A FOUR YEAR project aimed at bridging the gap in Moray between education and industry has appointed a new team to ensure its implementation.
The Board of the initiative – ‘Developing the Young Workforce in Moray (DYW)’ – has set targets agreed with the Scottish Government aimed at enabling young people, their parents and their teachers to understand the Moray labour market and opportunities it makes available to them.
A large part of the strategy is to create sustainable long-term partnerships between local businesses and Moray’s schools and colleges. A much enhanced two-way relationship will see significant improvements in the number of young people who are recruited locally – and increases in the number of young people taking a modern apprenticeship.
Appointed as Project Manager is Steve Bremner, who is very familiar with the local jobs market having previously operated his own agency in Moray for several years as well as working with a leading north east and Highlands employment agency.
Steve said: “I am delighted to be joining to the Moray Chamber to help establish and deliver the strategy here in Moray. Coming from a recruitment background, not just as an employee but as a former business owner, I recognise the challenges that both businesses and young job seekers face.
“I’m looking forward to engaging with the public, private and third sectors to help build sustainable interconnected relationships that will not only benefit our developing young workforce, they will also help our business community to ensure they have appropriately skilled staff to facilitate their growth ambitions.”
Steve will be joined by Support Assistant, Julie Cameron who will start at the beginning of May.
The DYW Moray Board will be officially launching the project at an event at the Alexander Graham Bell Centre, Moray College UHI on Tuesday, May 10.
Sarah Medcraf, Chief Executive of Moray Chamber of Commerce and Project Director of DYW, told insideMoray: “We have been working on this application with the government over the last year, so to finally have the staff and resources to push it forward makes this a very exciting time. We have an enthusiastic Board made up from mainly private sector local businesses and to have their support from the start is very encouraging.”
Developing the Young Workforce groups have been set up all over the country, with the support of the Scottish Government, in response to Sir Ian Woods report Developing Scotland’s Young Workforce.
Moray businesses are being urged to get involved to retain talent in the area and develop young people with the relevant skills for their business.