Collaborative Workshops
The Public Service Academy has selected ‘Hot Topic’ areas that they see as a high priority and are going to work together on. Below is a summary of some of the current topics:
Apprenticeships
Each of the PSA partners is committed to apprentices and has decided they are going to work together on increasing the amount of apprenticeships. Some of the partner organisations have been doing apprenticeship programmes for 30 years, and some are new to this field; and together they will share best practice information.
The North East Apprenticeship Company (NEAC)
The NEAC was set up by Gateshead Council and Gateshead College in a response to the Government wanting to have more apprenticeship positions.
The Company will be based in Gateshead and makes Gateshead the leaders in this field with this new innovative and exciting creation.
NEAC will higher people as apprentices and will source out the apprentices to employers at a competitive rate (above the £95/week). This company will remove the barrier of employing an apprentice in to an organisation (large and small) and will put its focus on creating new apprenticeship positions not replacing the current ones.
The benefits for employers will be that they all administration will be done for them meaning more time and energy can be focused on the apprenticeship and any size company can have an apprentice. One of the benefits for the apprentices is that they will get to experience different types of employers and organisations giving them more opportunities.
Skills Pledge
The Skills Pledge is a voluntary, public commitment by organisations to develop their basic skills and work towards relevant, valuable qualifications. Four of the partner organisations have signed unto the national skills pledge scheme covering a wide range of workers and sectors across Gateshead.
Jeff Dean, Director of Corporate Services at Gateshead council said:
“This event marks an important commitment to the development of staff. On going training and development is key to providing a better service to local people and driving up the skills of our staff…It also demonstrates how much we value or workers and how we want to establish an environment that helps people grow and thrive in the workplace.”
Job Swaps
This is where employees from the partner organisation will have the opportunity to ‘swop jobs’ with someone else in the same job but different department or even organisation. This will give employees the chance to improve their passport-able skills in the public sector; improving the skills of the public sector workforce.