Agency approves £2.3m for Graduate Business Programme

Regional development agency One North East has approved more than £2.3m of funding for its Graduates for Business programme.

The programme is tied in to the regional development agency’s Driving Demand for Higher Level Skills activities, and allows small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) to experience the benefits graduates can bring to their business.

As employees of participating companies, recent graduates will carry out specific, high level projects. Graduates for Business provides a proven medthod of how the latest techniques and learning from the region’s HEIs and colleges  can be introduced into businesses.

Graduates for Business has given MSEs the opportunity to expand their markets, improve their processes, develop new products, introduce new technologies, increase their sales and achieve financial savings. And graduates have the opportunity to develop their business skills at work.

The funding, which has been approved by the board of One North East, will subsidise the placement of recent graduates within regional SMEs, by proving employers with a £70 per week allowance for 15 weeks.

The Graduates for Business programme also aims to:
• Provide a pathway for graduates through employment into enterprise and business
• Contribute towards encouraging enterprise and innovation in the workplace and workforce, in turn improving competitiveness
• Create enterprising and innovative individuals and businesses

Gillian Collinson, One North East’s Skills and Higher Education Manager, said: “Retaining our graduates is so important for the future development of the region, and at the moment the North East has a lower level of its economically active population qualified to degree level than any other English region.

“The benefit of the Graduates for Business programme is that it provides a way of introducing highly skilled people to regional businesses, which in turn will raise the number of former students staying in the region, increase the success of our businesses, and the productivity of the North East.”

Graduates for Business has been running successfully since 2003/04, with over 80 per cent of graduates placed with regional SMEs being retained in employment, resulting in a return of £3.83 (including turnover and profit) for every £1 invested.

Gillian Collinson added: “If we are to meet the ambitious Regional Economic Strategy targets of creating between 18,000 and 22,000 new business and around 70,000 new jobs, we have to encourage our graduates to stay in the region.

“We need to show them that they can have a successful career in the region, that they can realise their ambitions here, and Graduates for Business enables us to do that. I’m delighted One North East has been able to support Graduates for Business with over £3m of funding.”

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For more information please contact: Leanne English, press office, One North East, on Tel: (0191) 2296738, 07917 232678, or email:
Leanne.English@onenortheast.co.uk