Two of South Lanarkshire Council’s Economic Development Service schemes have been highly successful in helping local companies and unemployed access training.

The Management Technology Training Grant (MTTG) Scheme recently underwent an independent evaluation by Glasgow-based economic consultants, EKOS Ltd. They looked at the effectiveness of all the schemes currently being operated on a consortium basis by 11 of the local authorities in the west of Scotland.

Between April 1996 and June 1997, the scheme, which is part-funded by the European Social Fund, helped 191 companies and 759 trainees with grant support for training in South Lanarkshire. The total grant awarded for the area between April 1996 and December 1997 was £568,000, of which £255,000 was from the European Social Fund.

Other findings of the evaluation included:

• 65% of training delivered was related to business computing; 9% (double the average) for training in manufacturing; other training included the operation of Quality Assurance (eg ISO9000 awards)
• in South Lanarkshire, 81% of companies reported improvements in productivity, competitiveness and changes in attitude

South Lanarkshire Council also noted success in its Youth Employment Training Initiative (YETI). The scheme also underwent an evaluation recently, this time by the Training & Employment Research Unit of Glasgow University.

The consultants found that the number of unemployed trainees being helped by the scheme rose from 62% in 1995 to 94% in 1998. For the same period, the proportion of long-term (six months plus) unemployed trainees benefiting from the scheme rose from 18% to 47%.

Other positive impacts from the scheme include:

• 20% of companies taking on extra staff because of YETI
• 18% of employers said they hired from a priority group instead of other recruits because of YETI
• 51% provided extra training because of YETI

The outcome for trainees has been very positive. More than two-thirds (78%) felt they had improved their long term job prospects; 62% had achieved their qualification through YETI and 28% are still studying; only 4% of the 1995 starts and none of the 1996 starts are currently unemployed.

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