Peterborough Regional College

Students also receive practical advice in terms of where to go to get funding and support for their business, such as the Doug Richards Launcher Programme (set up in January 2013 by ex-Dragon Doug Richards, it provides 18-30 year olds with start up loans up to £10,000) and the Peterborough Work space (an ‘incubator facility’ providing start ups with access to low cost business premises).

But the PJEA is just one of the many ways Peterborough Regional College is integrating with the local business community and working with them to create a prosperous environment. A large part of Roderick’s job is to bridge the gap between employer’s needs and the training available, which he does under the brand of THINK Peterborough: ‘THINK Peterborough is a united front between us and the University Centre Peterbrorough, where we’re going to businesses to promote what the college and UCP can offer. So for example, say a business wants to take on an apprentice for social and digital media, they could take on an undergraduate from UCP to actually set up a programme and perhaps then take on an apprentice to pick up what’s been developed and run with it. So it’s very much a case of well here’s what the college can offer and here’s what UCP can offer, I promote a sort of a combined package.’

When Matthew Hancock, parliamentary under secretary for education and business innovation and skills, was given a tour of Peterborough Regional College last year, he said he was ‘particularly impressed’ with the links between the college and the city’s employers as well as ‘the work to enhance the work-readiness of young people’.

Another element to Peterborough Regional College is the Jobsmart service, which has been running for the past two years. Jobsmart provides a range of funded training programmes to help people find a job, and also works closely with the Peterborough Jobcentre Plus.

The college also offer specific tailored programmes for businesses who want to develop certain skills amongst their existing staff, explains Roderick, ‘If a business is looking for some staff training, we’ll devise a structured programme to suit their needs. But we’ll also be looking at all the different funded qualifications we’ve got and try to minimise the cost to them. And actually, whereas you used to find the larger companies would work with national training contracts, in the current economic climate a lot of companies are going more for local training programmes. So we’re constantly in contact with them.

‘Matthew Hancock, parliamentary under secretary for education and business innovation and skills, was ‘particularly impressed’ with the links between the college and the city’s employers…’

‘The regional college is very much a part of the community, and we’re about helping the community develop and helping the economy within Peterborough develop as well. So we’re providing employment for people in Peterborough, we’re helping to support the success of local businesses and we’re helping to ensure there’s an inflow of economic benefit to the Peterborough area, so it helps everyone as a whole.’

www.peterborough.ac.uk