Skills Archives - Page 11 of 11 - North East Local Enterprise Partnership

Ryan Gibson, Facilitator for the Career Benchmarks Pilot at the North East LEP, gives his thoughts on the recent House of Lords Select Committee on Social Mobility report.

The House of Lords Select Committee on Social Mobility released a report on Friday 8 April that argued that young people who do not go to university are ‘overlooked and left behind’.

It suggested students leave the education system without the skills necessary for
work and life and more should be done to ‘improve careers guidance and advice for young people’.

Baroness Corston, Chairman of The Select Committee on Social Mobility, was interviewed on BBC News and said “…schools, employers, FE Colleges and LEPs have no means of working together, and they should have.”

Whilst I don’t disagree with the report’s contents or the recommendations outlined by the Committee, I – like many of my colleagues in the North East – were surprised there was no mention of the innovative work the North East LEP is doing with the Gatsby Foundation to transform careers guidance not just here in the region, but across the country.

The North East LEP, in partnership with the Gatsby Foundation, is currently piloting the National Career Benchmarks; eight clearly defined benchmarks for good career guidance, that when implemented, will improve students’ transition from school to work by allowing them to make fully informed decisions about their future.

The eight benchmarks are:

1. A stable careers programme
2. Learning from career and labour market information
3. Addressing the needs of each pupil
4. Linking curriculum learning to careers
5. Encounters with employers and employees
6. Experiences of work places
7. Encounters with further and higher education
8. Personal guidance

The pilot is already moving apace. Only last week we awarded the first of our partner schools funding to begin work on their innovative ideas to improve careers education.

Of the recommendations outlined in the Select Committee Report, I’m proud to say many of these are already being addressed in the North East LEP region.

The need for ‘professional careers guidance that is independent of schools or colleges, delivered face-to-face, helping them to choose their individual routes forward’ is something we’re addressing through the benchmarks, which require schools and colleges to ensure that ‘every student should have opportunities for guidance interviews with a careers adviser…trained to the appropriate level…and be available whenever significant study or career choices are being made…timed to meet individual needs.

Another recommendation from the report is ‘young people need careers education in schools which is embedded into and fits alongside the curriculum and is informed by labour market information.’ Again, this is something we are helping to facilitate in the North East through the Enterprise Adviser initiative, strategically linking business leaders with schools and colleges across the region, in mutually beneficial partnerships, to help bridge the gap between education and the world of work. We already have the support of a number of education and business organisations and the Department for Education are working very closely with us.

There are other key recommendations the Benchmarks are delivering on, including the importance of work experience and our work, here in the North East, suggests there is no single ‘magic bullet’ for transforming this agenda. Rather it is about doing a number of things, identified within the eight benchmarks of good career guidance, doing them consistently, doing them well and doing them for each and every student.

Together with partners in Government, education and the business sector we are hoping to bring about significant change to the quality and delivery of careers education in the England and I’m happy to report the collaboration needed to make this happen is beginning to take place. Whilst there is still work to be done, we are starting to see the indications of impact already.

Ultimately this project is about helping young people make fully informed decisions about their future by better connecting them to information, advice and opportunities so that they can be inspired about their future, improving the pathway to work and delivering business growth. I take it as a positive that here in the North East we are already addressing many of the recommendations outlined in the Select Committee report.

If anyone has any questions about the Gatsby National Career Benchmarks Pilot, please feel free to contact me via [email protected].

Ryan Gibson
Facilitator for the Careers Benchmark Pilot at the North East LEP

To read The Select Committee report on Social Mobility in full, click here.

First bids approved for North East LEP/Gatsby National Careers Benchmark Pilot

The first North East schools leading a pilot programme have received more than £50,000 between them to help fund their innovative ideas to improve careers education – ideas that could be used across the country if they prove successful.

The proposals are part of the Gatsby Foundation National Career Benchmarks Pilot led by the North East Local Enterprise Partnership (North East LEP).

The projects are being funded by Lord Sainsbury’s Gatsby Foundation as part of a four-year national pilot running in the North East LEP area to test eight benchmarks of good career guidance.

North East schools and colleges were selected to test how the benchmarks can be implemented, identify any barriers to helping young people make more informed decisions about their future study and employment, and ensure that young people are better equipped with the skills employers need.

Sixteen schools and colleges in the North East LEP area are taking part in the national pilot and the findings will be rolled out across the country at the end of the project.

A total of £53,100 was approved in the first round of awards from the Innovation and Activity Fund. Pilot schools and colleges were asked to submit their innovative ideas to further develop careers education in collaboration with employers and other education providers.

Ryan Gibson, National Facilitator for the Career Benchmarks Pilot at the North East LEP, said: “There is a real buzz around careers education in the North East LEP area. Lots of schools and colleges are using the benchmarks and making an impact on good practice at a national level.

“The Innovation and Activity Fund is supporting schools and colleges that are already participating in the pilot to develop innovative practices, systems and processes that help schools and colleges to make measurable and rapid progress towards achieving the benchmarks.

“Successful projects are those that are able to demonstrate increased partnership working, enhanced collaboration, potential wider benefit, replication and scalability.

“We’re looking for projects that use an innovative approach to address particularly challenging issues, identified by initial audits against the benchmarks. Solutions can then be tested and potentially rolled out across the country.”

The first three grants will fund projects from St Joseph’s Catholic Academy in Hebburn, Churchill Community College in Wallsend, and six schools and colleges in the newly-formed Labour Market Information working group.

The project led by St Joseph’s will look at how employer engagement programmes such as the Careers and Enterprise Company’s and North East LEP’s flagship Enterprise Adviser Programme can be successfully integrated alongside existing provision.

The project will concentrate on benchmarks targeting meaningful encounters with employers and employees and multiple experiences of workplaces.

St Joseph’s will produce a best practice guide detailing how a school can map its current provision and what it must do to effectively integrate employers across the school. This guide will be made available to every school and college in England via the North East LEP and the Gatsby Foundation.

Churchill Community College in North Tyneside will work with Northumbria University’s Multidisciplinary Innovation Unit to explore creative ways of schools and colleges providing high quality work related experiences in challenging financial environments. A series of recommendations will be made, with the most appropriate being tested by the school.

The Labour Market Information project, a collaboration between six schools and colleges, will spend two months working with young people to explore how they currently access information about job sectors, apprenticeships, vacancies and pay and how they would like to access this in the future.

This research will form a case study that will be used by the national ‘LMI for All’ data portal and will inform future thinking about how young people and their parents get better help to access important information about future career opportunities.

The national pilot, including the projects funded through the innovation fund, will be independently evaluated by the International Centre for Guidance Studies, led by Tristram Hooley, at the University of Derby.

Future funding windows will be looking for pilot schools and colleges to work in partnership with other organisations to enhance school/college ability to achieve the benchmarks and improve careers guidance provision.

The Career Benchmarks were drawn up by Professor Sir John Holman after visiting the Netherlands, Germany, Hong Kong, Finland, Canada and Ireland, as well as a selection of UK schools, which have strong international reputations for careers guidance and educational results. The benchmarks for creating good careers guidance are :

A stable careers programme
Learning from career and labour market information
Addressing the needs of each pupil
Linking curriculum learning to careers
Encounters with employers and employees
Experiences of work places
Encounters with further and higher education
Personal guidance

The largest ever Enterprise Education Challenge is taking place across the North East. Launching today on Friday 18th March the BIG PIE Friday Challenge, which is part of the Primary Inspiration through Enterprise (PIE) Project, has over 1000 pupils participating from Primary Schools in North Tyneside, Newcastle and Northumberland competing against one another.

Targeting 9, 10 and 11 year olds this unique, exciting and ambitious Challenge will engage inspire and educate future generations in enterprise and Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) based activities.

The BIG PIE Friday Challenge is being delivered for free to schools within three stages. The first being two timed activities, one engineering and another Coding based on the morning of the 18th March to schools across the North East that have signed up. Five schools from each area that are the quickest at completing the tasks will go through to the second stage where they will each undertake a full day of enterprise.

The students will plan, create and sell something with support from local businesses, complete a formal qualification and then be judged purely on the profit they make. The Challenge will ultimately culminate in an awards ceremony within Newcastle in June 2016.

The BIG PIE Challenge sees Schools from all across the North East participating, including St Pauls RC Middle School in Alnwick, Richard Coates Middle School in Ponteland, Eastlea Primary School in Cramlington. Within Newcastle over 14 schools are taking part including Hilton Primary in Blakelaw, Wingrove Primary, Rainbow at Excelsior in the West of the City and Tyneview, Walkergate, Central Walker in the East of the City. North Tyneside has a large number competing too including Stephenson Memorial Wallsend and Amberley Primary in Killingworth. Each of the Schools has been allocated a PIE’Oneer – someone from industry – to help them through the challenge and independently validate the competition.

Ammar Mirza CBE Founder and Chair of Asian Business Connexions explains “The level of support and interest from all across the public, private and third sector for the Challenge has just been overwhelming. We have small and big businesses coming together to support our common purpose focused on improving life chances and enhancing life choices within young people regardless of their background.

“Organisations supporting the pupils on the day include Newcastle College, Newcastle University, Bdaily, Accenture, FirstClass Supply, North East LEP, NCFE, Global Radio, Trinity Mirror Group, Noor Couture, Kielder Observatory, AMPM247, AmmarM (UK), BQ Live and Your Homes Newcastle. A particular note of gratitude must go to our Armed Forces who have dispatched PIE’Oneers to support schools in Alnwick, Cramlington and Wallsend”

To demonstrate the fun aspect of the challenge Global Radio have produced a video that is being played on the day to encourage all of the 1000 pupils however has their take on the BIG PIE and sees the presenters being pied with a foam pie in traditional comedy style.

Highlighting their support, Kim Miljus Global Radio MD North East “Global Radio are delighted to support this important and exciting campaign. We are the largest commercial radio group in the UK and North East, broadcasting Capital FM and Heart from our flagship studios in Newcastle City Centre to 718,000 listeners every single week right across the NE. This campaign affects every one of us….it’s about building a better and brighter future for our region and everyone in the region. Inspiring young children and giving them higher aspirations about what they can achieve here in the NE is such an important message.

“Working together across business and education is key to ensuring we match those inspirations and aspirations to the career opportunities here in the NE. We wish every pupil taking part in today’s exciting BIG PIE Challenge every success and look forward to meeting some of the winners here in our studios.”

Working with the North East Local Enterprise Partnership the PIE Project will clearly align to the North East LEPs Gatsby Career Information, Advice and Guidance Benchmarks and Enterprise Advisors initiative. This approach will make sure that the planned outcomes and outputs are successfully achieved and link to national standards with PIE’Oneers continuing to work with the schools for long term impact.

Andrew Hodgson- North East LEP Chair explains, “The North East Local Enterprise Partnership is committed to improving careers education, information, advice and guidance across our area. We are leading on a number of initiatives, such as the Career Benchmarks Pilot and Enterprise Adviser Programme, and engaging with schools, colleges and businesses across the region, to achieve this. This work is mainly being delivered at secondary level, and we recognise the need to offer similar support to primary schools.

“We are pleased to support PIE, working closely with the PIE team and PIE-oneers to develop an offer for all primary schools, based on a primary version of the Career Benchmarks to ensure that children see the wide range of job and career opportunities that are available to them from an early age and get them excited about these opportunities.”

The BIG PIE Friday Challenge even has seen cross political party support with Anne-Marie Trevelyan MP for Berwick visiting a St Pauls RC school in Alnwick and Chi Onwurah MP for Newcastle Central visiting St Pauls Primary School in Elswick Newcastle on the day.

The Project has even seen support from Northern Powerhouse Minister James Wharton MP “Linking education to enterprise is a key driver of success. This project is a good example of how business can engage with schools in a collaborative and cohesive way. I would encourage schools, businesses and the whole community to get involved and hope it can help to deliver on the Northern Powerhouse by driving long term economic growth in the region.”

MD of Accenture Bob Paton CBE who is spearheading the campaign and will be at Stephenson Memorial in Wallsend, highlighted “We have seen an incredible amount of interest from across schools, parents and businesses The prosperity of our economy, the future skills of the workforce and the career prospects of young people are dependent on adequate and appropriate development opportunities and experiences being available to ensure individuals have the right skills and attributes to successfully enter the world of work.”

“Today is all about bringing our community together and young people learning real life skills in a fun and engaging manner. The number of businesses we have supporting is nothing short of incredible and all too often the North East features nationwide for all of the wrong reasons. The BIG PIE Friday Challenge and the PIE Project will platform the North East’s commitment to Enterprise and STEM Education that is adequately and appropriately linked to business.”

Moving forward The BIG PIE Friday Challenge hopes that everyone will consider becoming part of and supporting the PIE Project to help influence and deliver enterprise education, together with career advice and guidance, in a collaborative and consistent way. Bob encourages everyone to get involved, “I look forward to you supporting a truly inclusive, ambitious, fun and exciting initiative that will significantly benefit our future generations showcasing the North East for being an amazing place.”

For further details/to register your interest visit www.pieproject.org, email [email protected] or call Ammar Mirza CBE on 0191 2424894. Twitter @PIEPROJECTUK #ILOVEPIE

Successful businessman Gary Burton has joined a Northumberland school’s senior management team creating a powerful alliance to guide the future job prospects of hundreds of pupils.

He is the region’s first Enterprise Advisor – spearheading a North East Local Enterprise Partnership initiative embedding business leaders into secondary schools on a voluntary basis to help teachers shape the delivery of careers education.

Gary, managing director at specialist engineering firm Arefco, is offering his industry expertise as part of the team at the Northumberland Church of England (C of E) Academy’s Ashington campus. He will bring extensive industry knowledge to the school to ensure careers provision for pupils meets business need.

The close working relationship between Arefco – based on the Jubilee Industrial Estate in Ashington – and Northumberland C of E Academy is part of the North East LEP’s wider work to boost economic growth through educational achievement.

Andrew Hodgson, North East LEP Chair, said: “The LEP’s Education Challenge is committed to improving business-education links.

“Our ambition is to ensure that every young person in the North East is able to identify routes to a successful working life – with the opportunity from an early age to have exposure to the world of work and meet people along the way who can inspire and motivate them.

“The Enterprise Advisors are a key part of this and we are excited to see the value that they bring. If you are a passionate, successful leader and believe you could inspire the young people of our region, you should absolutely get involved with this project. It is our opportunity as a business community to support our young people and I would encourage you to do so.”

A total of 24 schools from Berwick to Durham have signed up to the Enterprise Advisor Network, each to be allocated a volunteer business leader in their area to work with them on careers development. Together, they are looking to refine the way schools and businesses interact, examine their enterprise strategies and fill any gaps.

Gary said: “We have a very specific need for technical skills and the type of people we need are just not in the shop window for us to employ.

“Through the partnership with the academy, we can identify the right attitude, aptitude and approach pupils will need to successfully develop and progress into sustainable employment – it’s a win-win opportunity.

“Arefco is involved in the project as a business that cares passionately about putting our combined hundreds of years’ worth of knowledge into giving young people a chance to follow their career of choice.”

Steve Gibson, Northumberland C of E Academy Secondary School Principal, accompanied pupils on a tour of Arefco’s factory. He said: “It is vital for schools to work in partnership with employers to ensure that our young people are fully prepared for their future education and careers.”

North East LEP Enterprise Co-ordinator Denis Heaney is leading the project for the region.

“The world of work is changing and this unique programme is an opportunity for businesses like Arefco to be embedded within a school and make a massive difference to students and their future prospects,” said Denis.

“For the first time, business leaders like Gary will sit alongside head teachers and their senior leadership team, to embed careers development, enterprise and employer engagement into the curriculum from Year 7 onwards so it is taught on a daily basis.”

Arefco employs 65 people at its Jubilee Industrial Estate base, having recently expanded with the acquisition of Stephenson Precision Components of Blyth as the next stage in its growth plans.

It manufactures high precision components for the oil and gas, aerospace, defence and renewables sectors, for blue chip companies such as Halliburton, Aker Solutions and GE.

The North East project is part of the national voluntary Enterprise Advisor Network which reflects new Government careers policy. The programme is being co-ordinated at a national level through the Careers and Enterprise Company.

http://www.nelep.co.uk/improving-skills/projects/

The largest ever Enterprise Education Challenge is planned to take place across the North East.

Launching on Friday 18th March the BIG PIE Friday Challenge, which is part of the Primary Inspiration through Enterprise (PIE) Project, will potentially see 250 Primary Schools in North Tyneside, Newcastle and Northumberland competing against one another.

Targeting 10 and 11 year olds this unique, exciting and ambitious Challenge will engage inspire and educate future generations in enterprise and Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) based activities.

The BIG PIE Friday Challenge will be delivered free to schools within three stages. The first being two timed activities on the morning of the 18th March to all of the schools that have signed up. Five schools from each area that are the quickest at completing the tasks will go through to the second stage where they will each undertake a full day of enterprise. The students will plan, create and sell something with support from local businesses, complete a formal qualification and then be judged purely on the profit they make.

The Challenge will ultimately culminate in an awards ceremony within Newcastle in June 2016.

The project helps young people realise their ambitions and aspirations, creating better life choices and improving life chances. By providing real enterprise experiences, including the opportunity to run a shop, the PIE Project brings education to life. With an ambitious aim to counteract the current negative misconception around education attainment within the North East and the lack of employer engagement, the project will platform the North East as a truly committed region investing in its future generations.

MD of Accenture Bob Paton CBE who is spearheading the campaign highlighted “The prosperity of our economy, the future skills of the workforce and the career prospects of young people are dependent on adequate and appropriate development opportunities and experiences being available to ensure individuals have the right skills and attributes to successfully enter the world of work.”

“There is significant evidence that suggests employers are suffering from a skills shortage and whilst there are a range of interventions providing Careers Information Advice and Guidance these tend to be focused on pupils aged 14 plus.”

“I want to help bring the whole community together for a common purpose creating a movement all around enterprise education. As an adroit campaigner of skills development and passionate about positively platforming the North East, I am spearheading the Campaign. I now need everyone to get behind this exciting initiative.“

Building on the significant success of the already established PIE Project (established in 2013 by Ammar Mirza CBE, Founder and Chairman of Asian Business Connexions) Ammar explains, “The project was launched in collaboration with Tyneview School where I am Chair of Governors, Walkergate School and supported by business leader Bill Midgley OBE.

“Four schools came together and established a corner shop that enabled pupils to experience enterprise activities first-hand. We engaged with businesses including Your Homes Newcastle, Leazes Homes, Northumbria Water and lots of local organisations who came into the schools and provided expert advice and guidance to the students.

“Since then the project has grown exponentially and there are two PIE Shops in Newcastle where students can experience planning, creating and selling things all supported by businesses. In an effort to formalise learning the students can now undertake an NCFE Qualification in Investigating Enterprise which is industry recognised and provides real currency for future employment.”

Ammar goes on to say, “The pupils go through real live enterprise activities including developing a CV, applying to become the shop manager for the day, together with being interviewed for the job. Developing a range of social and professional skills alongside developing their strengths and identifying their weaknesses, the pupils are ideally equipped to realise their aspirations.”

The unique aspect of the PIE Project is that it endeavours to promote all of the activities available to young people with the aim of ensuring every opportunity is offered to every child. Rather than a one size fits all approach the PIE Project works with the school and other similar initiatives to make sure the needs of the pupil and business opportunities are adequately and appropriately matched.

Working with all local businesses including Bob the Builder, Ed the Engineer, Sally the Solicitor the PIE Project ensures clear line of sight to local careers for pupils that can be influenced by local people.
Last year the activities were supported by Sir John Hall who the pupils studied as part of their qualification. Sir John presented the certificates to the students at a special assembly at Tyneview School and recognised their achievements, being the youngest pupils to undertake a formal vocational industry recognised qualification. HRH Princess Eugenie visited the schools and the PIE Shop to show Royal support and a PIE Conference was hosted by Newcastle University Business School.

This year the PIE Project wants to go bigger and reach the whole of the region. The BIG PIE Friday Challenge is supported by a range of partners and stakeholders, the competition will involve local businesses, parents of the pupils and the wider community. Working with Newcastle University, Newcastle College and NCFE to develop and deliver the Enterprise Challenges a whole host of organisations and media partners have already signed up committing both financial and physical resources. All of the local MPs have signed up to supporting the project and even the Armed Forces are involved.

The activities will clearly align to the North East LEPs Gatsby Career Information, Advice and Guidance Benchmarks and Enterprise Advisors initiative. This approach will make sure that the planned outcomes and outputs are successfully achieved and link to national standards.

Bob encourages everyone to get involved, “I look forward to you supporting a truly inclusive, ambitious, fun and exciting Challenge that will significantly benefit our future generations showcasing the North East for being an amazing place.”

For further details/to register your interest email [email protected] or call Tony Stafford (Project Manager) on 0191 2424894.

Image credit: chroniclelive.co.uk

Young people leaving schools today face an uncertain future, where the only guarantee is that the job market will keep changing. It is vital that they leave school equipped to make the most of the opportunities available to them for future study and employment. They need the knowledge, skills and confidence to make informed choices, and manage transitions to succeed in learning and work. The Careers Framework has been designed to help schools manage this important aspect of the curriculum.

Inspired by The Careers Benchmarks Pilot currently taking place in the North East LEP area, The Careers Framework provides practical support in relation to six of the benchmarks. The Careers Benchmarks Pilot is a joint project by the North East LEP and the Gatsby Foundation.

Four years ago, the Government transferred responsibility for career guidance from local authorities to schools themselves, but international evidence shows that an unstructured interventions, and a single week of work experience is not enough. Young people also need access to a programme of career education embedded in the curriculum.

The Career Development Institute (CDI), which represents careers teachers and careers advisers throughout the UK, has launched this revised and updated Framework to help schools identify the knowledge, skills and qualities pupils need to acquire and develop. Concise and easy to use, the Framework provides ideas and activities across each of the 17 areas of learning at KS2; KS3; KS4 and 16-19. The Framework, which is free, and supporting materials can be downloaded from the CDI website.

Speaking at the CDI’s Annual Conference in 2015, the newly elected President Virginia Isaac, said: “Young people need high quality careers support to help set them on the road to a fulfilling working life. Schools and colleges are at the heart of putting that in place and work with other partners, including employers, universities, apprenticeship providers and professional career advisers, to contribute practical experiences, inspiration, information, advice and guidance. For all those efforts to be effective, the activities need to be pulled together in a coherent and carefully planned programme of careers, employability and enterprise education, with explicit learning outcomes.”

She went on to say “The CDI is proud to offer this new Framework to support schools, colleges and others as they plan, review and develop their career programmes. Importantly, the Framework provides practical support in relation six of the eight Gatsby Benchmarks, which are fast becoming a key organising principle in the delivery CEIAG in schools and colleges. The final point to emphasise of course is that to help young people make informed and realistic decisions, career education must be complemented by access to timely and impartial information, advice and guidance, provided by qualified career advisers.”

For more information, visit www.thecdi.net

A major new research project has been launched to explore how the Creative, Digital and IT (CDIT) sector in the North East can be developed in order to play a leading role in the region’s economy.

The new £3m ‘Creative Fuse North East’ project will involve all five of the North East’s universities – Newcastle, Northumbria, Durham, Sunderland and Teesside – and is funded jointly by the universities and the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

Working with the region’s 12 local authorities, businesses, artists, cultural organisations and other partners, they will research how the CDIT sector can ensure it has the right skills for a sustainable future.

The 30 month project will look at how the skills within the region’s CDIT sector can benefit the wider regional economy, for example by exploring opportunities for placing creative practitioners in businesses in other sectors as a way to increase innovation. It will begin by mapping the creative, digital and commercial landscape of the North East in terms of the mix of skills, knowledge and support available, and how the region’s universities can support the sector more effectively.

The project is led by Newcastle University and will draw on expertise from more than 40 academic and business support staff from across the five institutions, from creative arts, cultural heritage and digital humanities to business schools and cloud computing.

Professor Eric Cross, Dean of Cultural Affairs at Newcastle University, said: “To ensure that the North East’s CDIT sector can realise its full potential, businesses and creative practitioners need to be able to connect with, and benefit from, the best that our universities have to offer in terms of research, training and talent.

“Creative Fuse North East will work hand-in-hand with the CDIT sector to discover and promote best practice, join up support, and drive creativity and innovation across the North East’s economy.

“By bringing businesses, artists and academics together, this project will create value – both in economic and cultural terms – regionally and nationally.”

For more information about Creative Fuse, email [email protected]

Digital skill is at the heart of our region’s growth

The Bank of England still recognise the North East as one of the Fastest growing regions for business activity in the UK, yet we still seem to have one of the highest rates of unemployment and perception from other regions that we are still a small fish.

This excites me because we have an opportunity not only to upskill our workforce to create more and better jobs, but we have the prospect to show others what we can achieve.

As a region we are unique, we have a history steeped in adversity yet because of our passion and collective desire to not accept failure we have always managed to survive, adapt and still come out as world leaders in our fields. At the heart of this is innovation.

We now live in a Digital age; innovation more than ever comes through digital platforms. Businesses are now able to communicate, share ideas and provide services faster, cheaper and better than before yet 25% of our region’s population lack basic digital skills*, which is the highest percentage in the country.

To reach our economic potential we have to ensure that our region’s business and workforce take full advantage of our growing digital landscape.

I have been fortunate enough to be asked by the North East LEP to sit on the Business Support Board and the Apprentice Growth Partnership. During my time with the North East LEP I have been encouraged by the innovative approach to deliver the region’s Strategic Economic Plan and the fact that our business support will be delivered through a digital platform – www.northeastgrowthhub.co.uk.

This initiative is unique amongst the other UK LEPs, forward thinking and certainly the right way to deliver. However, if 25% of our population is lacking basic digital skills how do we ensure that this service is used to the full potential?

Earlier this year I attended a meeting in London with representatives from the different LEP areas held by Go ON UK. Go ON UK is the UK’s leading digital advocate with a mission to ensure everyone has basic digital skills.

Go ON UK would like a Local Enterprise Partnership to develop a National Digital Skills hub that would also offer regional content and signposting and could then be offered to other LEP regions. The idea behind this is to bring together all relevant digital skills content, digital assets, how to guides, training providers and corporate offers together under one hub. After a number of discussions with LEP, the North East LEP was selected to develop the platform and pilot it in the North East. Naturally I wanted this to be brought to the North East and the fact that we have already made the forward thinking decision to deliver our business support digitally made it a perfect match.

The North East LEP, Go ON UK and regional stakeholders are working together to help shape an innovative digital skills hub which will launch in the spring of next year. This is a small step of many in the right direction to ensure that we as businesses, individuals and as the North East LEP, work together to upskill our workforce and ensure that we achieve the great potential this region can offer.

If you would like to get in touch please email me at [email protected]

By Rob Earnshaw

*BBC learning 2014

Tag: Skills

Transforming careers guidance and the impact on social mobility

Pilot schools share over £50,000 for innovative careers guidance projects

THE BIG PIE Friday Challenge

Business leaders embedded into schools to drive pupil career success

THE BIG PIE Friday Challenge – 18 March

New framework for careers, employability and enterprise to help schools prepare young people to achieve their potential

Lighting the fuse of economic growth

In conversation with Business Support Board Member, Rob Earnshaw