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learn$ave Project: Final Report(for example part-time workers, dependent contractorsand self-employed persons) and each province alsoestablished its own priority target groups. Each accountcame with a maximum allocation of €2,500 to be spenton vocational training within two years. Accounts werelinked to a debit-like card available through local financialinstitutions. As with the UK experience, the majorityof those who availed themselves of the program werewomen. Moreover, in line with the UK experience, a veryearly assessment of the program concluded that significantstaff time within sponsoring agencies was neededto monitor the use of the accounts and avoid fraud ormisuse.Learning accounts have been discussed and debatedin Sweden but never introduced outside of a smallprogram offered by one employer. After four years ofconsultations with stakeholders, the Swedish governmenthad introduced legislation to create a national system ofindividual learning accounts in 2002. The bill proposeda new tax deduction (labelled a competence premium)to be made available to adults who saved and withdrewfunds from a designated account to fund a learningactivity. The deduction or premium would only be madeavailable once accountholders had used their own fundsfor the adult education and would only be paid out toa set maximum once in every three years. According toSchuetze (2005), the Swedish policy-makers expected asmuch as 10 per cent of the national labour force to openlearning accounts within the first 10 years, but it toppedout at account-holding among 30 per cent of the labourforce after 10 years following their introduction.Haukka et al. (2004), however, points out that thepolicy was not progressive in its design: there was littleincentive for those with low incomes to participate in asaving scheme given a more restricted capacity to buildcertain target-sized assets to cover the costs of highereducation. Concerns were raised among stakeholdersabout the potential for the policy instrument to createincentives for youth to postpone their plans for post-secondaryeducation to take advantage of a windfall gain. Asa result, in the design phase, the accounts were restrictedto adults aged 25 and older. Given evidence in Canada andabroad of increasing tendencies among youth to enter,leave and re-enter school over extended periods of time(see, for example, Beaujot and Kerr, 2007), it is not clearthat such a restriction is either desirable or practicable.Concerns were also raised among employers about theirability to influence the use of the education or trainingfunds when they were contributing to the accounts. Thislatter point was never adequately addressed in the policydesign stage and the scheme was ultimately abandoned inthe Swedish parliament by 2004.In the Netherlands, eight pilot projects of learningaccounts have been tried in three different types oforganizations: sector councils, regional educationauthorities and regional education bureaus (Haukkaet al., 2004). Each pilot site offered up to 150 accountsto participants under one of two models: the first sawcase managers deal with individual clients to determinelearning needs and set educational investment plans; thesecond saw case managers deal with individual clientsas well as clients’ employers to negotiate a personalizedtraining plan. In all cases, accountholders were expectedto demonstrate relevance of the training courses (fulleducational programs were not eligible) to theiremployment-related skills and were not permitted to usethe funds to pursue personal interests or recreationalcourses. Similar to the Italian model, the accounts workedmore as a limited personal expense account and noindividual contributions were required of the beneficiariesof the accounts.Haukka et al. (2004) also concluded that the pilotswere successful in reaching low-skilled workers whowould otherwise have been unable to take part in training.They noted that the success of the pilots was evidentin both small and large firms and that pilots were mostsuccessful when they adopted a sector-specific approachin recruiting participating employers. Finally, the Dutchexperience suggests that there was significant value tohaving a neutral third party case manager provide adviceon the training needs of individual account beneficiariesbut that accounts were best managed (in terms of outcomeson uptake of benefits, frequency of cash-outs, etc.)when left in the hands of individuals rather than jointlynegotiated with employers.United StatesTwo pilots of account-based programs to support adultlearning have been tried in the U.S. In contrast with theinternational experience reviewed above, at least onepilot (the Life-long Learning account or LiLa implementedby the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning orCAEL) has used a matched savings model that could becomparable to the learn$ave program design. As notedearlier, most international programs have in fact beenvoucher systems rather than matched savings-basedinstruments. Before turning to the CAEL pilot projectbelow, it is instructive to look at a series of voucher-likepilots launched within the U.S. federal governmentbetween March and September 2000 (U.S. Office ofPersonnel Management, 2001).At the recommendation of the President’s Task Forceon Federal Training and Technology, 12 federal agenciesran 15 different pilot programs of individual learning116 | Appendix A Social Research and Demonstration Corporation