News > Meeting the Young Person's Guarantee
Posted on 29 March 2010
Young people across North Staffordshire are improving their skills as the area benefits from a range of training and apprenticeship programmes.
New skills in areas as diverse as sport, office administration and children’s care are being taught as councils and their partners work to meet the Government’s Young Person’s Guarantee.
Apprenticeships are a proven way of dealing with both current and future workforce issues. They enable employers to attract high-quality recruits and improve the skills and productivity of existing employees.
Because of their success, the expansion of the apprenticeships programme is a high priority for the Government and over the past few years there has been a huge rise in the number and range of businesses offering Apprenticeships as a way of tackling their skills shortages.
The Government is committed to significantly increasing Apprenticeship places by 2013. The new Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill (2009) states that all suitably qualified young people will have a legal right to an apprenticeship from 2013.
A review of the UK’s long term skills need concluded that apprenticeships should be almost doubled from 256,000 in 2005 to 500,000 by 2020.
For the last 10 years, Stoke-on-Trent City Council’s Work Based Learning team have successfully managed a Sports Skills apprentice programme.
Achievement and retention rates are high with the team managing apprentices for not only in Stoke-on-Trent City Council but to partners including Tamworth Borough Council, Newcastle Under Lyme Borough Council and Stoke City Football Club.
In June 2009, Stoke-on-Trent City Council, led by the North Staffordshire Regeneration Partnership signed up to the North Staffordshire Public Sector Compact championed by the Regional Minister, Ian Austin MP. As part of the compact the council committed to take on 25 extra apprentices.
Following on from this, new apprenticeships have been offered at the council in business administration and child care.
A new Workplace Apprenticeship Co-ordinator role has been created by the council to support the expansion of Apprentices
Beth Allen, Adult and Community learning manager said that the plans for 2010/11 Apprenticeship offer by the city council’s work based learning team are:
- To continue to grow the Sports Apprentices at both level 2 and 3
- To continue to offer Level 2 Business Administration
- To expand provision and offer Level 3 Business Administration
- To potentially offer apprentices in other areas such as catering, Horticulture, customer services and Teaching assistants
This expansion and growth is part of the team’s recruitment strategy to meet the needs of the local economy, city council and working towards the Government target as set out in the new Apprenticeship Bill.
Last updated 08/02/2012