Member Article

Regional skills agenda given £6.4m boost

Regional development agency One NorthEast this week pledged to help boost skills levels in the region by approving a £6.4m funding package.

The Agency’s Board has given the go ahead to a programme that will support skills providers in the North East to improve their capacity and ability to respond to the demand from regional employers.

The main aim is to ensure employers in the nine growing priority industry sectors highlighted in the Regional Economy Strategy (RES), have access to individuals with the skills they need to develop and grow their business.

The Higher Level Skills Provider project will be led by One NorthEast, the Learning and Skills Council (LSC), and the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE).

Tim Pain, Head of Business, Enterprise and Skills at One NorthEast, said: “The RES highlights the need to improve skills levels in the region and to ensure employers have access to the standard of employees they need to expand their workforce.

“What this major funding package will enable One NorthEast, the LSC North East and the HEFCE to do is to ensure providers of higher level skills can cater specifically for companies within the areas highlighted in the RES as the key drivers of economic growth.”

The project will establish a grant fund that will support collaborative approaches to meeting the higher-level skills demands of regional employers. All projects seeking support from the funding pot must be able to demonstrate that they are responding to employer demand.

The grant fund is now live and will run for two years until July 2010. For more information email Leanne.English@onenortheast.co.uk.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .