Apprentices are priority

Kirklees Council said it was committed to supporting businesses across the district in creating apprenticeships and even offered cash incentives to local firms.

This year 50 16-24-year-olds from across the district took up apprenticeships after the council gave fifty businesses £1,500 towards the cost of hiring a new trainee.

Speaking to the Reporter Series, council leader Mehboob Khan (Lab, Greenhead) said the council has created more apprenticeships than larger local authorities in West Yorkshire.

He said big employers including David Brown Gear Systems, based in Huddersfield, were helping to create apprenticeships talent pools that other manufacturing and engineering firms in the district can recruit from.

He said: “We’re investing for the future.

“We’ve made an allocation of £600,000 to develop further work on apprenticeships.

“For every pound spend on apprentices it returns £126 into the economy.

“£600,000 means £12m back in the Kirklees economy by 2015.”