Sutton Council is working with its partners including Sutton Jobcentre Plus, Sutton Chamber and Carshalton College to ensure that residents have the training and skills needed to meet the demands of local businesses.

Sutton Skills Match will involve working with companies to identify the skills they require from employees both now and in the future, and then working with local colleges, training providers and schools to develop those skills in the local workforce.

The matchmaking idea has been devised to capitalise on the success of the council’s economic growth programme Opportunity Sutton, which is creating hundreds of local jobs. The recently announced redevelopment of the Sutton Gas Holders site to build a supermarket, shops and homes will create 463 new jobs along with 209 jobs during the course of the construction. Sutton Skills Match will ensure that local people are suitably skilled to apply for those roles.

Currently in Sutton there is an oversupply of skills in some areas and a deficit in others. According to the latest available data, in 2010-11, 300 hairdressers were trained for just 100 vacancies, while only 250 people trained for 804 jobs in construction.[1]

Councillor Jayne McCoy, Chair of the Housing, Economy and Business Committee, said:

“Our Opportunity Sutton programme is creating hundreds of new jobs and to encourage employers to hire local people, we want to ensure that Sutton’s residents have the right skills and training to be able to apply for vacancies.

“Youth unemployment in Sutton is falling faster than the averages for both London and the UK, and Sutton Skills Match will help us maintain this trend.

“I encourage all employers and jobseekers to get involved so that businesses get the quality employees they require, and local people can find stimulating and successful employment within Sutton, which will help us build a more prosperous and thriving borough.”

Sharon Achillea, Director of Business and Commercial development, Carshalton College said:

“Carshalton College are committed to ensuring that the London Borough of Sutton has the right levels of skills, in particular the Care sector is a critical development area for the Borough. Carshalton College have a well-established and highly skilled team supporting not only the qualifications required by the sector but also the employability skills required for the unemployed to ensure that they are equipped with the right levels of skills matched to the labour market”.

[1] Hidden Talents: skills mismatch data from the Local Government Association http://www.local.gov.uk/web/guest/hidden-talents/-/journal_content/56/10180/3837482/ARTICLE