Denne, part of the Leadbitter Group, has won the Employer Innovation Award at the 2012 JTL South East Regional Awards, in recognition of its work in creating construction apprenticeships and its engagement with schools and colleges.
Denne is committed to creating long term employment opportunities and improving the skills of local people, through skills centres set up on its construction projects across south east England.
The first of these was at the Stanhope regeneration project in Ashford, Kent. The centre was the first in the UK to be accredited by the National Skills Academy (NSA) for construction and the first ever for a housing project. Since then, Denne has established skills centres on projects in Rochester in Kent, South Kilburn in London, Harlow in Essex, and two in Brighton.
Covering four principle areas, the skills centres deliver work experience, apprenticeships, National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs) and the Construction Skills Certification Scheme (CSCS). Denne works with employment agencies to provide training for the unemployed and with employers to encourage them to take on apprentices and employ local people.
As part of its community engagement programme, Denne works with local schools and colleges to organise site visits, workshops and other activities, designed to show young children the exciting career opportunities on offer in the construction industry.
Graham Brown, Managing Director of Denne, said: “We are delighted to have won this award, which recognises the enormous effort our project teams make to create job opportunities for local people. Denne is committed to maintaining apprenticeships and also expanding the ways in which we can incorporate innovative training opportunities into our projects as part of our community engagement model.”
JTL is the leading training provider to the building services engineering sector and the second largest work based learning provider in the country. It supports over 10,000 apprentices and over 3,500 employers.
