd.co.uk/hrd