Graeme yesterday participated in a debate on Scottish Apprenticeship Week. He took the opportunity to pay tribute to Alan Swankie, the Managing Director of Angus Training Group, who is to retire shortly.
You can read his speech below or watch it at http://www.scottishparliament.tv/20170302_members_business?in=00:11:00&out=00:15:35.
I thank Fulton MacGregor for bringing the debate to the chamber. Apprenticeship week provides an opportunity to highlight the huge benefits of people being able to work and earn while studying and, in many cases, ultimately acquiring a skill set for which there will always be a demand. Of course, university, college or entering the workplace is right for some, but an apprenticeship will provide the ideal solution for others. I welcome the fact that that range of choices is on offer to our young people.
Last year, two young men from my constituency were recognised for embracing the benefits of an apprenticeship. Callum Low, who started working at Invermark estate in 2015, was named the Scottish Gamekeepers Association young gamekeeper of the year. He manages grouse, deer stalking and other resident wildlife on the 55,000 acre mixed sporting estate. Callum was also named student gamekeeper of the year in 2014 and Lantra’s apprentice of the year and learner of the year in 2015. Shaun Davies was named apprentice of the year at the trades awards last year. Shaun, who is an apprentice bricklayer with Stewart Milne Homes, was recognised for the being the best in his class when he was at college and for
“unwavering motivation and ambition to hone his skills in the trade and for his unparalleled work-ethic, as well as his ability to learn fast and … attention to detail.”
I am never one to pass up an opportunity to highlight success stories from my constituency, but I also want to focus on the provision of a safety net for when things go wrong, as they sometimes do—not through anything that an apprentice may have done but perhaps when an employer goes into administration.
In 2014, that was the fate that befell John M Henderson, an engineering firm in Arbroath, with 16 apprentices being told that they were to lose their jobs, although eight of them had started their apprenticeships just 11 weeks earlier. It was a devastating experience for not only the young people concerned, but their wider families. I know because, as the constituency MSP, I was contacted by a number of them and was actively involved in securing a solution.
Thanks to the Scottish Government’s adopt an apprentice scheme and a terrific local rally-round, those who were in the second year or later stages of their apprenticeships did not have too much trouble finding other employment. If memory serves me right, all bar one continued their apprenticeships elsewhere, the exception being a lad who decided to change career path.
I acknowledge the fantastic contributions made to that rally-round by the Angus Training Group, Angus Council and the local partnership action for continuing employment team. I also recognise that firms that took on those apprentices were able to receive support from the adopt an apprentice scheme, which offers employers in the oil and gas sector financial incentives of £5,000 and those in all other industries £2,000 to help with the wage costs of taking on an apprentice who has been let go.
The big challenge around the Henderson apprentices was finding work for the eight lads who had barely embarked upon their first year, five of whom were in the care of Angus Training Group and three of whom were at Angus College. That is where Angus Training Group really stepped up to the mark by, at a potential cost of up to £18,000, assuming responsibility for its new starts and guaranteeing them the completion of the first year of their apprenticeship training regardless of whether employers were found.
Angus Council also stepped up to the mark by supporting Angus Training Group via its towards employment scheme with wages and travel costs for 12 weeks or until employment was found so that the apprentices were in a position to continue their training. Ultimately, two of the five found other employers and one went to college. The money that Angus Council provided meant that the remaining apprentices could be kept on for over 30 weeks—the rest of their full training year—before finding employment.
I relate that tale not to introduce a negative note, but to highlight during apprenticeship week the fact that it is not always plain sailing and that, between them, the various bodies and the Government provided, and provide, the safety net that I touched upon.
I take the opportunity provided by apprenticeship week and the debate to pay tribute to Alan Swankie, the managing director of Angus Training Group, who is to retire shortly. Alan is stepping down after 39 years. In that time, more than 1,600 apprentices have passed through the group’s doors. With the grounding that it has given them, those young men and women have gone on to make careers for themselves in the engineering sector. That is quite a career achievement for Alan and a testament to the work done by that highly-regarded training provider.
