National Apprenticeship Service

South East

Information Bulletin

December 2009

In this issue:

Seasons Greetings - message from David Way, Deputy Chief Exec

Apprenticeship Vacancies

Marketing Update

Release 4 Update

FOR INFORMATION

Apprenticeship vacancies data

Using Social Media

Training

Contact Details

We hope you find this bulletin useful.  If there is anything you would like to see included in the next edition please contact Ellie Ulrich.

Seasons Greetings – Message from David Way

As we come to the end of 2009 all of us at the National Apprenticeship Service wanted to get in touch to wish you an enjoyable festive season and a very successful New Year. As our key partners you have really helped us make 2009 a great year for Apprenticeships so thank you. At the NAS, as we know many of you do too, we now live and breathe Apprenticeships – and so we thought you may find it interesting to know just how Apprentices will be involved in helping you to have a great festive season. You’ll find some festive Apprenticeship success stories below.

The stamp of success

With workloads increasing at this time of year, Royal Mail is one company that particularly relies on their apprentices.  Having recently recruited over 100 apprentices, Diane Cashell, Accreditation Manager at Royal Mail comments, “Obviously our whole model changes at Christmas and all members of staff, no matter what their role, will be involved in what we call ‘the operation’. The amount of mail posted each day, usually 75 million items, can as much as double so it really is all hands on deck. This autumn’s apprentice recruits are now experiencing their first Christmas with us. They will doubtless be run off their feet, but it can also be very heartwarming as I know from experience how much this time of year reinforces to all staff what a unique role we play in the community. We place a lot of importance on our Apprenticeship programme and it’s great to see them working away to ensure that all of the mail is delivered by Christmas Eve.”

Eat, drink and be merry

With 87% of British people eating roast turkey for their Christmas dinner, you can be sure that butchers and their apprentices up and down the country are already racing to get through the orders. Alan Brown, Master Butcher and Cranstons Food Hall Manager says, “Christmas is an extremely busy time for us and everyone at Cranstons works hard to deliver our award winning quality meats to our customers. Our apprentices are a crucial part of the team, preparing Christmas accompaniments such as our Cumberland sausage chipolatas and helping us with turkey allocations”.

Mince pies around the fire

Having invested in apprentices for years, Sainsbury’s reap the benefits of employing them at this busy time of year.  Gary Tovey, Sainsbury’s qualifications and skills manager, says, “Sainsbury’s apprentices make a huge contribution all year round and even more so at Christmas. From a whole fresh salmon from the fish counter to the freshly baked mince pies from the in-store bakery, apprentices play a vital role in delivering high-quality food to Sainsbury’s shoppers. The success and positive impact of the apprentices is shown by Sainsbury’s target to have an apprentice in every supermarket by March 2010.”

We look forward to continuing to work with you in 2010.

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Apprenticeship vacancies

Use of Apprenticeship vacancies is continuing to grow, but to ensure that the first anniversary of the systems launch goes with a bang, we’d love to see that number shoot up to 100%

Drop in surgeries have been arranged for the 11^th Jan in Reading, and 13^th in Fareham where providers who have not taken the first hurdle of advertising on the system are encouraged to bring along a vacancy to be uploaded during the 1hour training slots, which can be booked through Ellie Ulrich.

Appointments will be on a first come first served basis, initially for providers who had little or no use of the system to date. If you would like to receive training on the system, or for additional members of staff to be trained, please contact your Apprenticeship vacancies coordinator who will be able to arrange alternative dates.

Book your training now so that you are fully prepared for when it becomes contractual to use vacancies online in 2010.

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Marketing Update

Apprenticeship Week

2010’s Apprenticeship Week kicks off on 1^st to 5^th February, it aims to raise awareness of the Apprenticeship programme, and promote the business benefits to employers.  There will be a programme of activities organised across the country which will include advertising campaigns, events and public relations.  Many partner organisations will be involved including ALPSE, RDAs, Business Link, Chambers of Commerce, Sector Skills Councils, EBPs and Connexions.

The South East have produced a summary brief for providers and this details the type of activities that are taking place at a National and Regional level.

In the brief it also details how you can get involved and what we would like you to do to support Apprenticeship Week.

If you have any questions please contact Laura Kennard

National Apprenticeship Awards 2010

The 2010 National Apprenticeships Awards are now officially open for applications at www.apprenticeships.org.uk . Award categories included this year are:

·            Young Apprentice of the year

·            Apprentice of the Year

·            Advanced Apprentice of the Year

·            Employer of the Year (micro, small, medium, large)

Application deadlines for entries this year is 26^th February 2010.

Employers e-badge

The Apprenticeship employer badge has been launched to show consumers which businesses support Apprenticeships.

Employers who hire apprentices can download the Apprenticeship employer badge here.

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Release 4 Update

We now have a date pencilled in for Release 4. This is scheduled to take place on 15^th March and will include the following changes:

• Housekeeping of registered candidates: deleting inactive candidates, and giving them the option to withdraw their registration
• Housekeeping of employer records
• Text editor in Provider profiles and Vacancies, allowing you to format the way the text is presented
• Improvements to the vacancy ladder including: removal of mandatory ILR start date, prompts before completing a vacancy before adding successful candidates, automatic clear down of applications when completing a vacancy
• Accessibility, security and terms and conditions updates
• Making candidates telephone numbers mandatory
• Ability to add New in success rate fields
• Function to email applications to employers

These changes will be covered in more depth at User Groups in the New Year, so please ensure you book your place at these meetings.

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FOR INFORMATION

Apprenticeship Vacancies data

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Using Social Media

Are you currently using Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites to market your organisations?

Nationally, work has started to look at how we can advertise Apprenticeships through these avenues, and we are looking into the ways we can include providers regionally in accounts we will be setting up in the South East. In next months Bulletin we will be sending out more information about how you can follow us, become a fan, or join our group, but for the meantime, any tweeters out there are invited to follow the Apprenticeship twitter account (@Apprenticeships) on www.twitter.com.

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Training

If you require training, please contact your Apprenticeship vacancies Coordinator and they will be happy to arrange one to one training.

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Contact Details

Amanda Sayers, Learner Services Manager, Apprenticeship Vacancies Online - 0118 908 2210

Ellie Ulrich – 0118 908 2183 (West - Thames Valley, Hampshire)

Alison Williams – 01273 783579 (East - Surrey, Sussex, Kent)

Office cover hours – Monday-Friday, 9.00am-5.00pm.

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