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Shared Apprentice Ltd
Background
Due to an estimated decline in the construction industry of 15% since 2012 in the
UK, many smaller local companies had ceased trading and those that survived had
made cutbacks in their workforce and scale. All this was leading to a lack of locally
skilled tradespeople within the Construction sector however at the same time, the
unemployment rate amongst 16-24 year olds had grown substantially more than
any other age group since 2008.
This lack of local skilled tradespeople aligned to a substantial youth
unemployment issue seemed like a perfect fit, however the barrier of finding small
companies with the longevity and stability to commit to long term apprenticeship
training to fill the skills gaps needed to be overcome.
History
Shared Apprentice Ltd (SAL) was created to provide a framework for a shared
apprenticeship programme for the construction sector in order to train
apprentices to fill the local skills gap, whilst addressing the youth unemployment
issue and with the key element of providing opportunities for small companies to
take an apprentice without the multi year commitment that is problematic for
smaller businesses.
SAL was set up as a non-profit company with a board of Directors from four
operational groups:
1. Dundee and Angus College - the vocational training provider
2. Angus Council - the local government authority
3. Local businesses - the on-site training provider
4. Industry groups such as CITB (Construction Industry Training Board), SDS
(Skills Development Scotland), SBF (Scottish Building Federation) and
SBATC (Scottish Building Apprenticeship and Training Council)
DELTA (2017-1-UK01-KA202-036810) IO3