Paul started working for Virgin Trains in 2001 as a customer service assistant, although his real aim was to be a train despatcher and eventually, when he turns 21, a train manager. However, his severe difficulties with reading and writing stood in the way of him making this progression.

Changing Cultures, a project developed by Virgin Trains in partnership with the Trades Union Congress (TUC), has allowed us to provide support to employees like Paul and many others with a wide range of training needs. The first learning centre, at Euston station, opened in December 2000 to great interest from all members of staff, and it has been followed by others at Carlisle, Manchester, Plymouth and Stoke on Trent. The centres are available to everybody, whether they're undertaking a formal course or not, and are used by Virgin Trains employees at all levels. Recently, we have opened up access to rail workers' families.

With the help of the Rail Unions, a number of learning representatives have been trained in how to identify and approach colleagues with skills needs of any kind. Currently, we have over 600 learners, of which about 10 per cent are working to improve their basic skills. LearnDirect is our main provider for both basic skills and information technology courses, and we are working closely with University for Industry (UfI) to develop rail-specific basic skills courses, tailored to the needs of the rail industry.

We actively encourage every person who visits the learning centre to set up an email address, and we show them how to use it and give support along the way if needed. Often, we find that once somebody starts using new technology another need surfaces, be it a basic skills brush up, assessment and support for dyslexia, or even just a course on basic computing.

We believe that support for our learners is very important. We have mentors around the network who can assist with any basic problems learners may encounter. I am currently being trained as a basic skills tutor in order to offer direct support, and we plan to use the database of online tutors provided by the UfI.

There is only one golden rule that I explain to everyone. We don't report on who is doing what course to the company; we only provide numbers of learners enrolled, and what type of course is being accessed. It's this reassurance of complete confidentiality that brings people into the learning centre.

With the excellent help of the College of North East London, and the cooperation of Paul's line managers, who released him one day per week to attend basic skills classes at the college, Paul has now passed his rules test and works on the platforms, well on the way to fulfilling his aim of being a train manager.

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