Sheffield Council’s repairs service recruits new apprentices

When the 45 new recruits start they will make up 25 percent of that workforce and bring the total number of apprentices to 95.

Mark Freeth, head of the service, spoke about this at a meeting of the council’s safer and stronger communities scrutiny committee this week.

He said: “Colleagues in lifelong learning appointed the apprentices and they usually go through a traineeship first and they are assessed throughout that in terms of suitability to then go on to a full apprenticeship.

“There are at least four care leavers and we do, of course, focus on diversity of apprentices so there are a number of BME and female apprentices.”

The decision to recruit the new apprentices was in part due to a plan that aims to bring more direct self-delivery and less reliance on sub contractors and as there is an ageing workforce, to ensure there is a next generation of staff.

Councillor Paul Wood, cabinet member for community, added: “The apprenticeships that we have taken on in the repairs service is because I requested that to get us up to those numbers. Those apprentices that we have taken on have predominantly come from the applications of the intake earlier in the year but we didn’t have the vacancies to take them on then.”

Alongside this, the service has been undergoing other changes following a review which aims to modernise and improve operations.

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