Central Committee on Women's Training and Employment. CCW

The files deal with the appointment of representatives to the Central Committee, there is correspondence with organisations, appointments to and correspondence with local committees, papers on conferences in 1920 and 1921, training courses, local interviewing boards, evidence on training for the Royal Commission on Unemployment Insurance, and establishment of workrooms in distressed areas. Most files cover the immediate post-war period.

Many files on the work of this Committee will be found in the Employment Department series, ED and EDJ; Finance, F, under 'Boards'; Solicitor's Department, SD, under 'Boards: Committees'; and Training Women, TW. An account of the formation and work of the Committee will be found in LAB 2/919/ED 1284/1921-2, and LAB 2/1220/TW629. LAB 2/919/ED1284/1922 LAB 2/1220/TW629/

This Committee was first set up by the Local Government Board at the beginning of the First World War to administer that portion of the National Relief Fund which was earmarked for the relief of women (Queen's Work for Women Fund). Its activities ceased after a year as the development of war industries created employment for women. It was revived after the Armistice and was appointed by the Minister of Labour in January 1920, to be a Joint Standing Committee 'to consider, devise, and carry out special schemes of work and training for women unemployed and whose earnings, capacity, or opportunities, have been injurisously affected as a result of conditions arising out of the war'. It was allocated £500,000 by the Committee of the National Relief Fund.

As industrial training was handled by a special branch of the Ministry (see T - LAB 7/240-242) the Central Committee set up a scholarship scheme for training in professional and non-industrial occupations. It also started the Homecraft Training Scheme with the help of a grant of £50,000, and many files deal with training for domestic service.