Happy New Year!

Welcome to a new year and a new blog from the Hastings Apprenticeship Initiative. We are very excited to announce our 100 Apprenticeships in 100 days Campaign!

As you may have already guessed the aim of the campaign is for Hastings to get 100 apprenticeship starts or pledges in 100 days. We will be working with a number of training providers to encourage sign-ups by local businesses and also working closely with the National Apprenticeship Service who will be offering practical help and advice with the benefit of their wealth of experience.

We will be launching the 100 Campaign on the 6th February between 12 and 2pm in the Council Chambers at the Town Hall with Council Leader Jeremy Birch encouraging local businesses to pledge their support. Our training providers will be attending the event so you are welcome to pledge or sign up on the day.

Look out for our 8 page supplement and weekly updates in the Observer and check back here to see how the 100 campaign is progressing. With young people getting the training for a career and a recognised qualification while at the same time earning a wage, we hope the campaign will be a huge success and benefit young people and local businesses alike.

So as you can see that we have started the New Year with a bang to make sure 2012 will be a great year for apprenticeships!

Funding incentive announced for 'new' apprentice employers!

Good news for small businesses - the government has just announced a £1,500 funding incentive for new employers (employing under 50 employees) who take on a young apprentice between the ages of 16-24yrs.  Up to 20,000 apprentices are set to benefit from this new announcement.  Click on the link to read the official announcement from the National Apprenticeship Service: http://www.apprenticeships.org.uk/News-Media/Latest-News/Article051.aspx

We will post further information about the criteria, how to access this funding and any other useful information once we have it.

Hastings Apprenticeship Forum gets going!

Welcome to an exciting new month for Own Grown Hastings Apprenticeship Initiative!

At the start of the month we had the Hastings Apprenticeship Forum. The event was really well attended by local employers, training providers, and other key stakeholders. The discussion among the attendees was great with lots of solutions to overcoming current barriers and ideas to support our aim to increase the variety and number of apprenticeships locally.

Key obstacles to overcome included:

·           Finance/funding

·           Awareness of apprenticeships – employers, schools

·           Employability/basic skills

·           Frameworks not always meeting employer needs

Suggestions for actions to support the increase in apprenticeships numbers:

·           Employer engagement and outreach

·           Supply of ‘good’ candidates

·           Communication and information

The next meeting of the forum will take place on Wednesday 18th January, 2pm (venue tbc).

We are also continuing to talk with local employers about apprenticeships and the benefits it can offer their business. There has been a great deal of interest from employers from a range of different sectors, who are impressed with the variety of frameworks available (over 200, that can be used in over 1,200 different job roles!) and the flexibility they can offer.

One of the things we will be targeting over the coming weeks and months is employer cluster areas so we can find out what employers needs are sector by sector. The clusters we are most interested at the moment are the creative, manufacturing, tourism and hospitality sectors.

You may have noticed that we have added an apprenticeship discussion forum to the blog. Click the ‘Hastings Apprenticeship Forum’ and sign up to join the discussion with employers and training providers.  This provides a place for those involved, (or would like to be involved) in apprenticeships to post a question, query or request for support or advice. 

Be sure to check back next month for more news about how we are growing apprenticeships in Hastings!

Welcome to our Blog!

Hello and welcome to the very first blog from the Own Grown Apprenticeship Initiative! 

This blog will keep you updated on the work of officers from the Regeneration and Community Services team who have been tasked with increasing the number and variety of apprenticeships on offer locally.  The initiative is being led by Hannah Brookshaw with support from Stuart Ilbury.

It has been a very busy couple of weeks for us with the launch of the Own Grown – Hastings Apprenticeship Initiative on 29^th September.  We were at ‘Let’s Do Business’ manning our stand and talking to local businesses interested in apprenticeships.  In the afternoon we had the official launch, introduced by the Leader of the Council, Jeremy Birch.  There was a panel

of experts on-hand to answer questions on the nuts and bolts of apprenticeships (see photo). 

There was lots of enthusiasm and interest in the project from those that attended.  Both the launch and the show were a huge success we will be very busy in the coming weeks following up all the leads from local businesses and organisation we talked to. 

As well as talking to and working with local businesses we are also continuing to work on actions in our ten point plan (see our website for details of what the 10 points are).  This includes organising and sending out invites for the first meeting of the Hastings Apprenticeship Forum – this will bring together organisations and people who are involved with apprenticeships locally to talk about what’s happening at the moment and what could be done going forward to bring it all together for the benefit of employers and prospective apprentices.

Keep a look out for our next blog, until then take a look at our website and the links to what other local organisations are doing to support our aim to increase the number and variety of apprenticeships locally.

The panel of experts answer questions about apprenticeships (l-r: Cllr

Birch, Irene Hoare (Sout East Apprenticeship Company), Hannah Brookshaw (Own

Grown), Mike Hensman (National Apprenticeship Service), Steve King (East Sussex Council of Training Providers), Stuart Small (Stevens Rowsell Ltd)