Multi-million pound Lancashire project upskills thousands of workers

A £5.6m programme offering Lancashire businesses free training for their staff has smashed its target after helping over 5,500 workers develop new skills and obtain qualifications.

Lancashire Skills Support for the Workforce (LSS), which launched in September last year with the aim of supporting 3,817 people, managed to deliver training for 5,508 workers at 1,381 businesses.

Following the programme’s success, the Lancashire Skills Hub is now trying to secure European funding to deliver the next LSS scheme early in 2016.

Lancashire County Council leader Jennifer Mein said: “Lancashire Skills Support was our response to what businesses in the county were telling us was their greatest growth priority – upskilling the workforce.

“The rapid pace at which the available training places filled up shows the extent of the demand for greater skills.”

She continued: “The programme would not have worked as well as it did without the local business knowledge we have in the county, and the quality of the colleges and training providers that helped us to deliver the training.

“The phenomenal success of the programme means we’re eager to run it again as soon as possible and we hope to have a new funding bid in place in the near future.”

Support available through LSS, which was funded by the European Social Fund, included leadership and management skills training, as well as basic and higher level skills and technical qualifications.

Through LSS, employers were able to offer workforce training in areas such as health and social care, manufacturing, engineering and accounting.

The partnership for the delivery of LSS comprised a number of organisations and colleges throughout the county, including Lancaster and Morecambe College, Blackburn College and Burnley College.