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Developing young people and removing barriers to employment

The Council's Employability and Skills Team provides a range of support that can aid both workforce and succession planning.

The Team deliver a range of programmes designed to support young people and adults to develop the skills and experience to successfully progress into work.   As one of the biggest local employers, the Council is in a strong position to support participants to access vacancies and to provide support and guidance including work experience to maximise these opportunities.

The Team supports work placements within the Council through the Workout programme, Town Centre Project, Employability Fund and PAVE (Pathways for Adults Volunteering in Education).  Our Modern Apprenticeship Programme gives young people and adults the opportunity to learn and achieve a vocational qualification while being employed and placed within a council workplace.  In 2019/20 South Ayrshire Council recruited 117 Modern Apprenticeship in a range of vocational areas including Sport and Leisure, Horticulture, Craft Trades, Road, Business & Administration, Social Services and Health Care, Hospitality, Waster Management, Social Services Children and Young People and Youth Work.

The adult employability programme, targeted at people with barriers to employment, provides support to progress participants into employment opportunities through pre-employment training programmes.  The programme, funded by the Scottish Government and European Social Fund, offers a variety of flexible support.  This could include confidence building, work placement opportunities, training, industry specific qualifications and help with applications, CVs and interviews.  Aftercare support is also provided to support individuals to sustain their employment. 

In 2019, the following teams within Employability and Skills have been created:

  • The Targeted Family Support programme offers individuals tailored support to develop the skills to address their situation, such as financial awareness, access to tailored training and increased access to local services. The intervention will specifically seek to address the issues faced by targeted households living in South Ayrshire's most deprived areas. The focus is engagement with individuals in, or at the verge of, crisis.

  • The Family Firm team work towards improving employability outcomes for young people who are care experienced aged 16-25yrs.  They work in partnership with colleague in Social Work, the Champions Boards, Ayrshire College, SDS and DWP.  165 young people have received the offer of support, with 102 young people engaging in our employability programmes.  To date the team have supported 8 care experienced young people to progress to an apprenticeship within the Council.

  • The Supported Employment programme provides support to young people, who have an additional support needs and are aged 16-30.  The programme includes flexible, personalised, one-to-one support and helps individuals to develop confidence and relevant skills to move into employment or further education.  In addition the Council has committed to creating new, tailored, part-time jobs.  These jobs have been specifically created for young people participating in the supported employment programme and are ready to progress in to employment.  To date 2 young people have secured employment with SAC through tailored part-time jobs.

To find out the full range of support available from the Team, contact them on 01292 612301 or at employability.skills@south-ayrshire.gov.uk. You can also them on Facebook- Employability and Skills or on Twitter- EmpSkillsSAC

Organisational Development also oversee a corporate graduate internship programme, specifically designed to support services in key projects or workstreams, and to provide a 'stepping stone' into critical roles or activities. For example, the Council has recently received funding from the Digital Office for a graduate intern to support the Partnership and ICT in delivering a critical telecare project that will have a significant impact on service users. Many interns have gone onto fill key roles on a permanent basis within their 'host' services. The internships run annually, and futher information is available from your OD Advisor.