Sandwell Council apprentice training lined up for overhaul
A council is carrying out a review into improving its apprenticeship scheme, which could involve closer working with other groups.
Sandwell Council offers apprenticeships to young people who are not in full time education, employment or other forms of training.
And in the first two years since the scheme started, between 400 and 500 young people have been trained up by the authority. The council also runs the Sandwell Jobs Guarantee by working with local employers to provide a route into work for apprentices.
However, the council's chief executive Jan Britton said they were looking to work with partners to provide businesses with the type of apprentices they need.
Among the organisations also on board is Sandwell College and the council will look at the way the youngsters are trained up in the future.
Mr Britton said: "We are 100 per cent committed to getting more people into apprenticeships in Sandwell through initiatives such as the Sandwell Guarantee.
"There are no plans whatsoever to reduce the amount of money available for apprenticeships in Sandwell. Getting young people into work is a top priority for us.
"We are actively working together with our partners, including Sandwell College, to make the best use of everyone's resources, to ensure the way we deliver apprenticeship schemes is even more effective in the future.
"Our aim is to increase, not reduce, the number and range of apprenticeships on offer in the borough for the benefit of local residents and employers," he added.
The council's leader Darren Cooper said the aim was for more joined-up working between agencies involved in training and employing the apprentices, which included the college, the job centres and employers across the borough to ensure the young people found appropriate work.
He said apprentices working with the council received training while on work experience and this would then be supplemented by an extra academic course, so if an apprentice wanted to become a social worker, they could train at the council and then go on to university to sit a degree in the subject.
"Linking all these services under one umbrella gives us much more better value for money and also the chance to get young people back into work," Mr Cooper said. He denied the council was looking to 'farm out' its apprenticeship training to the college.
The Black Country Chamber of Commerce revealed in January that encouraging more firms to get involved with apprenticeships was among its top three objectives for the coming year.
