At the end of last week we celebrated the huge success of our Wiltshire Apprenticeship scheme. Wiltshire apprentices and the businesses that provided them with the opportunity to kick-start or re-start their careers were invited to a special business breakfast in Salisbury. Former winner of The Apprentice, Tim Campbell was the key note speaker sharing his personal experiences. He was a real inspiration and great orator keeping over a hundred people engaged and captivated by sharing his vision and message that we need to invest in young people – all young people including those not in education, employment or training – as everyone has something to offer and can make a real difference to the local economy. I am passionate about helping young people to access training, work and the help they need to get them started and the apprenticeships have been key to helping with this. In July last year working with the National Apprenticeship Service, Wiltshire College and a number of other training providers and business representative groups, we pledged to create 1,000 new or additional apprenticeships in Wiltshire and I am delighted that we have surpassed this figure and show no sign of stopping! By 31st of July we had reached well over the 1,000 target with 1,130 apprenticeship starts.
Wiltshire is currently in the top five areas nationally for business investment and we want to ensure that we can offer the skills needed for current and future businesses so that they can grow and thrive. We need to make sure that we have the right education and training in the county. The new university technology college, which will be located in Salisbury, will specialise in science and engineering helping to skill young people for work opportunities at places such as the new Porton Down science park. The new college, which is due to open in 2015, will be discussed at this month’s cabinet meeting, when we are updated on its progress. Next Tuesday the local media are invited to a pre-cabinet briefing where I will talk through the reports that cabinet will consider on 22 October. As well as progress on the new university technical college, cabinet will discuss proposals for investment into our roads. This is one of 12 key actions in the new business plan and is always a key priority for local people.
Yesterday and today (9/10 October) I’m participating in a major incident training exercise, which aims to test our major incident plan and how we work with our partners should a major incident occur in Wiltshire. These training days are always a good opportunity to see how we would respond in the event of a major incident and how we would manage the media and, in particular, social media. It’s frightening the speed that news becomes public these days. We all know that any incident is likely to hit the news literally minutes after it’s happened and that there is an expectation that we (all partners) will respond and update and know what’s happening!
Next week I’ve been invited to join a round table discussion with other council leaders and LGC to discuss how we rewire and reinvigorate local government to make it interesting and engaging to the public as well as sustainable into the future; the decreasing funding combined with the increasing demand makes this a big challenge! This is a huge topic and one that I am really keen to be involved in. We need to radically change how local democracy is seen and how we can build trust with local communities and tax payers. If we want communities to do more for themselves we have to build stronger relationships and work together to achieve this. We need to look at how we stimulate people to get involved and to care about what happens in their local area. Whilst we have built some strong foundations I’m keen to explore what more we can do and to hear how others view this. More on the round table discussion next week…
And finally, in my blog last week I talked about the 28 Wiltshire veterans who were invited to County Hall last Friday afternoon to recognise their service on the Arctic Convoys and those who served as aircrew of Bomber Command in World War Two to receive their Arctic Star medal or Bomber Command Clasp as a mark of their valour, gallantry and contribution to their country. I apologise if the way this was worded last week caused any confusion. The ceremony was long overdue and I was delighted to be part of honouring these brave and gallant gentlemen.
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| Chair of the council, Christine Crisp, presented medals to veterans |
Jane
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