Member Article

'Significant achievement' for LSC North East

Moves to improve the skills of everyone living and working in the North East are making significant progress, according to the region’s Learning and Skills Council (LSC). The main target is to develop the skills of both young people and adults, who may or may not be in work, to upskill the workforce and to invest in the region’s centres of learning.

The achievements are highlighted in the LSC North East’s first ever performance report, Delivering Learning and Skills in the North East, which relates to 2005-06 and is published this week. The report sets out the benefits to both individuals and employers of the near half-billion pound investment in learning and skills made in the North East by the Government over the past year.

One of the important results highlighted by the LSC has been raising the achievements of school leavers, with 70,000 16 to 18-year-olds being given support to continue their learning through further education, entry to employment or work-based training programmes. Almost 8,500 young people aged 16 to 18 have achieved full Level 2 qualifications such as GCSEs and National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs), an increase of 15% on the previous year, and more than 11,500 people over 19 reached Level 2, again a rise of 24%.

Chris Roberts, Regional Director, LSC North East, said: “Our achievements are testament to our efforts to find new, innovative ways for people to learn, to work with employers to improve the skills of their workforce, to develop training to address skills shortages, to measure how we are doing against other countries to ensure that we are the best in the world and to work with our many partners to ensure that what’s on offer is relevant to changing technologies, industry and Government.”

Pat Ritchie, Assistant Chief Executive (strategy) for One NorthEast said: “The LSC has played a key role in taking forward key areas of joint working. We are leading the way in being the first region in England to develop a service which fully integrates skills and business brokerage and the new Regional Employability Framework, changing the way in which we jointly tackle worklessness in this region. This provides better, more integrated services to help people back into jobs and to support employers.”

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