A TRAINING provider in Ellesmere Port has won a £2.8m unemployment support grant.

Leading training provider Scientiam secured the £2.8m contract to help get Ellesmere Port’s unemployed people back into work.

Through the Skills Support for the Unemployed (SSU) programme, Scientiam will engage with hundreds of 19-plus jobseekers across the Merseyside and Cheshire region, providing them with training and qualifications to improve their work prospects.

The funding will be provided by the Skills Funding Agency and the European Social Fund and will allow Scientiam to deliver the SSU programme for three years.

Scientiam will deliver the programme at its offices throughout Ellesmere Port, Liverpool, Crewe, Chester, Warrington and Halton.

Holly Tonge, operations manager at Scientiam, said the organisation was awarded the contract due to its specific local knowledge and expertise in employment support and retraining.

She said: “We will be focusing on the 19-plus, short term unemployed, providing courses, training and CV development skills to make them job ready. We will then engage with employers and are able to offer them £1,500 one-off grants to take on one of our work ready individuals on an apprenticeship basis.

“We will go directly to key stakeholders and Jobcentre Plus in order to recruit interested unemployed individuals to the programme and people can self-refer themselves too.

“Some people may come to us fully trained and looking for work, some looking for business start-up skills and some to be completely retrained in a new field.

“The training and hours spent with each individual will therefore vary to fit their needs. We can delegate individual cases to the most relevant companies we will be working with, creating a complete bespoke training and development programme.

“Crucially, participants will also still receive JSA throughout their training with us.”