The number of apprenticeships being created as part of the City Deal for the Swansea Bay City Region is lower than anticipated, but leaders still aim to meet a target of 3,000. The 拢1.3bn deal (which includes leveraged private sector finance) consists of nine projects, eight of which focus on the digital sector, construction, energy, smart manufacturing, and life science and well-being.
It covers Neath Port Talbot, Swansea, Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire. The ninth project, called skills and talent, is about raising awareness of the city deal, providing skills training to prospective employees, and creating new courses and apprenticeships.
A meeting of public- and private- sector leaders who form a joint committee overseeing the City Deal heard that 184 out of 3,000 apprenticeships have been created to date. Samantha Cutlan-Dillon, skills and talent project manager, said this was due to delays affecting some of the other eight projects, the ever-evolving nature of future skills needs, and a drop in Welsh Government degree- level apprenticeship funding.
Ms Cutlan-Dillon explained that the 3,000 apprenticeship figure had been derived from the eight other projects but that the target had now been removed from them following updates to their business cases. She added: 鈥淲e are still keeping that legacy figure, and we plan to achieve that.鈥
The skills and talent project was meant to run until 2025-26 but is to be extended to March 2028.
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Ms Cutlan-Dillon said the project had 鈥渃ompletely smashed鈥 a target to raise awareness among young people, teaching staff, parents, industry and 鈥渢he man on the street鈥 about new city deal opportunities.
A report before the joint committee also said 22 pilot projects have progressed through approval and were in delivery. Another target is to support 14,000 people with higher-level skills. The figure attained thus far is 3,217.
The skills and talent project also aims to create two centres of excellence, which Ms Cutlan-Dillon said wouldn鈥檛 require new buildings but would instead be an 鈥渁malgamation of activity around a key sector in a key local authority area鈥, with energy in Pembrokeshire and manufacturing and low-carbon schemes in Neath Port Talbot both contenders.
Joint committee chairman Cllr Rob Stewart said apprenticeships and skills training was a national and international challenge and that some great progress had been made by the skills and talent project.
Cllr Steve Hunt said he was excited about opportunities in the Neath Port Talbot area, including ones outside the 15-year city deal such as the newly created Celtic Freeport and a potential floating offshore wind industry based partly at Port Talbot鈥檚 port.
Cllr Hunt described the 184 apprenticeships created to date as 鈥渁 little bit disappointing,鈥 and said 鈥渢here鈥檚 got to be a job鈥 at the end of them. Cllr Stewart, who is leader of Swansea council, said the challenge was 鈥渃reating the economy of tomorrow鈥 and then aligning people to it and convincing the private sector to make necessary investments. 鈥淚t鈥檚 really about getting ahead of the curve,鈥 he said.
Ms Cutlan-Dillon said: 鈥淲e鈥檙e constantly forward-looking in what we鈥檙e doing. Timing is everything, and maybe the employer demand is not there yet.鈥
