IEE Recruitment and Skills Centres Network

The ESESCRD is a UK and Scottish government-led investment in the region where 24% of Scotland's population live, designed to accelerate productivity and inclusive growth through the funding of infrastructure, skills and innovation.

No One Left Behind, Next Steps for the Integration and Alignment of Employability Support in Scotland, urges the need to incrementally develop an integrated regional employability and skills system that: 

• Is more flexible, tailored, and takes a 'whole person' approach 
• Is more straightforward for people to navigate 
• Is better integrated and aligned or interwoven with other supporting services 
• Provides pathways into sustainable and fair work 
• Is driven by evidence to support people into the right job at the right time 
• Is designed, delivered, and improved in partnership 
• Is responsive to those with high needs (e.g. young care leavers, workless, and those in low paid or insecure jobs) who are at major risk of missing out on the benefits of economic growth 
• minimises skills shortages and gaps or gender imbalances in our key growth sectors, while promoting greater workforce diversity.

The IEE Project aims to drive a more proactive, regional, and sectoral-specific approach to early skills and new skills development appropriate to local labour market conditions. The IEE Project will provide the platform for all relevant stakeholders, including the diverse SME sector, to come together and engage with their key industry sector partners to provide training and support for local people to allow them to progress in and onto employment with the key skills that the various sectors need. More people will be able to access and gain employment as a result. 

The IEE Project will develop a network of Recruitment and Skills Centres to act as a tangible interface between the partners and business, particularly in geographic or sectoral high demand areas. Using the partners’ experience of Recruitment and Skills Centre public/private partnerships (e.g. Fort Kinnaird RSC), this Project will expand our physical footprint so that we can improve employer relationship building, enhance service delivery and support job matching.

There are many examples of good practice employability and skills services operating across the region, for example, Edinburgh Guarantee, Joined Up For Jobs, Joined Up For Business, Access to Work, East Lothian Works, Opportunities Fife, Developing Midlothian’s Young Workforce etc. Expanding this network and building on existing centres in other key geographic areas would help support the recruitment and training needs of business and the RSC Network Project will lead on this expansion. 

In keeping with the aims of the IEE Project, the RSC Network will introduce Regional Skills Partnerships by engaging stakeholders in the private, public and third sectors to develop a regional skills’ offer that takes into consideration current and future Labour Market data. 

A regional offer will provide additional benefits to employers by focusing the efforts of partner organisations to better meet their skills and recruitment needs. By creating a dedicated resource, in areas where there are or will be job opportunities, employers can access a greater pool of talent more easily and more quickly.

Our current network of RSC’s has allowed us to build an expert knowledge of the retail and hospitality industries which we will utilise to enhance our regional offer within these sectors. We aim to build this knowledge and apply this process to other sectoral high demand areas such as Health and Social Care, Construction, Digital Skills, Green Skills etc. 

By adopting this approach, we will provide a focal point for employability providers to access jobs and opportunities for their clients.

We are keen to engage with businesses who are facing barriers when it comes to their recruitment, whether they be long-standing, sectoral issues or barriers brought on by Brexit, the pandemic, current labour market and economic trading conditions and also barriers that businesses face when developing their own skills and academy offerings. Through an innovative, partnership approach, we aim to address and break down these barriers to enable businesses to recruit and train successfully with a view to identifying best practice and rolling this out across the ESES area. 

Our “No Wrong Door” approach means we can tap into our network of partners to ensure your business needs are met with the expert knowledge and tools needed to address recruitment barriers. We work closely with the Skills Gateway project (Data Driven Innovation and Housing, Construction and Infrastructure) to identify skills and training gaps and will develop a talent pool for both Gateways to ensure vacancies are filled. 

Owing to the success of our current Recruitment and Skills Centre Network, we are able to act on a consultancy basis to employers who are looking to set up their own Training Academy/Centres, whether they be physical Centres or an on-the-job Academy model. By Project-end, we aim to have developed our physical RSC footprint across the ESES area and have created partnerships whereby best practice is identified and implemented throughout sectoral high demand areas.

RSC Support and Grants Programme 

In the event of a business facing financial barriers around the development or implementation of their own academy or skills centre, they may be able to access funding through our RSC Support and Grants Programme. To discuss our Support and Grants Programme in more detail, please get in touch directly with the IEE Manager: kenny.hall@capitalcitypartnership.org

For more information on the RSC Network, watch the video below or contact Kenny Hall - Integrated Employer Engagement Officer, by completing the form at the bottom of this page.