Improve lives up to its name

But this is just the start of things, and Improve is due to go live with a number of schemes over the coming months to continue its momentum in tackling career issues.

First up is the roll out of a pilot scheme of its Skills Academy which will provide training more closely suited to a company's needs. From the middle of last month around 30 companies, of various sizes, from Scotland, Humberside, east Midlands and East Anglia, have been involved in the pilot which sees Improve developing a training package and matching each company's training needs with the most suitable training providers.

Companies such as The Sauce Co, Jacksons Bakery, Peartree Foods and Fox's Confectionery are using the Skills Academy for training in areas such as line management, health and safety, engineering and sensory testing. Even very specific training is catered for -- Improve is helping producer of game products, the Wild Meat Co, receive training on legislative issues concerning the export of game.

Improve's chief executive Jack Matthews says the results of the pilot will be reviewed before its national launch next month. Manufacturers will then be able to access the Academy via Improve's website.

"The idea is to take the academy across the UK and make it readily available to employers," he says. "It will open a number of avenues whereby an employer can identify its training needs. We will put together a package that best suits the employer and employee, source the supplier of that product and decide the process in which it is best delivered."

Improve is also following up on the manufacturing and distribution apprenticeship it developed in association with Coca-Cola, with a new apprenticeship covering food and drink operations and engineering. "This is something which employers are saying can we have as quickly as possible?," says Matthews.

It is currently talking to a number of large manufacturers to create a pool of food and drink manufacturing and engineering apprenticeships that will be industry-led and recognised across the UK.

"Companies will be able to utilise the technical underpinning knowledge that an apprenticeship gives an individual in terms of the application of it at the actual workplace," says Matthews. "It means they are not faced with a person who has all the technical background but does not know how to apply it."

The SSC is also due to begin conducting the first UK-wide research into overseas workers employed in food and drink to discover whether such workers have the skills required to fill skills gaps in the industry.

The aim of the research, says Matthews, will be to give UK employers a better understanding of how overseas workers can fit into their business in more ways than just undertaking unskilled casual labour.

"We know from market research the industry will be 200,000 people short by 2012. So where are these extra people coming from and what roles are they going to fill? Improve wants to look at how to develop a system that food and drink employers have confidence in, and which gives them the ability to know whether skills and vocations an [overseas] person brings are recognised in the UK."FM

*For more details visit http://www.improveltd.org

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