Skills for Employment programme

Build a Business Network grant

25 schools have now received this grant which was launched in May 2016. This £75,000 expenditure takes the total of grants awarded to schools to more than £350,000 since the programme started in 2015.

Warwickshire Skills Conference 2017

The third Warwickshire Skills Conference for secondary headteachers, principals and business leaders will take place on 13th March 2017 at 8-10 am at Chesford Grange Hotel near Leamington Spa. The focus will be on identifying the financial benefits of business and education collaboration and highlighting the types of activity that have most impact. For example, a recent ACAS report stated it costs around £5,000 every time a business recruits a new member of staff using traditional external recruitment methods or an agency. However, direct recruitment from a school or college would cost a fraction of that amount.

For more information about the conference or to book your place please e-mail skillsforemployment@warwickshire.gov.uk or call 01926-418027

Breakfast meetings build links between business and education

Nuneaton was the venue for the first of a series of Business and Education breakfast meetings organised by Warwickshire County Council's Skills for Employment programme.

A series of breakfast meetings has been arranged following the council's successful Skills Conference in February this year when delegates asked if local events could take place in each borough and district to bring together businesses and head teachers.

As a result, the meetings have been set up to provide an opportunity for business and education leaders to establish relationships and discuss skills issues such as the recruitment of school-leavers.

This first took place on November 15 at Central Site, a Nuneaton firm specialising in off-site construction of homes and school buildings for local authorities.

Six local schools attended and heard Central Site sales director Brian Maunder outline the company's plans for growth.

"We are going to grow from 40 employees to around 160 in the next three years," said Mr Maunder. "And we need your help to  achieve this. There will be jobs in design and also support functions like Human Resources as well as factory-floor jobs in construction of buildings."

Another delegate at the meeting, Federation of Small Businesses member Adrian Young of Abbey Money & Property, said: "This is a triple-win situation. There is a national housing crisis, we have a business that is growing fast and we have local schools and colleges trying to help young people to find work and develop their employability skills."