Three city organisations have been awarded funding for projects designed to help people get the right training and skills to get work.
City College Plymouth, Plymouth City Council in Partnership with the YMCA Plymouth and Real Ideas Organisation have this week learnt they have been successful in the UK Shared Prosperity Fund bids.
Between them they have been awarded almost £900,000 of funding following an open call organised by the Council looking for organisations that could deliver skills support, retraining and a focussing on increasing skills and awareness on sustainable and net zero skills/education.
Council Leader Tudor Evans said: “When it comes to encouraging people to get skilled up, we mean business. We have just announced incredibly exciting plans for a skills campus in the Civic Centre.
“We have set out our intention to supercharge the skill sets of our residents – whatever their age or their situation – to help them gain confidence and skills so that they can make the most of the thousands of job opportunities that are on the horizon.
“This is another example of practising what we preach to make sure our residents can play a part in Plymouth’s economic success story and help their families thrive and prosper.”
The organisations are:
· Plymouth Skills Builder by City College Plymouth
Working with partners including Plymouth Argyle Community Trust, Plymouth Active Leisure and Livewell Southwest, this project helps address confidence and resilience, essential digital skills and offers clear routes from training into employment in key sectors. The programme also offers rehabilitative health programmes to support continued employment.
· Skilling Up Plymouth by Plymouth City Council in partnership with YMCA Plymouth
This will give people the confidence and skills to access the city’s growing employment opportunities. It will work with socially excluded and those looking for new careers and it will link people with employers and education/training providers to improve employability and progress into employment in our key sectors. It will help reduce the city’s skills shortages and critical job vacancies.
At the heart of this project is a new team of three skills and workforce coordinators employed by the Council working with a mentoring programme coordinator employed by YMCA Plymouth.
· Devonport Futures by Real Ideas Organisation CIC
A tailored made skills programme linked to the 200th anniversary of the founding of Devonport.By linking the key strands of Devonport 200 – a programme of community activities commemorating the histories, achievements, communities, opportunities and challenges that shape Devonport – participants will be inspired and enabled to develop new skills, work experience, volunteering and connections to employers.
It will focus on two areas – immersive/technical and blue/green (marine and environmental) – and support people who are economically inactive, unemployed or employed, looking to retrain and develop skills. Partners include Plymouth Community Homes, Devon and Plymouth Chamber of Commerce and The National Trust.
Under the conditions of the funding, all activity has to be delivered in the next financial year 2024/25, which starts next month.