Ladder for Shropshire campaign helping to supply workforce of future

Established at the end of February as a means of providing apprenticeships in the county, and to build a skilled workforce the future, the Shropshire Star-backed campaign has also seen dozens of young people enter the workforce.

In total 118 apprenticeship roles have been created, of which 88 have seen apprenticeships placed with employers.

With some organisations taking on a number of apprentices, a total of 75 employers have signed up to the campaign.

The roles also cover 27 different occupations, the new figures reveal.

Shropshire is a county with an older workforce, and as such always runs the risk of seeing the vital skills lost to industry.

Businesses are crying out for a new generation of workers to take on the expertise that has been lost to industry, to allow them to plan for a long and buoyant future.

At the same time, while the county does not experience the same levels of unemployment felt so sharply by other parts of the West Midlands, there remain thousands of people collecting different forms of unemployment benefits in the county – at the time of the last claimant count, just over 3,200 people in Shropshire and Telford & Wrekin were picking up either Jobseekers' Allowance or Universal Credit.

It was against this backdrop that the Ladder for Shropshire was launched.

It is just a year since the initial meeting took place to explore whether the Ladder for Shropshire, an initiative designed to promote and increase apprenticeship opportunities, could be established with the support of the Shropshire Star.

The Shropshire Star was offering substantial media coverage and there was the possibility of endorsement from the Duke of York. I was approached as chair of the Marches Skills Provider Network and felt that we had to take advantage of this opportunity.

The Ladder for Shropshire was launched in March 2015 and began work in earnest in April with two main aims – to engage with young people so that more would be encouraged to apply for apprenticeships and to engage with the business community and generate more apprenticeship opportunities.

We were able to identify sufficient funding to recruit Jamie Pugh, a recent graduate, to work part time on the Ladder. The Ladder for Shropshire has its own telephone lines, email address and website and uses social media.

The articles appearing in the Shropshire Star have never failed to prompt a response and Jamie deals with the calls and emails by directing young people or employers to the most appropriate training provider or college which can support the inquiry and convert it into an apprenticeship.

The Marches Skills Provider Network has all the major colleges and 16 independent training providers in membership.

The inquiries have fallen into 27 different areas – some of which have caused headaches, such as the young person who was a keen cyclist and wanted an apprenticeship in cycle maintenance or the young person keen on fitness and sport who wanted to become a personal trainer.

Both of these young people and many more like them have been put in touch with specialist training providers to help them into apprenticeships.

The Ladder has attended school careers evenings and made presentations across the area and is on target to visit two thirds of the secondary schools across Shropshire and Telford & Wrekin by the end of January 2016.

Fantastic feedback has been received from schools and colleges who now have a better idea about how to apply for apprenticeships and can see the wide range of great opportunities available to them.

Good relationships have also been established with careers advisers and Jobcentre Plus.

Aimed at producing some of the future leaders of industry, the campaign aimed at generating new apprenticeships, matching training providers with employers and would-be employees, and convincing young people who were facing uncertainty at the end of their school career that there was a career to be made while learning on the job.

Now, as organisers behind the Ladder for Shropshire take stock at the end of the year, they can sit back and consider that this campaign, backed by the Duke of York, has outstripped all expectations.

More than 100 new jobs have been created. Dozens of young people are in work. The future of the Shropshire workforce is beginning to take shape.

"Since joining the campaign I have seen a dramatic increase in the number of people showing an interest in apprenticeships and the Ladder for Shropshire has had a huge part to play in that," said Jamie Pugh, marketing and communications officer for the Ladder for Shropshire.

"The benefits attached to the apprenticeship route are now clearer than ever and I hope that we can help even more young people start exciting new careers in 2016.

"What has been exciting for everybody involved in the Ladder is that we have seen such a broad range of opportunities created.

"It demonstrates the appeal that apprenticeships hold in a wide variety of industry sectors, and show that there is an appetite among employers of all different types to introduce new talent into the workforce, and to ensure there are bright, enthusiastic, motivated young people ready and willing to carry the skills that underpin their organisation for the future."

Designed to breath fresh life into the county's workforce and economy, it came into being on the back of similar successful campaigns elsewhere in the country, including through the Ladder for the Black Country, launched by the Star's sister paper the Express and Star.

The campaign was originally conceived by Prince Andrew, and he continued to support its roll-out by visiting the Star's offices in Ketley to meet campaign organisers and apprentices.

He said the campaign would create a "win-win situation" for both businesses and young people in the county.

"Apprentice is a term, it is about training and young people – and it makes no difference when they come out of full-time education, 16, 18, 23 or whatever it is, they are still going to need to be trained in what they choose to do and this is equally valid for a rural community such as Shropshire as it is for an urbanised or industrial community as in Telford," he said.

"I think that so long as Ladder for Shropshire is tailored to local needs and local business requirements you are going to have a win-win situation for both the businesses and the young people."

The first role created through the Ladder for Shropshire was in a suitably celebratory environment – bosses at Wroxeter Roman Vineyard near Shrewsbury cracked open a bottle of red to celebrate the appointment of Stacey Jones, a former Shrewsbury College student, who took the first role in the employment-boosting campaign.

Eighteen-year-old Stacey, from Shrewsbury, said: "I had always planned to do an apprenticeship, so it was a matter of waiting for the right thing to come along."

By July, the Ladder had already seen its 50th vacancy created, with 37 different companies around the county contributing to the programme.

Tiddlewinks Nursery in Shrewsbury, florists Fleurtations of Shrewsbury, and construction support firm Hawk Group at Prees Green demonstrated the diversity of businesses involved. All Nations Inn at Madeley, Croft Design Associates at Much Wenlock, Telford-based electrical installations company Hager, and Shrewsbury's Bar Motor Company were also among the employers taking on young people.

Now hopes are high that it will continue to generate the roles, and to build the workforce that the county needs.