Seetec

Last updated

Seetec (South East Essex Technology Centre) is a training provider in the United Kingdom and Ireland.

Contents

Founded in 1984 as a company limited by guarantee and registered charity, Seetec was originally established to deliver IT training to the unemployed through government funded and private provision.

Seetec programmes include apprenticeships, Train to Gain, New Deal for disabled people, Work Choice, Pathways to Work and Work Programme.

History

Seetec was established in 1984. Its directors were from Essex County Council, Rochford District Council and four private sponsors from the IT industry: Access (now Mastercard), British Telecom (BT), International Computers Ltd (now Fujitsu) and Sony.

In 1989 Seetec Business Technology Centre Ltd was formed, taking over the operational contracts and services of the original company. An employee-owned business since January 2020, it operates across the UK and Ireland, with its head office in Essex.

On 1 February 2015 the Ministry of Justice transferred ownership of the Kent, Surrey and Sussex Community Rehabilitation Company (KSS CRC) to Seetec. In May 2016 Seetec acquired Outsource Training and Development, a London-based training provider with experience of delivering training in key industries, including media and marketing, aviation and logistics.

In February 2019, the Ministry of Justice appointed Seetec to deliver probation services in South West England and Wales. On 1 April Seetec acquired Pluss CIC, an employability community interest company.

In June 2019 Seetec confirmed the start of its latest business line Seetec Pluss Ltd, responsible for managing Work and Health programme contracts previously delivered by Pluss CIC in addition to DWP ESF sub contracts. In August 2019 [1] Seetec Outsource Training and Skills Ltd had started trading, delivering apprenticeship and skills training across the UK.

In January 2020, founder and 80 per cent shareholder Peter Cooper sold 51 per cent of the company into an Employee Ownership Trust for the benefit of the company's 2,500 employees. This is in addition to an existing employee benefit trust established in 1990 which owns 18 per cent of the company, and the 1.5 per cent stake held by the charity Your Ambition. Retaining a 29 per cent stake in the business, Cooper announced in January 2020 his decision to step down as executive chairman, with the intention to chair the main board as a non-executive director. John Baumback took over executive leadership of the company as the group managing director as of 1 April 2020.

Services

Seetec delivers apprenticeships and skills development programmes across a range of UK industries. Employer services include workforce and apprenticeship recruitment and Apprenticeship Levy management. Seetec also delivers employability support, advice and guidance to individuals who are out of work, helping them to find sustainable employment.

Seetec's justice division works with prisons, government and criminal justice agencies to rehabilitation offenders.

Criticisms

Critics of the company have accused it of being insensitive to the needs of disabled individuals who are referred to its programmes. [2] Along with other job-creation companies, Seetec has been criticized for operating on a per head business model, where the company receives a fixed payment for each person it routes off of the welfare rolls and back to work. [3] [4] [5]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vocational education</span> Studies that prepare a person for a specific occupation

Vocational education is education that prepares people for a skilled craft as an artisan, trade as a tradesperson, or work as a technician. Vocational education can also be seen as that type of education given to an individual to prepare that individual to be gainfully employed or self employed with requisite skill. Vocational education is known by a variety of names, depending on the country concerned, including career and technical education, or acronyms such as TVET and TAFE.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Apprenticeship</span> System for training new crafts-people

Apprenticeship is a system for training a new generation of practitioners of a trade or profession with on-the-job training and often some accompanying study. Apprenticeships can also enable practitioners to gain a license to practice in a regulated occupation. Most of their training is done while working for an employer who helps the apprentices learn their trade or profession, in exchange for their continued labor for an agreed period after they have achieved measurable competencies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kaplan, Inc.</span> International educational services company

Kaplan, Inc. is an international educational services company that provides educational and training services to colleges, universities, businesses and individuals around the world. Founded in 1938 by Stanley Kaplan, the company offers a variety of test preparation, certifications, and student support services. The company is headquartered in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Graham Holdings Company.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Prince's Trust</span> United Kingdom-based charity

The Prince's Trust is a United Kingdom-based charity founded in 1976 by King Charles III to help vulnerable young people get their lives on track. It supports 11-to-30-year-olds who are unemployed or struggling at school and at risk of exclusion. Many of the young people helped by the trust face issues such as homelessness, disability, mental health problems, or trouble with the law.

Shaw Trust is a charitable organisation in the United Kingdom which supports people with complex needs into good work. It was founded in the village of Shaw in Wiltshire in 1982.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Employment agency</span> Organization which matches employers to employees

An employment agency is an organization which matches employers to employees. In developed countries, there are multiple private businesses which act as employment agencies and a publicly funded employment agency.

Skills for Life is a national lifelong learning strategy in England for improving adult skills, designed to help learners develop their reading, writing, maths, technical, and digital skills. It provides universal free education and training; including courses in digital, numeracy and transferable skills; traineeships; apprenticeships; and vocational qualifications for all adults in further education colleges and beyond.

A Practice Enterprise is a practice company that runs like a real business silhouetting a real enterprise's business procedures, products and services. A Practice Enterprise resembles a real company in its form, organization and function. Each Practice Enterprise trades with other Practice Enterprises, following standard commercial business procedures in the Practice Enterprise worldwide economic environment. It offers a ‘learning-by-doing’ training programme with the aim to better prepare young people for their future careers and to increase their entrepreneurship potential through running their own Practice Enterprise.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Remploy</span>

Remploy is an organisation in the United Kingdom which provides employment placement services for disabled people. It is a major welfare-to-work provider, delivering a range of contracts and employment programmes, for people with substantial barriers to work. Between 2009 and 2014, it found 100,000 jobs for disabled people.

Learndirect Ltd, stylised as learndirect, is a British training provider founded in 2000, owned by the private equity firm Queens Park Equity. The company has a network of learning centres in England and Wales, and also runs some courses online.

Cross-training in business operations, also known as multiskilling, involves training employees for flexible response to changing production schedules.

Catch22 is a social business, a not for profit business with a social mission which operates in the United Kingdom. Catch22 can trace its roots back 229 years, to the formation of The Philanthropic Society in 1788. Catch22 designs and delivers services that build resilience and aspiration in people and communities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Department for Education</span> Ministerial department of the UK Government

The Department for Education (DfE) is a ministerial department of the Government of the United Kingdom. It is responsible for child protection, child services, education, apprenticeships, and wider skills in England.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Working Links</span>

Working Links was a British outsourcing subcontractor established in 2000 as a public, private and voluntary company that provided welfare services and help with employability. It was acquired by the investment group Aurelius in June 2016.

The Queen's Award for Enterprise Promotion is one of the Queen's Awards for Enterprise, and is awarded annually to people who play an outstanding role in promoting the growth of business enterprise and/or entrepreneurial skills in other people. It is bestowed by the Queen on the advice of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Recipients receive an engraved crystal glass commemorative item, a Grant of Appointment and are invited to a reception at Buckingham Palace. Sometimes the award is presented by another member of the British Royal Family, and sometimes at another location.

For example, people who:

The sector-based work academy programme is a UK government scheme launched in 2013, which is intended to help create a skilled workforce in a business sector. Sector-based work academies help prepare people receiving unemployment benefits to apply for jobs in a new or different area of work. Work placements take place, which are designed to meet the business's immediate and future recruitment needs as well as to recruit a workforce with the right skills to sustain and grow the company's business. SWAP is administered by Jobcentre Plus and available in England and Scotland. A sector-based work academy can last for up to 6 weeks.

The Work Programme (WP) was a UK government welfare-to-work programme introduced in Great Britain in June 2011. It was the flagship welfare-to-work scheme of the 2010–2015 UK coalition government. Under the Work Programme the task of getting the long-term unemployed into work was outsourced to a range of public sector, private sector and third sector organisations. The scheme replaced a range of schemes which existed under previous New Labour governments including Employment Zones, New Deal, Flexible New Deal and the now abolished Future Jobs Fund scheme which aimed to tackle youth unemployment. Despite being the flagship welfare-to-work scheme of the Conservative-led coalition government, and then the incumbent Conservative government from May 2015, the DWP announced, in November 2015, that it was replacing the Work Programme and Work Choice with a new Work and Health Programme for the longer-term unemployed and those with health conditions. The DWP also announced that it would not be renewing Mandatory Work Activity and Help to Work which included Community Work Placements.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Skills CFA</span>

Instructus Skills is both the standard setting organisation for business skills and the largest apprenticeship-issuing authority in the United Kingdom by number of certificates issued. Instructus Skills has one of the largest organisational footprints of any standards-setting body or Sector Skills Council representing approximately 11 million UK employees working in pan-sector occupations, and developed apprenticeship frameworks which were expected to be started by over 122,000 learners during 2010–11.

The Institute of Employability Professionals (IEP) is the professional association for the employability profession. The organisation was founded in 2011, and works to support the continued professional development (CPD) of front-line employability staff.

PeoplePlus is a recruitment and training provider headquartered in Birmingham, United Kingdom. The company has a range of frontline public services, including employability support, adult skills training, apprenticeships, independent living, and prison education.

References

  1. ↑ "Seetec Outsource Training and Skills Starts Trading". www.seetec.co.uk. Archived from the original on 2019-09-25.
  2. ↑ "Five benefit changes the government doesn't want you to know about". 29 November 2013.
  3. ↑ "Private JobPath operators to get 'job sustainment' fees". The Irish Times .
  4. ↑ Ramesh, Randeep; editor, Social affairs (26 September 2013). "Welfare-to-work firms to see cut in referrals for poor performance". The Guardian.{{cite news}}: |last2= has generic name (help)
  5. ↑ "Unemployment scheme is outsourced to private firms". The Irish Times .
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.