Partnership between education and enterprise key to Wiltshire's economic future

Author
Ian Larrard
Director - Swindon & Wiltshire Initiative | Business West
22nd July 2019

Wiltshire College’s impressive Lackham campus was the venue for July’s Wiltshire Business & Economy Meeting hosted by Swindon & Wiltshire Initiative in partnership with Swindon & Wiltshire LEP.

As one of four Wiltshire College campuses across the county, Lackham sits on a 1600-acre estate, providing ample space for the hands-on farming and land management training the College is renowned for.

Amanda Burnside, Principal of Wiltshire College, who sits on Swindon & Wiltshire LEP’s board, told businesses that Lackham’s situation ensures that students are primed to enter the workplace as soon as they graduate. Wiltshire College works closely with local employers to tailor curriculum to their needs. The College’s specialist agri-tech curriculum, for example, has been designed with dairy farming in mind due to the presence of a number of dairy farms in the local area. Amanda went on to explain how the College’s vocational degrees and apprenticeships are helping to reduce so-called ‘brain drain’ by training skilled young people for hard to fill job vacancies.

Wiltshire is a net exporter of young people, so this maintain this link between business and education is vital said Paddy Bradley, Director of Swindon & Wiltshire LEP, who explained that attracting and retaining young people in the area is one of the LEPs key priorities. Skilled young workers are central to a vibrant and growing economy he continued, before singling out education providers such as Wiltshire College and the future Institute of Technology as being vital to achieving this.

Paddy then went on to discuss the local industrial strategy. As one of the 38 LEP areas in England, Paddy and his team were tasked by BEIS to devise a local industrial strategy, which outlines how they plan to implement the government’s overarching national industrial strategy at a local level in Swindon & Wiltshire.

Paddy confirmed that the strategy will be finalised in October and a launch event is planned for the 12th September – the day before the next Wiltshire Business & Economy meeting on 13th September.

Following Paddy, Charlie Collier, Business Development Manager of CMD Recruitment gave a fascinating insight into the employment market in Swindon & Wiltshire and across the South West as a whole. He revealed some shocking statistics that demonstrate just how tight the jobs market is for businesses at this present moment in time. According to CMD’s research, job ads on Indeed – the world’s largest jobs site – receive on average less than 1 click per day across the South West. Given such a difficult marketplace, he said that more and more businesses are turning to agencies rather than recruiting DIY.

Andrew Wells, Manager of Swindon & Wiltshire Initiative at Business West, talked about how businesses benefit from being part of the wider Business West network. One of the key functions of the Initiative is to act as broker to help cultivate business opportunities between members. New College’s Caroline Maycock - who is responsible for promoting the benefits of apprenticeship to employers and learners - was present in the audience and described how membership had helped her to establish contact with a number of hard to reach businesses. 

Wiltshire Community Foundation’s Gary Lawrence, former editor of the Swindon Advertiser, gave a fascinating insight into the Foundation’s history and the role it plays in supporting local charities today. Over the last 40 years with the support of individuals, companies and trusts WCF has built an endowment of £22 million to generate grants for the future benefit of local communities and young people. They have made grants worth £10 million since 1991, with 498 grants given to people and community or charitable groups worth £1.2 million in 2017/18 alone.

Wiltshire Council’s, Jol Rose, Centre Manager of The Enterprise Network, then spoke about the Council’s key economic development projects, including Porton Down. A multi-million pound science park for businesses specialising in health and life sciences opened on the site last year. Twelve companies have already taken up residence at the park including Ploughshare Innovations (the technology transfer office for the UK MOD) KalVista, Fluorogenics and Immunotec, with phase 2 of the project set to develop 9.5 hectares of land for established companies seeking direct association with the Porton Down’s scientific community and the surrounding cluster of Life Sciences excellence in Wiltshire.

Director of Swindon & Wiltshire Initiative, Ian Larrard invited questions for the speakers from the circa 45 businesses in attendance before outlining the meeting’s key takeaways and thanking Wiltshire College for their input.

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