A consortium of engineering businesses in the far north and the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) at Dounreay have reached the finals of two prestigious national training awards.

UKAEA and the Engineering Consortium are both finalists in the first ever Modern Apprenticeship Awards and the Engineering Consortium has also made the finals of the National Training Awards.

The National Training Awards annually assess applications from hundreds of businesses across the UK.  They are looking for companies who can illustrate situations where the development of employees skills have made a major contribution to the business.  Only 20 per cent of entries from the UK reach the finals stage and all have been through a rigorous assessment process.

Comprising Subsea 7 (UK), JGC Engineering and Technical Services Ltd and D Gow and Sons, the Engineering Consortium was set up in 1999 with help from Caithness and Sutherland Enterprise (CASE).

The establishment of the group was triggered by difficulties encountered in providing the range of experience necessary to enable apprentices to gain the required qualifications, particularly in relation to the decommissioning of the Dounreay site.

Local engineering firms were faced with a critical shortage of labour and skills and apprentice training had been limited at Dounreay because of uncertainty over the nuclear plant's future.  The solution was to form a consortium of local companies with a view to sharing the training of Modern Apprentices across a broad spectrum of skills.

Anne Sutherland, head of skills development at CASE said: "We are naturally delighted with the success of the Engineering Consortium in reaching the finals of the National Training Awards, the skills equivalent of the Olympic Games!

"They have addressed a key challenge for businesses in our area - how to find the resources to train and qualify sufficient workers to meet the rise and fall of contract work - and have met the challenges of consortium working with a determination to make it succeed, which has been an inspiration.

"CASE has played a key supporting role in their endeavour and we would encourage other businesses in any sector to consider new approaches to training and qualifying their people."

The Engineering Consortium and UKAEA are the only two organisations from the Highlands and Islands Enterprise area to be nominated in the Modern Apprenticeship Awards.  Both organisations have reached the final stages for the their long-established programme for Modern Apprentices.

The winners of the Modern Apprenticeship Awards will be announced in Edinburgh on the 30th October and both contenders have high hopes of success in their respective categories.

CASE chief executive Carroll Buxton, said: "We have known for a long time that there has been dedicated commitment to the training and development of apprentices in our area.

"It is very satisfying to see that dedication pay off in terms of being able to recognise the benefits to the business, and also that the dedication is now being recognised nationally by both the Modern Apprenticeship Awards and the National Training Awards."

Previous winner of the UK Supreme National Training Award from the far north was Caithness Glass in 1997 in conjunction with CASE.