Young people are our future !

Apprenticeships at South Holland District Council

Madge Marshall-BrownOD Manager – Learning Development and

Culture(South Holland District Council)

Taking on Apprentices

• SHDC is committed to increasing the number of young people working for the Council

• As part of this strategy at SHDC we are increasing the number of apprentices

• At present we have 7 which we would like to increase in the future

A variety of apprentice jobs

• Our 7 apprentices are placed in a variety of different jobs. They are working in:

• Carpentry and Joinery• Plumbing• Bricklaying• Accountancy

• We recognise that Apprenticeships are relevant to a variety of roles not just Business Admin.

It worked for me!

Melanie Newell is a Carpentry & Joinery Apprentice

“My job involves a variety of differentthings, like repairing empty housesso another family can move in, toresponse repairs. I am working with the community and meeting a variety of different people which is giving me more confidence.”

And me!

Claire Burton, Business Consultant

“I came to SHDC with 10 GCSE’s in 1996. I was funded by the Council to do NVQ’s Level 2 and 3 and went on to do a Modern Apprenticeship in Business Admin, which was a ‘first’ for the Council and the area. I then achieved an HNC in Business & Finance followed by Post Graduate study leading to full CIPD status”.

Why did we do it?

• 16-25 year olds within SHDC currently make up 6.5% of the workforce

• We have 33.9% of staff who are 51 years of age or older

• Resulting in problems for succession planning

Support from Providers

• We have accessed government funded training through Boston College and Anglia Training and are keen to work with local providers in the future

• Whilst there have been ‘pockets’ of this type of training in some service units, we are now co-ordinating & centralising in order to promote across all services.

Skills Pledge

• Although we are not yet committed to the Skills Pledge, SHDC recognises that Apprenticeships will help us in this area

• We are also looking at Level 2 qualifications in some of the hard to reach groups e.g. refuse and recycling

The future …

• We are promoting apprenticeships of every kind through a new policy and changes to our recruitment process.

• The recruitment process will require every manager advertising a vacancy to first consider an Apprenticeship. If an Apprenticeship is not appropriate then the business case should say why.

Cont’d …

• We also need to recruit and train people to deliver our services in the future

• As an IiP employer we are committed to developing the potential of all our staff not simply new recruits

• We have linked up to the Care Leavers Apprenticeship Scheme via LCC and currently have one Apprentice in Housing (Business Admin) with another due to start shortly working as a Bricklayer

• We have also signed up to Positive about Young People

We are starting small but intend to grow!

Thank you for listening