Tag: business

Police offer security advice to local businesses

breakin

Police in North Edinburgh are offering free crime prevention surveys to businesses in the area.

Officers from the Safer Neighbourhoods Team at Drylaw Police Station will be delivering letters to businesses and offering security surveys to highlight additional measures that can be taken to maximise security, following a spate of night-time break-ins which have occurred since Christmas.

Five men have been arrested and charged in relation to separate alleged break-ins in the last three weeks and additional police resources have been patrolling the area during the night to check premises. Despite this, thieves have continued to target businesses and on occasions returned to several premises that have broken into previously.

In an effort to raise awareness, the police have also alerted other night-time private security staff and council workers to encourage them to immediately report any suspicious or unusual activity when they are working in the area.

Inspector Mark Rennie of Drylaw Police Station said: “It’s really important that businesses review the robustness of the security measures they have in place and ensure all equipment is working. We hope that by offering free surveys and highlighting appropriate measures to take, businesses will do everything they can to make themselves a hard target.

“We’ve informed a lot of local people of the issue but worryingly we haven’t always had calls from residents when noises have been heard emanating from premises during the night. I’d like to encourage people to phone us immediately so that we get officers there quickly.”

Anyone with any information should contact Lothian and Borders Police on 0131 311 3131, or the independent charity Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.

DrylawPolice

Celebrating Career Academies success at RHS

Nine Edinburgh schools have been taking part in Career Academies, a UK wide initiative that brings together the world of business and education to deliver an inspirational programme that includes mentoring, ‘guru lectures’ and internships.

The Royal High School in Barnton hosted an event to celebrate local achievements to date and to give all involved an opportunity to come together to share their experiences. Friday’s event brought together 86 S5/6 students involved in Career Academies, together with their 86 Partners in Business (PiBs) and inspirational Scottish mountaineer Jamie Andrew gave the keynote address.

Career Academy students follow a rigorous two-year enrichment programme alongside their school curriculum, which aims to help them progress to higher education or the world of work from a much more informed, inspired and confident base.

The targeted group of students are those that have been identified as having the potential to secure a place in higher education or employment with the support of a business mentor.  They begin in 5th year at school, aged 16, studying two to three Highers, and are likely to lack informal networks but have great potential.

Career Academies forms part of the city-wide strategy, the Edinburgh Guarantee, to help pupils move into work or education following secondary school.

Councillor Paul Godzik, Education Convener, said: “Career Academies is already proving to provide an invaluable opportunity to some of our pupils.  By giving them the confidence they need to take those first steps in the right direction we are increasing their chances of going on to do something they want once they finish school.  I would like to thank all the businesses and mentors for their involvement to date and to encourage other local businesses to get involved.”

Mark McFall, Managing Director of Change Recruitment, said, “Our aim in supporting career Academies UK was to make a difference to young people’s lives and provide them with an insight into the working environment.  What we probably didn’t expect was the impact on our business and our own people.  The students made a genuine contribution and also brought something different to the working environment that had a profound effect on all of us.  We now have so many more people within the business keen to play a part in supporting these terrific young people.”

Josh McLeish, an S6 pupil at Tynecastle High School, said: “I have found the Career Academies UK experience extremely helpful and beneficial over the past year. My internship over the summer was fantastic and has helped me gain valuable experience in the workplace which is normally very difficult to obtain. The people I worked with were brilliant and very helpful.  Not only was the internship great but so is having a mentor who helps me out and points me in the right direction.”

Anne Wexelstein, Career Academies UK Manager for Scotland, commented: “In the current economic climate, it’s vital that opportunities like this are on offer to young people to help them make the transition from school into the word of work.  The vast majority of us are in greater need of the right pre conditions and introductions with which to find our way to work.  We would like to say a big thank you to all the people who are making our partnership with Edinburgh City Council, its schools and the Capital’s employers such a great success. ”

Three of the nine schools involved have completed their first year and six new schools embarked on the scheme in August.

Businesses who have participated in Career Academies to date represented at the Royal High School conference include: AK Stoddart, BNY Mellon, BT, Cairn Energy, Capital Solutions, Citi Bank, Clydesdale Bank, Davidson Chalmers, DHL, Diageo, City of Edinburgh Council, Edutrain, Ernst & Young, Franklin Templeton, Hotel Missoni, JP Morgan, Lloyds Banking Group, Logica, Penna Right Management, Royal Bank of Scotland, RSM Tenon, Santander, Scottish Gas, Scottish Government, Scottish Widows, Sopra Group, The Big Partnership, The Scottish Government, The Witchery, Transport Scotland, Visit Scotland, Yorkshire Bank and Tree of Knowledge.

 

Council spearheads drive to create 20,000 jobs

The city council is calling on its public sector partners and Edinburgh’s businesses to help support the creation of 20,000 new jobs in the city. An ambitious five-year economic strategy for Edinburgh will be launched at a conference being hosted by the City of Edinburgh Council and the Edinburgh Business Forum this morning.

Businesses and other partners are being encouraged to join the Edinburgh Guarantee programme to give young people the apprenticeships and work opportunities they need to boost their job prospects. They are also being asked to get more involved in the city’s communities by investing in its social and community enterprises, act as ambassadors for Edinburgh and mentor new entrepreneurs.

City businesses are also being asked to share their knowledge and international connections with the Council to help attract vital new inward investment. Delegates at today’s event will be invited to contribute their ideas to help drive the strategy forward. The conference will be split into two sessions. The first will focus on outlining the national / local context and the second session will seek an endorsement from partners and will outline their role in taking forward delivery of the Strategy.

The sessions will be attended by business leaders including Lord Smith Chair of the UK Green Investment Bank, senior staff from Harvey Nichols in Edinburgh, Scottish Enterprise, Marketing Edinburgh, the Financial Times, Edinburgh BioQuarter, and Mama Tea. The Leader of the Council Andrew Burns and Chief Executive Sue Bruce are both speakers as well as Nicola Sturgeon, Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Infrastructure, Investment and Cities. Robert Carr, past Chairman of the Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce will compère the event.

Speaking before the conference, Council Leader Andrew Burns said: “Scotland’s cities and their regions are key drivers of economic growth for the nation’s economy as a whole, so it’s really important that Edinburgh’s Economic Strategy is not just owned by the council, but by the whole of Team Scotland. Edinburgh was resilient during the banking crisis and has bounced back well, but in tough economic times the last thing we want to do is get complacent. With huge pressure on council resources, we need to invest where we will have the most impact and closing the jobs gap is absolutely our number one priority. Joblessness creates major social costs for the whole city, and tackling this issue head on now will help us lay the foundations for a new phase of growth in Edinburgh over the next ten to 20 years.”

Sue Bruce, Chief Executive of the City of Edinburgh Council said: “The new strategy will help us to invest in people and in places, to provide an excellent joined-up service to businesses and to pool our efforts with partners.  We believe this is the best route to help create the right conditions for new jobs. The vision of the Edinburgh Guarantee, that all sectors of the city work together to ensure that every school leaver in Edinburgh will leave school with the choice of a job, training or further education opportunity open to them, is of vital importance to the future economic health of the city. Focusing on jobs, engaging the whole Council in economic development and increasing collaboration with our partners in the city are all central to delivering our bold targets to ensure that we play a major role in boosting Edinburgh’s economy.”

Hugh Rutherford, Chair of Edinburgh Business Forum and a partner at National Property and Planning Consultants, Montagu Evans said: “No one partner or organisation in the city has sufficient influence to drive development of the economy alone, so it is critically important that we pool our knowledge, expertise and resources to ensure Edinburgh remains an attractive place to do business. We want businesses to work with us to get people in the city back to work and that means engaging with the Economic Strategy to ensure sustainable economic growth.”

Further information on the Economic Strategy

Forged in the wake of the banking crisis, the Council’s new Economic Strategy is the first to focus on the Scottish capital and the part it plays in the wider regional and Scottish economy. It follows the largest and most wide-ranging economic analysis ever undertaken in the city.

The ‘Strategy for Jobs’ responds to a widening jobs gap – rapid growth in the working age population means that by 2018 there could be up to 37,000 more people looking for work in the city than jobs available – and sets out a pioneering ‘Whole Council’ approach to address this.

The Economic Strategy sets out three key targets for 2012-17: to support the creation and safeguarding of 20,000 jobs; to support £1.3 billion of infrastructure investment in the city and to help 10,000 people into work or learning.

These objectives will be achieved through four programmes of activity with detailed action plans: investing in the city’s physical development; supporting inward investment; supporting businesses and helping unemployed people into work or learning.

Key highlights include the completion of Edinburgh’s tram project; maximising low-carbon opportunities with the arrival in Edinburgh of the £1 billion UK Green Investment Bank; engaging with a target list of potential inward investors in key city regions of the Middle East, China, North America and London; the further development of the ‘Edinburgh Guarantee’, a collaborative initiative with businesses to secure training, education or employment for every school leaver in Edinburgh; the creation of a dedicated new hub for business customers at the City of Edinburgh Council’s headquarters; and the creation of ‘Integrated Employability Service’ that will work with national agencies to provide a ‘no wrong door’ approach for job seekers across Edinburgh. Extensive public consultation was carried out from July to September last year on a comprehensive analysis of Edinburgh’s economy – The Edinburgh City Region Economic Review. This was the largest and most wide-ranging consultation on the economy ever undertaken in the Capital. Its findings underpin the key areas of action in the new Economic Strategy.