Research, evaluation and insight

The Courseware Library Project aimed to encourage employers and training providers to become learning organisations, and introduce employers and learners to new learning technologies.

Scottish Enterprise Borders (SEB) commissioned an interim and final evaluation of Skills for the Future, its workforce development programme for small and medium sized businesses in the Borders area which assists firms to identify, prioritise and take up appropriate training linked to business growth objectives.

Scottish Enterprise (SE) Forth Valley ran the Environmental Services Programme (ESP) from 2002 to 2008 with the aim of involving local SMEs in activities which would reduce their impact on the environment while increasing profitability.

The Lanarkshire Enterprise Zone (EZ) aimed to ‘achieve economic regeneration by attracting inward investment and facilitating creation of 7,500 new jobs to Lanarkshire’, as well as preparing 173 ha of land for development.

Glasgow’s Business Efficiency Initiative (GBEI) and Lean Management Thinking (LMT) includes the following programmes: Lean Management Thinking (LMT); Innovation and New Product Development (NPD); and Environmental Audits/support to achieve ISO 14001.

The Leadership Development Programme (LDP) and Developing Managers of the Future (DMF) programme were run as part of Scottish Enterprise Ayrshire’s (SE Ayrshire) Growing Business goal, to offer a comprehensive business support service to SMEs in the area of management and leadership development.

Scottish Enterprise (SE) Ayrshire’s New Product Development (NPD) / Expert Help Programme aimed to deal with shortfalls in knowledge and skills and encourage innovation by tackling the barrier of financial risk associated with investment in Research and Development (R & D).

Resource Efficiency Environmental Forum (REEF), a web based club, focused on topics such as environmental management, waste and energy management.

The overall aim of SE Ayrshire’s innovation related assistance activities was to promote a culture of innovation amongst organisations by: raising awareness of the importance of innovation and creativity; providing opportunities to learn from world class experts in innovation and creativity; providing support to reduce cultural barriers to innovation; and increasing levels of innovation and creativity skills.

Arbroath Employment and Training Initiative, run by Claverhouse, aimed to: provide a range of activities for long term unemployed residents to enhance employability; identify suitable job vacancies in the area for clients; and match clients to these vacancies thereby helping both employers and the unemployed.

The Financial Services Access to Call Centre project was a pilot, stand-alone project which aimed to raise awareness of job opportunities in and increase the pool of skilled labour for financial services call centres in the Edinburgh and Coatbridge areas.

In response to anecdotal evidence of local recruitment problems, the evaluation aimed to: assess the extent of recruitment and retention issues among Tayside food and drink manufacturers; determine the nature and extent of skill shortages and hard-to-fill vacancies; evaluate the impact of those skill shortages on business performance; identify the existence of market failure issues and assess the rationale for public sector intervention; examine potential sources of suitable labour in both loca…

Scottish Enterprise Grampian launched a food production efficiency programme with six Grampian food and drink companies in 1998, the aim of which was to encourage companies to assess and amend their manufacturing processes for maximum efficiency, thereby increasing profitability.

The Food Sector New Product Development (NPD) programme aimed to provide training, advice and guidance to businesses in the food sector and to establish a systematic process for NPD and a greater understanding of the NPD process.

SEDG contact management system aimed to assist Dumfries and Galloway’s Food and Drink Processing sector.

Get into ENTERPRISE, a Scottish-wide personal development programme, aimed to help tackle barriers that contribute to social exclusion.

The Get Ready for Work (GRfW) Exit Pack aimed to improve positive outcome rates and job sustainability; provide ongoing support for GRfW clients once they have left the programme; encourage them to re-engage with Careers Scotland; and re-engage negative leavers and encourage them to return, if appropriate.

Get Ready for Work (GRFW) is the enterprise network’s national labour market access intervention for young people aged between 16 and 18 with additional support needs (ASN).

The Glasgow Challenge pilot projects helped to move Glasgow’s social excluded, mainly people on ‘non-Job Seekers Allowance’ (JSA), into employment.

Glasgow Exports (GE) aimed to provide bespoke support to the international business development needs of Glasgow-based businesses.

Glasgow Works aimed to tackle Glasgow’s problem of long-term unemployment.

The Glasgow Works programme aimed to introduce an Intermediate Labour Market (ILM) approach, with a wider range of activities available to the long-term unemployed, and the devolution of project delivery to community-based and training organisations.

The Go for Tourism initiative aimed to identify and address the key skills and labour market challenges that the tourism sector faced in the Forth Valley area.

Graduates for Business (GFB) was set up with the aim of helping businesses become more competitive by accessing the skills of graduates from Scotland’s universities.

Graduates for Growth (GfG) was established in January 1998 as a means of bringing together graduates and SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) employers.