Cairngorms Eco­nom­ic Steer­ing Group

Hybrid meet­ing via Teams and in-per­son, at Grant­own-on-Spey, on 23 April 2026 at 2pm

Present:

• Jack­ie Brier­ton — Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity (chair)
• Gav­in Miles — Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority
• Eilidh Todd — Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority
• Kelly Wilt­shire — Aber­deen­shire Council
• Alastair Rhind — Aber­deen­shire Council
• Michael Dear­man — Aviemore and Glen­more Com­munity Trust
• Craig Mills — Cairngorms Busi­ness Partnership
• Becca Vin­cent — GrowBiz
• Mike Duncan — Fed­er­a­tion of Small Businesses
• Julia Latto — Scot­tish Enter­prise (SE)
• Allis­on Car­ring­ton — Skills Devel­op­ment Scotland
• Michelle Har­die — The High­land Coun­cil (THC)

Apo­lo­gies:

• Paul Macari — Aber­deen­shire Council
• Ian Robertson — Coun­tryside Learn­ing Scot­land (CLS)
• Gor­don Hec­tor — GrowBiz
• Nadia Fyvie-Feld­mann — Fed­er­a­tion of Small Businesses
• James Turn­er — High­land and Islands Enterprise
• Beverly Smith — Moray Council
• Kirsti Conti — Moray Council
• Jam­ie Bell — Scot­tish Enterprise
• Anthony Stand­ing — Skills Devel­op­ment Scotland
• Alice Fogg — Vol­un­tary Action Badenoch & Strath­spey (VABS)

Wel­come and apologies

Jack­ie Brier­ton wel­comed every­one to the meet­ing, gave apo­lo­gies, and all mem­bers in attend­ance intro­duced them­selves to the group.

Note of last meet­ing and mat­ters arising

The note of the last meet­ing was agreed.

• AP 2 — Allis­on Car­ring­ton to share an update on the Careers Ser­vices Col­lab­or­at­ive, inform­a­tion on the level 5 qual­i­fic­a­tion for rur­al skills and the Sec­tor Skills Assess­ment for the Rur­al Sec­tor (annu­al report pub­lished end Octo­ber). Allis­on provided the fol­low­ing inform­a­tion in advance of the meet­ing with an update on the Careers Ser­vices Col­lab­or­at­ive included at the end of this action note.
  • Sec­tor­al Skills Assess­ments are avail­able at Sec­tor­al Skills Assess­ments — Skills Devel­op­ment Scot­land. While there is no rur­al-spe­cif­ic assess­ment, many of the sec­tors covered have a rur­al footprint.
  • Region­al Skills Assess­ments are avail­able at Region­al Skills Assess­ments — Skills Devel­op­ment Scot­land, and the Data Mat­rix can also be accessed on this page. The Data Mat­rix enables users to exam­ine indi­vidu­al loc­al author­it­ies and com­pare them with one anoth­er and with Scot­tish-level data.
  • Inform­a­tion on work relat­ing to Work­force North (High­lands and Islands) is avail­able at Work­force North — Skills Devel­op­ment Scot­land.
• AP5 — Jam­ie Bell to con­sult with Julia Latto to see if there is any use­ful data around skills that could be extrac­ted from the Scot­tish Rur­al Lead­er­ship Pro­gramme net­work. This will be fol­lowed up offline.

Cairngorms 2030

Gav­in Miles and Eilidh Todd updated the group on the pro­gress of Cairngorms 2030.

Over­all Programme

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity is lead­ing the Cairngorms 2030 pro­gramme, a major long-term envir­on­ment­al and com­munity ini­ti­at­ive fun­ded primar­ily by the Nation­al Lot­tery Her­it­age Fund with nearly £11 mil­lion, matched by part­ner fund­ing to cre­ate a pro­gramme worth around £20 mil­lion over five years.

Main Themes and Projects

• Trans­form­ing landscapes Pro­jects focus on:

  • Peat­land restoration
  • Wood­land expansion
  • Catch­ment and flood management
  • Nature recov­ery Lot­tery fund­ing is help­ing accel­er­ate exist­ing rur­al and con­ser­va­tion work to achieve faster and lar­ger impacts with strong emphas­is on using loc­al con­tract­ors and busi­nesses, sup­port­ing long-term eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment in the region.

• Empower­ing communities A sig­ni­fic­ant innov­a­tion is the Com­munity Man­aged Cli­mate Grants Fund. This £1 mil­lion fund uses a par­ti­cip­at­ory demo­cracy mod­el where com­munit­ies help decide fund­ing pri­or­it­ies rather than pub­lic bod­ies alone. A pan­el of res­id­ents has been recruited from across the Nation­al Park:

  • 250 applic­a­tions received
  • Nearly half had nev­er engaged with the Park Author­ity before
  • Par­ti­cipants are paid for their time and lived exper­i­ence. In addi­tion, Arts, Cul­ture & Edu­ca­tion pro­jects support:
  • Cli­mate learn­ing in schools
  • Com­munity arts and cul­ture initiatives
  • Col­lab­or­a­tion among loc­al cre­at­ives to strengthen long-term eco­nom­ic oppor­tun­it­ies. Cli­mate-focused edu­ca­tion builds on exist­ing region­al cli­mate hub work.

• Rethink­ing how we travel Act­ive travel and cyc­ling pro­jects are pro­gress­ing well. Lar­ger trans­port pro­jects have been more dif­fi­cult because the Park Author­ity is not a trans­port author­ity and depends on extern­al fund­ing and part­ner­ships. ​“Cycle Friendly Cairngorms” is high­lighted as a suc­cess­ful and man­age­able initiative.

• Cham­pi­on­ing wellbeing Strong focus on green health and out­door wellbeing:

  • NHS-sup­por­ted green health prescriptions
  • Volun­teer­ing linked to health outcomes
  • Out­door activ­it­ies integ­rated into health­care approaches. A pion­eer­ing out­door demen­tia ini­ti­at­ive in Glen­more led to the UK’s first out­door demen­tia centre with expan­sion of sim­il­ar centres else­where in Scot­land due to its success.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan 2027 – 2032

Gav­in Miles out­lined the devel­op­ment of the next Part­ner­ship Plan for 2027 – 2032, includ­ing its timeline and key priorities.

• The draft is cur­rently being pre­pared, with pub­lic con­sulta­tion planned from Octo­ber to Decem­ber. Revi­sions will fol­low in early next year, before Board approv­al in March and final min­is­teri­al approv­al likely in April or May.
• The new plan dif­fers slightly because of changes in legis­la­tion through the Nat­ur­al Envir­on­ment Bill, which places stronger oblig­a­tions on pub­lic bod­ies to act­ively help deliv­er the plan rather than simply con­sider it. Since the pre­vi­ous plan already set long-term goals toward 2035 – 2040, this update is inten­ded more as a refine­ment and tight­en­ing of pri­or­it­ies rather than a com­plete over­haul. The emphas­is is on being real­ist­ic and focused about what can be achieved over five years.
• Key eco­nom­ic themes to con­sider include:
  • Com­munity wealth build­ing — will be embed­ded through­out the plan as a guid­ing principle.
  • Hous­ing and trans­port infra­struc­ture — remain major bar­ri­ers to eco­nom­ic growth, espe­cially because busi­nesses struggle to attract and retain staff due to lack of afford­able hous­ing and lim­ited trans­port options.
  • The plan aims to bet­ter sup­port the large num­ber of small busi­nesses in the Nation­al Park, which can often fall through gaps in exist­ing busi­ness sup­port systems.
• A sig­ni­fic­ant shift in think­ing is recog­nising that dif­fer­ent parts of the Nation­al Park face dif­fer­ent region­al pres­sures e.g. major devel­op­ments around the Inner Moray Firth and north­ern Scot­land are expec­ted to affect areas like Badenoch and Strathspey.
• The vis­it­or eco­nomy is par­tic­u­larly import­ant in more rur­al areas where tour­ism under­pins many dir­ect and indir­ect jobs. Growth in off-sea­son tour­ism, helped by winter mar­ket­ing, is seen as espe­cially pos­it­ive because it sup­ports year-round employ­ment, bet­ter job secur­ity, and poten­tially high­er wages.
• Ongo­ing change in the land man­age­ment sec­tor, driv­en by gov­ern­ment policy and envir­on­ment­al object­ives is gar­ner­ing con­cern with­in the industry. Even though many jobs are chan­ging rather than dis­ap­pear­ing entirely these shifts can have major impacts on small rur­al com­munit­ies that rely heav­ily on farm­ing and estate employment.
• The Park Author­ity is pilot­ing pro­jects through Cairngorms 2030 to explore new estate busi­ness mod­els and sup­port rur­al employ­ment adapt­a­tion. One example is the pro­posed sub­sid­isa­tion of deer stalk­er roles to sup­port deer man­age­ment object­ives where tra­di­tion­al sport­ing income may no longer sus­tain those jobs.
• Mem­bers wel­comed the com­munity wealth build­ing approach and iden­ti­fied oppor­tun­it­ies for the Nation­al Park with Aber­deen­shire gain­ing invest­ment zone status.

Part­ner Updates

• Cairngorms Busi­ness Partnership

  • Spring busi­ness baro­met­er sur­vey com­plete, though response rates from busi­nesses have declined this year. A plan is being developed to increase busi­ness par­ti­cip­a­tion in future sur­veys. Sur­vey find­ings show busi­nesses are under sig­ni­fic­ant pres­sure from mul­tiple extern­al factors, but over­all optim­ism about the future remains rel­at­ively strong. Tour­ism busi­nesses are report­ing healthy for­ward book­ings des­pite cur­rent chal­lenges. CBP and 56 Degrees are host­ing a ses­sion with busi­nesses in the com­ing weeks to dis­cuss sur­vey find­ings in more detail and share results.
  • CBP engaged pos­it­ively with High­land Coun­cil through busi­ness engage­ment ses­sions. A recent ​“Meet the Assessors” event at the Cairngorm Hotel attrac­ted 23 busi­nesses and received very pos­it­ive feed­back. CBP is explor­ing sim­il­ar engage­ment ses­sions with oth­er coun­cils, includ­ing Aberdeenshire.
  • CBP has launched a new mem­ber­ship struc­ture this month. Entry-level mem­ber­ship fees have increased from £102.50 to £150 annu­ally, though CBP remains cheap­er than neigh­bour­ing Cham­bers of Com­merce by around £60 – £70. The new mem­ber­ship struc­ture has gen­er­ally been well received.
  • Suc­cess­ful winter mar­ket­ing cam­paign, ​“Winter Comes to Life,” fun­ded by Park Author­ity. Busi­nesses have repor­ted strong winter trad­ing linked to the campaign.

• The High­land Council

  • The vis­it­or levy is pro­gress­ing. Legis­la­tion allow­ing a flat-rate charge per room has passed par­lia­ment­ary stages but has not yet been enacted, which is expec­ted in autumn. The Coun­cil is decid­ing next steps, and if a flat-rate mod­el is pur­sued, there will likely be a 12-week pub­lic con­sulta­tion at the end of this year and into early next year.
  • Busi­nesses with­in the Nation­al Park will con­tin­ue to be sign­posted to the Park’s own fund­ing streams rather than High­land-wide schemes.
  • The ​“Be Con­nec­ted” digit­al plat­form has launched to help com­munit­ies access fund­ing, in-kind sup­port, and show­case loc­al pro­jects. Sev­er­al pro­jects in Kin­gussie are already fea­tured, includ­ing a pro­posed paddle court project.
  • The Com­munity Bene­fits Pro­ject Bank is cur­rently being piloted with­in the Be Con­nec­ted plat­form and is expec­ted to launch pub­licly in May.
  • Com­munity wealth build­ing legis­la­tion has now received Roy­al Assent and become law. How­ever, there is still uncer­tainty about how loc­al author­it­ies, region­al bod­ies, and organ­isa­tions such as the Park Author­ity will coordin­ate and align com­munity wealth build­ing plans and report­ing struc­tures. More clar­ity is being sought from the Scot­tish Government.
  • Busi­nesses in the Park area remain eli­gible to access Busi­ness Gate­way ser­vices through Highland.
  • Highland’s employ­ab­il­ity team is pre­par­ing to launch a new employ­er recruit­ment sup­port offer, includ­ing grants of up to £10,000 for employ­ers who recruit people facing sig­ni­fic­ant bar­ri­ers to employ­ment, such as health con­di­tions or dis­ab­il­it­ies. There will also be oppor­tun­it­ies for paid place­ments with­in third-sec­tor organ­isa­tions. Pro­mo­tion­al mater­i­als are expec­ted in the com­ing weeks.

• Aber­deen­shire Council:

  • The organ­isa­tion has a Com­munity Wealth Build­ing strategy and is work­ing closely with com­munity coun­cils to build loc­al com­munity capacity.
  • Com­munity Wealth Build­ing work is being linked to the Energy Charter and energy devel­op­ment com­munity bene­fits initiatives.
  • Work is under­way on the Good Food Nation agenda, which is expec­ted to con­nect with the Nation­al Park.
  • A col­lab­or­at­ive region­al approach is being developed with Aber­deen City Coun­cil, Moray Coun­cil, and NHS Grampian.
  • Although each pub­lic author­ity will have its own plan, con­sulta­tion, research, and data gath­er­ing are inten­ded to be car­ried out col­lab­or­at­ively across the Grampi­an region.
  • A new Busi­ness Gate­way man­ager, Chris Muir, has recently star­ted in post.
  • Work con­tin­ues around the Invest­ment Zone and related skills development.
  • Vis­it­or levy dis­cus­sions had been paused pending clar­ity on flat-rate legis­la­tion pro­gress­ing through Par­lia­ment, but this will be revis­ited once there is more cer­tainty for Aberdeenshire.
  • Busi­ness Gate­way advisors could help raise aware­ness of altern­at­ive fund­ing oppor­tun­it­ies avail­able to busi­nesses in the nation­al park.
  • Busi­ness Gate­way sup­port is avail­able not only for star­tups but also for estab­lished SMEs, includ­ing busi­nesses with up to around 200 employees.
  • Employ­ab­il­ity fund­ing is avail­able to help par­ents with trans­port costs to access work opportunities.
  • Addi­tion­al sup­port is avail­able through the No One Left Behind pro­gramme, includ­ing paid work placements.
  • Sup­port is provided through both employ­ab­il­ity key work­ers and Busi­ness Gate­way advisors for busi­nesses and res­id­ents with­in the Nation­al Park.
  • The No One Left Behind chal­lenge fund was admin­istered through the loc­al employ­ab­il­ity partnership.
  • A lived exper­i­ence pan­el was involved in review­ing applic­a­tions for the chal­lenge fund.
  • The chal­lenge fund alloc­a­tion has now been fully committed.

• Aviemore and Glen­more Com­munity Trust

  • Build­ing com­munity wealth through oper­at­ing the Glen­more Vis­it­or Centre after tak­ing over the centre in late 2024.
  • Long-term sus­tain­ab­il­ity is a con­cern for the Trust, par­tic­u­larly recruit­ing and retain­ing dir­ect­ors. This short­age of lead­er­ship capa­city is lim­it­ing the trust’s abil­ity to pur­sue new oppor­tun­it­ies, includ­ing plans for a per­man­ent ice rink that recent feas­ib­il­ity work sug­gests could succeed.
  • The Trust finds that grant fund­ing is con­fus­ing and dif­fi­cult to nav­ig­ate without expert sup­port, often rushed and some cli­mate grant schemes inflexible.
  • The Trust intends to cam­paign more act­ively on wild­fire pre­pared­ness because of the threat it poses to the com­munity and loc­al economy.

• Grow­Biz Scotland

  • Grow­Biz has entered a new fin­an­cial year with strong res­ults: around 120 cli­ents were sup­por­ted dur­ing the year, includ­ing 50 new cli­ents. Enter­prise facil­it­at­ors delivered an aver­age of 21 cli­ent inter­ac­tions per month. Around 36% of cli­ents were at the new or pre-star­tup stage, show­ing con­tin­ued strong interest in start­ing businesses.
  • The entre­pren­eur­i­al edu­ca­tion pro­ject in schools, although offi­cially end­ing in March, was suc­cess­ful. Schools involved included Kin­gussie High, Grant­own Gram­mar, Pit­lo­chry, and Blair­gowrie, with strong engage­ment from pupils across S1 – S6. An applic­a­tion has been sub­mit­ted to extend the schools pro­ject fur­ther, with a decision expec­ted in the com­ing months.
  • Look­ing ahead to 2026 – 27, the out­look is pos­it­ive and focused on con­tin­ued growth.
  • The James Hut­ton Insti­tute, a part­ner with Grow­Biz in the European Rur­alact­ive pro­ject, is host­ing a three-day mas­ter­class at Glensaugh Farm near Laurencekirk from 8 – 10 June. The farm is work­ing towards becom­ing cli­mate neg­at­ive and is show­cas­ing a range of innov­at­ive sus­tain­ab­il­ity and cli­mate-focused research pro­jects. The event will fea­ture present­a­tions and dis­cus­sions led by research­ers and prin­cip­al invest­ig­at­ors involved in the work, with a focus on con­nect­ing sci­ence and policy. It is aimed at people inter­ested in policy, research, and envir­on­ment­al innov­a­tion. Along­side the mas­ter­class, a peer-to-peer exchange for pro­ject par­ti­cipants will run sim­ul­tan­eously. Attend­ance is free, and par­ti­cipants can attend indi­vidu­al ses­sions or the full pro­gramme depend­ing on their interests.

• Skills Devel­op­ment Scotland

  • Sig­ni­fic­ant work is under­way with Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment on skills reform and future work­force plan­ning. Respons­ib­il­ity for appren­tice­ship deliv­ery is mov­ing from Skills Devel­op­ment Scot­land to the Scot­tish Fund­ing Council.
  • The Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment plans to strengthen region­al skills plan­ning and sec­tor-based (sec­tor­al) skills plan­ning with a more dir­ect­ive approach. Sec­tor­al needs assess­ments are being developed in part­ner­ship with organ­isa­tions across Scot­land. Pri­or­ity sec­tors will be selec­ted by gov­ern­ment based on eco­nom­ic need, although these have not yet been announced.
  • Cur­rent work is focused on:
    • Defin­ing what sec­tor­al needs assess­ments should include
    • Under­stand­ing what part­ners expect from them
  • Work­force North is play­ing a key role in expand­ing train­ing pro­vi­sion and appren­tice­ship oppor­tun­it­ies in line with region­al eco­nom­ic demand. This work cov­ers High­lands and Islands areas and over­laps with the Cairngorms Nation­al Park and Aberdeenshire.
  • Evid­ence is being gathered to ensure fund­ing and skills ini­ti­at­ives are tar­geted where they are most needed.
  • The Careers Col­lab­or­at­ive ini­ti­at­ive aims to:
    • Raise aware­ness of future job opportunities
    • Explain career path­ways into those roles
    • Sup­port people to upskill and reskill
  • Sup­port is aimed not only at school pupils, but also:
    • Adults already in the workforce
    • People look­ing to re-enter employment
  • The over­all goal is to ensure people across all loc­al author­it­ies with­in the park area understand:
    • Future employ­ment opportunities
    • Train­ing and edu­ca­tion routes available
    • Oppor­tun­it­ies for retrain­ing, upskilling, and enter­ing work at dif­fer­ent life stages

• Scot­tish Enterprise

  • Seek­ing a new rol­lout of the Scot­tish Rur­al Lead­er­ship Pro­gramme, with pro­cure­ment expec­ted to begin imme­di­ately and recruit­ment for a new cohort planned for the sum­mer. The pro­gramme has already sup­por­ted 938 rur­al lead­ers across Scot­land from a wide range of sec­tors and busi­ness sizes, cre­at­ing a strong net­work that busi­nesses and organ­isa­tions can tap into for con­nec­tions and collaboration.
  • Scot­land will host the Glob­al Agri­t­our­ism Con­fer­ence in Aber­deen­shire in June (23−25), bring­ing togeth­er rep­res­ent­at­ives from more than 50 coun­tries. The event will include farm, food, and drink tours and is expec­ted to attract over 600 attendees, help­ing to fur­ther raise Scotland’s inter­na­tion­al pro­file in agri­t­our­ism. Along­side this, a schol­ars pro­gramme is bring­ing 35 young people from around the world to Scot­land, with organ­isers cur­rently sup­port­ing travel and visa arrange­ments ahead of what is expec­ted to be a highly valu­able and enga­ging week in Aberdeen.

• Fed­er­a­tion of Small Businesses

  • Short-term lets appear to have been heav­ily impacted by this year’s rates revalu­ation, with some see­ing increases of up to 100%.
  • These increases are expec­ted to sig­ni­fic­antly affect busi­nesses oper­at­ing with­in the nation­al park.
  • There are incon­sist­en­cies between loc­al author­it­ies regard­ing busi­ness rates reliefs and discounts.
  • Some reliefs are applied auto­mat­ic­ally, while oth­ers require busi­nesses to sub­mit applications.
  • A spread­sheet is being com­piled to com­pare what dif­fer­ent loc­al author­it­ies offer.
  • Mem­bers exper­i­en­cing issues are being advised to check their loc­al author­ity web­site dir­ectly for guidance.
  • Busi­nesses should assume they need to apply for all avail­able reliefs rather than expect auto­mat­ic discounts.
  • There are many dif­fer­ent busi­ness rates relief schemes avail­able (around 20), depend­ing on the type of organ­isa­tion, such as busi­nesses, char­it­ies, or vil­lage halls.
  • It is import­ant for rate­pay­ers to review their bill care­fully and apply for any reliefs or dis­counts they are eli­gible for.

• Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority

  • The call for sites and ideas for the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan (LDP) is cur­rently open and avail­able on the web­site. People are encour­aged to share this oppor­tun­ity with any­one inter­ested in devel­op­ment, as early sub­mis­sions are par­tic­u­larly import­ant under the cur­rent LDP process.
  • A fire bylaw was intro­duced in the Nation­al Park at the start of last month. Rangers on the ground are see­ing a high level of pub­lic aware­ness about the bylaw. Aviemore and Glen­more Com­munity Trust have played a lead­ing role in pro­mot­ing fire safety mes­saging in the vis­it­or centre using cam­paign materials.
  • Colin McLean is expec­ted to lead the fire man­age­ment plan for Glen­more and coordin­ate with SFRS and FLS. Glen­more was iden­ti­fied as a prac­tic­al start­ing point for fire man­age­ment efforts due to its high vis­it­or num­bers, his­tory of fires, and man­age­able scale.

• Moray Coun­cil (via email):

  • The Scot­tish Government’s Address­ing Depop­u­la­tion Action Plan focuses on three main areas of sup­port and investment.
  • A suc­cess­ful applic­a­tion was made to improve access to school-age child­care through trans­port integ­ra­tion and data-driv­en plan­ning. Core activ­it­ies include appoint­ing a ded­ic­ated school-age child­care pro­ject officer to:
    • Eval­u­ate cur­rent child­care pro­vi­sion and identi­fy barriers.
    • Lead engage­ment with stakeholders.
    • Design sus­tain­able child­care models.
    • Sup­port the estab­lish­ment of cent­ral­ised child­care facil­it­ies, includ­ing identi­fy­ing premises and regis­ter­ing providers.
  • A key part of the child­care work is assess­ing trans­port con­nectiv­ity and integ­rat­ing exist­ing ser­vices such as school trans­port, loc­al bus ser­vices and Moray Council’s m.connect bus service.
  • Under the com­munity wealth build­ing agenda, fund­ing has been secured to extend the com­munity wealth build­ing post. This exten­sion will sup­port com­mis­sion­ing back­ground stud­ies to inform pre­par­a­tion of the Region­al Socioeco­nom­ic Bene­fit Plan. The plan will provide a stra­tegic approach to secur­ing socioeco­nom­ic bene­fits from renew­able energy proposals.

Next meet­ing

Thursday 25^th of June at 3pm, hybrid meet­ing on Teams or in-per­son at Park Author­ity office, Grantown-on-Spey.

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Update from Skills Devel­op­ment Scotland

Devel­op­ment of a Careers Col­lab­or­at­ive in the High­land and Aber­deen­shire LA areas

Stra­tegic Region­al Col­lab­or­a­tion and Work­force Planning

The Careers Col­lab­or­at­ive in High­land and Aber­deen­shire loc­al author­it­ies is a multi-agency ini­ti­at­ive respond­ing to sig­ni­fic­ant skills demand driv­en by, but not spe­cif­ic to, major invest­ment in the energy sec­tor. The collaborative’s strategy aims to:

• Deliv­er inspir­ing cam­paigns for young people,
• Devel­op and deliv­er exper­i­en­tial career learn­ing rel­at­ive to areas of eco­nom­ic need,
• Expand pro­vi­sion and uptake of appren­tice­ships in areas of eco­nom­ic need,
• Sup­port upskilling and reskilling to enable people to take advant­age of eco­nom­ic oppor­tun­it­ies as they arise.

High­land Coun­cil have launched a branded cam­paign — My High­land Future — and are work­ing to raise aware­ness of upcom­ing oppor­tun­it­ies across schools and com­munit­ies. Pilots of work-based learn­ing portals and employ­er engage­ment mod­els like ​“Appren­tice for a Day” are under­way, with flex­ible deliv­ery mod­els for learn­ing and train­ing and micro-cre­den­tials being explored to meet evolving labour mar­ket needs.

Loc­al Deliv­ery and Tar­geted Programmes

In Aber­deen­shire, the Careers Col­lab­or­at­ive has secured fund­ing for innov­at­ive pro­grammes such as the Work­wise Train­ing Pro­gramme, which deliv­ers vir­tu­al work exper­i­ence mod­ules and employ­er-led career videos in part­ner­ship with Aber­deen City Coun­cil and NESCol.

DYW Aber­deen­shire con­tin­ues to strengthen employ­er-school engage­ment, work­place place­ments, and career events, while Employ­ment CON­NECT imple­ments a three-year strategy to provide career ser­vices and tar­get vul­ner­able groups.

Both High­land and Aber­deen­shire are map­ping labour mar­ket needs to sup­port an expan­sion of appren­tice­ship starts in areas of eco­nom­ic need and devel­op­ing short, intens­ive train­ing pro­grammes to sup­port upskilling and reskilling. Region­al cam­paigns are also being designed to attract gradu­ates and skilled workers.

Integ­rated Sup­port Mech­an­isms and Next Steps

The col­lab­or­at­ive approach is under­pinned by mech­an­isms such as PACE (Part­ner­ship Action for Con­tinu­ing Employ­ment), DYW Region­al Groups, and digit­al tools like My World of Work, which com­bine in-per­son and online career inform­a­tion, advice, and guid­ance (CIAG).

In High­land, a loc­al author­ity roadmap is being final­ised via the Work­force North Mis­sion, with efforts focused on appren­tice­ships and reskilling ini­ti­at­ives, launch­ing work-based learn­ing portals, and rolling out region­al tal­ent attrac­tion campaigns.

The High­land Employ­ab­il­ity Part­ner­ship (which incor­por­ates a broad stra­tegic group­ing – HEP over­see­ing 3 smal­ler loc­ally based LEPs) and DYW Inverness & Cent­ral High­land exem­pli­fy the integ­ra­tion of loc­al ser­vices under the Scot­tish Government’s No One Left Behind frame­work, ensur­ing sus­tain­able career oppor­tun­it­ies and address­ing crit­ic­al skills gaps through coordin­ated plan­ning and employ­er engagement.