Caerphilly county borough council is leading the way with ambitious plans to create 100 new training places for young people across the area.
In this year’s budget, the council put aside almost half a million pounds to invest in providing training and development opportunities for young people. It is hoped that this investment by the council can be match funded, which would raise the funding pot to around £1 million.
The government has recently announced that it would make £60 million available to create apprenticeships and work placements for young people in the private sector. Cllr Allan Pritchard, deputy leader of Caerphilly council said, “It seems that we are already one step ahead in our plans to provide training opportunities to our young people. I am really excited with the ideas being put forward as we want to give our youngsters the best chance of gaining real employment for the future.
The authority is planning to put in place one hundred placements for people aged between 16 –25 yrs.
Cllr Pritchard added, “The colleges have shown great enthusiasm to join with the council in forming work placements for their students. We also met Kate Sullivan of the Prince’s Trust who showed enormous interest in working with the council to maximise work experience for young people they link with.”
“The whole council is backing this initiative and we will use the local job centres and make sure we apply a fair process to anyone who wants to apply to get their foot on the first rung of the job market. This is very much a local initiative by the council and we will of course want to make sure local Caerphilly county borough people are given preference in this scheme.”
