CASE Study - Caithness Engineering Consortium

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 HIE Caithness and Sutherland (CASE).

The establishment of the Caithness Engineering Consortium was triggered by a range of recruitment issues created by the initial downturn in nuclear site work at Dounreay, followed by the upturn in demand for high quality engineering skills as a result of the decision to decommission the plant.

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.

The success of the partnership has been recognised with the achievement of two national awards.

In November 2002, they were winners at the Modern Apprenticeship Awards ceremony in

Edinburgh, and were also winners at the Scottish finals of the National Training Awards in Glasgow.  They then went forward in December to the UK finals, in the Guildhall in London, and became the only Scottish finalists to win a National Training Award.

Anne Sutherland, Head of Skills Development at CASE said, "The Awards have been great and a real boost to everyone involved, but the fundamental benefit has been to our businesses and organisations, in training skilled workers, learning from each other, and doing our bit for the far north community". "Our businesses face the challenges of businesses all over, but we have additional challenges to overcome, such as small numbers of staff for specific types of training.

This is where the partnership hit on the common sense approach of working together to increase the options for their Modern Apprentices."

According to Jock Campbell of JGC at Halkirk, "No, its not rocket science, but we seem to be one of the very few partnerships working together – despite our rivalries – to find a solution that works for us all."

The lead members of the Partnership, Donald Gow, Jock Campbell, Willie Watt are keen to encourage businesses in the Far North to think about partnership working .

Donald Gow and Willie Watt summed up their reactions, " Folk in the Far North know they do a good job and our businesses reap the benefits of well-trained and motivated people in the workforce. But to have this significant endorsement at UK level, of our working partnership has been tremendous".

In 1997, The Far North had another significant win at UK level with a partnership of Caithness Glass and HIE Caithness and Sutherland again winning a UK Special Award.