National accolade for Holbeach Campus

2 February 2007: University of Lincoln Holbeach Campus has earned a national accolade as a centre of specialist learning for skills in manufacturing chilled ready meals.

It has been selected as one of the first accredited Academy Training Centres within the new National Skills Academy for Food and Drink Manufacturing. The government’s skills minister Phil Hope announced on Wednesday (31 January 2007) the go-ahead for the £4.4 million academy, which is set to open in April, and is forecast to deliver new skills to at least 28,000 people during its first four years.

It is only the fourth of a new network of sector-based National Skills Academies to be established, and is the culmination of more than two years of research, planning and development by leading employers, co-ordinated by Improve, the food and drink sector skills council.

The academy will be administered from Improve’s head offices at York, while the majority of training programmes will be delivered through a network of approved Academy Centres, including Holbeach Campus. It is anticipated that there will be 35 such centres within three years. Initially there are five, each designated by its particular specialist area of expertise. The other four are Grimsby Institute of Further and Higher Education (fish processing); Poultec Training, Dereham in Norfolk (meat and poultry); Reaseheath College in Nantwich (dairy); and Johnson Diversey in Northampton (food hygiene).

“This is a major new landmark in the training provision for food and drink manufacturers,” said the chairman of Improve Paul Wilkinson, who is also chairman of two food manufacturers, Big Bear and Produce World. “The National Skills Academy has been driven by employers’ needs, has been designed by employers, and will be run by employers.”

Val Braybrooks, director of Holbeach campus, said:

“We are delighted that the Holbeach Campus has been chosen to pioneer the delivery of specialist technical skills for this dynamic and innovative sector, and look forward to working with employers to further develop provision. We are indebted to employers for their support and to the equipment suppliers, led by Ishida Europe, whose generosity ensures that employees partaking in skills training can benefit from the latest technologies and advanced equipment.”

A key benefit of the academy is that it will draw upon the best expertise available in order to develop new training programmes and learning units specifically to meet the needs of employers. Already there are ideas in the pipeline for about 40 new programmes and units which eventually will be accessed through the new academy.

The first wholly new programme to be offered nationwide as soon as the academy opens its doors is ‘Production management–a lean approach’. It has been designed especially for the academy and will deliver learning units pitched at NVQ levels 2 and 3. Learners can select from job-specific units for bakery, meat and poultry, sea-fish processing, or general food manufacturing. More units for other specialist areas will be added later.

The programme can be followed in the form of a blended e-learning course, which is a combination of online study and classroom or work-based learning. The online parts of the programme will be available through the National Skills Academy web site, which will go live in March, and which will also provide an information base for learners and employers.

Web site features will include: diagnostic tools to identify the skills that individuals might require and the best training solutions available; a course-finder tool that works with a fully searchable database; on-line training courses; and access to training materials. The web site will also act as the communications and information centre for the academy’s administration.

Further information

Costs–The academy is costing £4.4 million to set up in its first three years, after which it is forecast to become self-financing through the sale of training programmes to employers.

Capital contributions from employers over the first three years, in the form of donations of equipment and premises at Academy Training Centres, amount to £1.4 million, and are backed up by another £1 million from employers in the form of rent waivers and training programme development contributions. Employers are expected to contribute to the academy another £1 million in cash sponsorship in the first three years to match £1 million in cash committed by the government through its Learning and Skills Council.

Jaine Clarke, Learning and Skills Council Director of Skills for Employers, which manages the network of National Skills Academies, said:

“Employer sponsorship is key to the success of the National Skills Academies and benefits to them are far reaching. This is why companies such as Warburton’s, Nestle UK and RHM chose to lead in the creation of the National Skills Academy for Food and Drink Manufacturing. They know that a highly trained and motivated workforce delivers improvements to productivity and performance overall.”

Improve–Improve is one of 25 sector skills councils established by the government to take the lead in driving up skills in the workplace in order to promote higher productivity and stronger competitiveness for UK businesses in the global market. Funded primarily by the government, sector skills councils are also supported by employers, whose needs they represent when stimulating change among the providers of education and skills. Sector skills councils work closely with employers to promote greater commitment to improving skills in their workforces, and with schools, colleges, universities, and private training organisations to improve the provision of basic skills training and to make vocational and occupational training more relevant to the modern commercial climate.