This is particularly important in communities like Hamilton, where companies that are seeking CCAA protection from the courts are protecting the multi-million dollar salaries of their key executives through court-supported KERPs while they are exacting wage, pension and benefit concessions from their workers.

Within the framework of this particularly broad Commission document, the Rapporteur considers that both coherent and comprehensive lifelong learning strategies and tools agreed by the European Parliament and the Council (such as the European qualifications framework, Europass, the key competences framework and the recommendations on mobility and on quality assurance in higher education) should be consistently implemented by every Member State in order to attain the Lisbon objectives, as well as strengthening the knowledge triangle and improving the recognition of non-formal and informal learning and of professional qualifications.

At the same time, remarkable progress has been achieved in linking operational programmes under the Structural Funds to the priorities of the Education and Training 2010 work programme, as well as in developing European reference tools to support reforms, such as recommendations on key competences, on the quality of mobility, on quality assurance in higher education and on the European Qualifications Framework.

Before we leave the audit, some of the key elements where the auditor has to be satisfied are the following: that survey and analysis have been done and all the gaps have been identified; where the gaps have been identified, that all policies and practices specified in the act, including attitudes and behaviours, have been examined; that all barriers have been clearly documented and measures to eliminate them have been identified; that the accommodation policy has been communicated and accessibility has been planned for; that the hiring and promotion goals cover all gaps; that the positive policies and special measures are sufficient to meet the hiring goals; that union and employee representatives been appropriately consulted; that ...[+++]employees are sufficiently informed; that senior management is committed and managers are accountable; that the process is in place to measure the plan for progress? (1125) When that's done, the employer, if he or she follows the plan, will have a pretty good chance of making sufficient progress in closing the gaps and hiring the groups the way they should have been hired in the first place (1130) [Translation] We will now take a look at the audit process.

guarantee that initial VET provides learners with both specific vocational competences and broader key competences, including transversal competences, that enable them to follow further education and training (within VET or in higher education) and to support career choices, participation in and transitions within the labour market.

A Tempus conference was also organised in Portoroz in Slovenia on 14 and 15 November 1997, under the TOP (Tempus Output Programme) project, where topics for discussion concerned the main achievements of Tempus, the key subjects of Tempus II bis, the role of higher education in the development of a well-balanced society, and institution-building.