ONE of the North-East's largest companies is at the forefront of a national campaign to improve literacy and numeracy in the workplace.

Electronics firm LG Philips, which has a plant in Durham, is offering its workforce of 850 the chance to take national tests aimed at improving the skills of each employee.

Staff can learn IT, Spanish or become guitarists thanks to a range of courses available at work.

It forms part of Skills for Life, a Goverment scheme to tackle the needs of an estimated seven million adults in the UK who have poor literacy, language and numeracy skills.

The work LG Philips is doing in the region has led to the firm being praised as an exemplary employer by the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) County Durham.

The national tests, which are delivered online, are voluntary and confidential.

Staff at the company take the tests in the firm's new Learning Resource Centre, which opened earlier this year, helped by funding from the LSC and the Amicus union.

LG Philips' training officer Larry Guy said: "The tests are aimed at identifying any gaps employees have in basic skills and allowing them, if they wish, to undertake work-based training which will further improve the skills they already possess and help their personal development.

"You have to remember that many of our employees may not have had any basic skills tuition since leaving school.

"All the tests will do is act as a refresher and get them back to a level they find acceptable.

"More importantly, it might act as the spur they need to continue learning, and through our Learning Resource Centre and Training Room, we are able to offer online tuition in subjects like basic IT or even lessons in Spanish or playing a guitar."