Scotland and Europe 'Building Smarter Communities' Together

£4.2 MILLION TO BE INVESTED IN SCOTTISH WORKPLACE

The Worklife Adaptability Partnership (WAP) today announced the launch of its ‘Building Smarter Communities’ project, an initiative that aims to combat all forms of discrimination and inequality in the Scottish workplace. The initiative will engage both employers and employees from small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in challenging the traditional workplace and encouraging innovation.

WAP is the recipient of £4.2 million from Equal, a European Social Fund programme investing £100m into the UK . This is the second round of funding, aimed at testing and encouraging new ways of promoting employability, entrepreneurship, adaptability and equal opportunities.

The overall aim of the ‘Building Smarter Communities’ initiative is to develop a more inclusive Scottish workplace, which will contribute to Social Justice and allow SMEs to operate more competitively. To achieve this there are five projects covering the following areas:

using technology to encourage business economic growth in rural and disadvantaged areas;
educating employers about the worklife balance ethos;
engaging with groups who find it difficult to work due to rurality, ethnic culture, disability, gender and age;
focusing on anticipated labour and skills shortages in the context of the demographic time-bomb.

The Worklife Adaptability Partnership is working with local authorities, colleges and universities from all across Scotland to deliver five projects. These include:

Connect Project ( Dundee College) – will work with e mployers and employees in SMEs within emerging clusters, with a particular focus on workplace training.
Older Workers Learning (OWL) Project ( South Lanarkshire Counci and ,Strathclyde University) – will look to create specially tailored support and training for older workers to improve skills and adaptability and increase job retention.
Black and Ethnic Minorities (BEM) Project ( Glasgow Caledonian University ) – will work with minority groups to ensure equality in the workplace.
Reach Project(Edinburgh University, Greater Pollock and WEA Scotland ) – will work closely with SMEs in socially disadvantaged areas of Scotland, aiming to increase access to staff development opportunities and literacy training.
Smart CommunitiesProject (Adam Smith College, Stirling Council, Napier University, Raploch Urban Regeneration, Glasgow Caledonian University, Highlands & Islands Enterprise and Dumfries & Galloway College ) – is the umbrella for four different projects:
Productive Remote Working
Innovation through Open Source Software
Mobile / Wireless Technology
Mini MOLIs (Mobile Online Learning Initiative)

Leigh Berridge, Equal’s ‘Building Smarter Communities’ project director believes the initiative will greatly assist the Scottish community: “The ‘Building Smarter Communities’ project is involving so many Scottish organisations and universities purely for the benefit of the Scottish people. The aim is to ensure that local businesses, their employees and employers, will be able to work free from inequality and discrimination, and have the same access to training and resources despite their location or background.”

As an additional benefit, Equal is a transnational initiative, which enables the transfer of knowledge and best practice between partnerships both across the country and the European Union including I reland, Spain, Poland, and the Czech Republic. By sharing the results of programmes carried out by WAP and other partnerships, it enables the different organisations to learn from one another and ensure a real value add for future policy development.

Berridge said of the initiative: “ The concept of partnership is enshrined in the fabric of the Equal initiative – between member states, national organisations and perhaps most importantly the partnership between all of the participating organisations and the beneficiaries they seek to support. It is our hope that WAP will expand during its life and that we will continue to attract interest in and support for our aims and objectives.”

View images from the BSC launch event at our online gallery

For further information on the involved organisations and initiatives, please see:

European Social Fund – www.esf.gov.uk

Equal – www.equal.ecotec.co.uk

Worklife Adaptability Partnership – http://www.employmentweek.com/store/documents/B13.pdf