WARWICKSHIRE County Council is among the Top 100 Apprenticeship Employers in the country.
The Top 100 list, announced in the Sunday Telegraph, celebrates the best apprenticeship employers across the UK and the county council was among ten selected from the West Midlands.
Since September 2012, the authority has recruited 142 apprentices. Of those that have now completed their apprenticeships, 70 per cent have been retained within the council and a further 23 per centhave gone into employment elsewhere or gone on to study further at university. Currently there are 62 young people on apprenticeships within the county council.
And over the past three years the council’s Apprenticeship Hub has engaged with over 380 businesses regarding apprenticeships, leading to the recruitment of 245 apprentices by Warwickshire businesses with Hub support.
Warwickshire is one of only three local authorities, along with Southwark Council and Plymouth City Council, to win a place in the coveted Top 100 alongside businesses including Unilever, JP Morgan, Mercedes Benz and Siemens.
Dan Nash, Warwickshire County Council’s Apprentice Hub manager, said: “The WCC apprenticeship scheme has been a great success for the council and brought a wealth of fresh new talent into the authority.
“It has enabled us to provide well over 100 young apprentices with the skills and experience to begin their careers with us, while filling skills gaps in the organisation. The apprentices provide invaluable support to the teams and service areas of which they are part of and which support the county’s communities.
“It’s brilliant that we can offer such a diverse range of apprenticeship opportunities across our service areas, from accountancy to forestry, highway engineering to social care and customer service to vehicle maintenance.
Council leader and economic growth spokesman, Coun Izzi Seccombe, said the council wanted to give young people in the county the best possible career options.
She added: We have long been passionate about apprenticeships and to be named in the top 100 employers is wonderful recognition of the great work done by our Apprenticeship Hub – and the apprentices themselves, of course.”
Visit www.warwickshire.gov.uk/apprenticeships for further details.
