Millions to safeguard Teesside apprentice jobs

Jun 29 2010 by Sue Scott, Evening Gazette

MILLIONS of pounds will be poured into creating Teesside jobs for apprentices who have lost theirs during recession.

The latest tranche of cash to be released from a £60m ring-fenced fund to strengthen the Tees Valley process industry cluster, will see the careers of 150 young people safeguarded.

Sixty-five Corus trainees made redundant when the Teesside Cast Products plant was mothballed in February have already been found alternative employment where they can complete their training.

The £1.5m for employers who take on young people who have lost their placement or are at risk of doing so, is being managed by the Darlington based National Skills Academy for the Process Industries.

Ian Mains, commercial director of NSAPI, said the majority of those helped were likely to be in the process sector where a severe downturn in demand last year left a number of young people facing an uncertain future.

The former ICI network of process bosses, led by Sempcorp’s George Ritchie and Sabic’s Paul Booth, worked heroically to rescue those they could, including finding placements for former Artenius apprentices. But they were incensed that there was no strategy - and crucially no cash - to help.

Last June a Teesside taskforce, including big hitters from the process industry, who had previously criticised the then newly formed National Apprenticeship Service for ignoring the plight of young people in the process sector, met the Government’s enterprise tsar Alan Sugar in a bid to rescue thousands of apprentices in the sector threatened by redundancy.

The Government had already made arrangements to help young people in the construction industry who were hit by the downturn and had promised to support all apprentices within six months of finishing their training. That left at least 100 on Teesside without hope.

Process engineering chiefs argued - successfully as it turned out - that it was iniquitous not to ensure equal safeguards to every indentured young person.

Mr Mains said the new deal would encourage smaller firms to consider an apprenticeship placement. Previously, many had found it too costly or were afraid that they could not make sufficient long-term commitment.

The Tees Valley Apprenticeship Programme will be officially launched on July 23. It will take the total amount spent under the Tees Valley Industrial Programme to nearly £30m. Last month, the Government confirmed that it was among the few spending programmes protected from public sector cuts.