traininG Marriott signs up for women 1st scheme


Marriott Hotels has become the first hospitality opera- tor in Scotland to join forces with Women 1st and provide its key female staff with career enhancing training. Te group will offer the Step


Up scheme, which aims to ensure junior female manag- ers are given the skills needed to become the senior manag- ers, chief executives and board members of the future. A unique leadership men-


toring network will also be created, matching candidates to senior figures so junior staff can benefit from expert advice and guidance to progress their careers. Te initiative will be available in Edinburgh,


Te scheme aims to ease the path from junior to senior management


Glasgow and Dumfries and has also secured a government subsidy to part fund the training.


Te project is the brainchild of sector skills council People 1st which found that while 56 per cent of the workforce is female, only 6 per cent of board directors are women.


Deputy PM unveils Youth Contract


Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has announced details of the government’s new Youth Contract, a £1bn programme that is designed to help young people into employment. Te initiative, which will


launch next April, will cover a three-year period and includes wage subsidies worth £2,275 per year for employers who recruit 18-to-24-year-olds. It is hoped the programme


will help at least 410,000 young people into employ- ment, with a focus on getting the most “disengaged” 16- and 17-year-olds into school or college. Extra funding for apprenticeships and £50m to help people “persistently” not in education, employ- ment or training will also be available. Clegg said: “This is a £1bn package and


Launching in April, the initiative will target out-of-work young people


But it’s a contract, a two-way street: if you sign up for the job, they’ll be no signing on for the dole. You have to stick with it.” Dr Adam Marshall, director of policy at the


what’s different about it is it gets young people into proper, lasting jobs in the private sector.


British Chambers of Commerce, said: “Te Youth Contract will help provide a much- needed jobs boost for the young.”


ACE and CCS publish new arts internship guide


Arts Council England (ACE) and Creative and Cultural Skills (CCS), the industry’s sector skills council, have announced the publica- tion of a new guide on arts internships. Internships in the arts - a guide for arts organ- isations outlines how to develop high-quality


© CYBERTREK 2011


and mutually beneficial opportunities, while also setting out legal obligations. Te guide has issued recommendations for


successful schemes, which include a fair, open and transparent recruitment process and the provision of “meaningful experiences”.


Twitter: @leisureopps


Pubs can improve local economies


Gareth edwards is education director of The Springboard Charity and Springboard UK


A


ccording to the British Bar and Pub Association, UK pubs employ around 1 million people and generate £12.6bn in taxes


each year. Meanwhile, the Association of Licensed Multiple Retailers shows that pubs provide a turnover of £21bn a year. Despite these figures, more than 5,000


pubs have closed in the past five years – many of them in rural locations. In addition to the social and economic decay it causes, such closures mean that the total amount of tax raised is also in decline and the method by which pubs and the hospitality industry are taxed requires urgent attention. An extensive study by Jacques Borel, who


successfully lobbied for 5.5 per cent VAT for the French hospitality industry sector – which has created 21,000 jobs in its first year – suggests up to 320,000 jobs could be created in the UK under a similar scheme. VAT at 5 per cent would see more peo- ple eating and drinking in a responsible, supervised environment; encourage more tourists into the country; and offer a highly cost-effective method of job creation. Borel argues that the Treasury will gain


additional revenues in the long term from higher sector turnover, higher corpora- tion tax receipts and higher income tax and national insurance payments through increased employment. More than 30 operators have already signed up to the campaign to cut VAT to 5 per cent, includ- ing JD Wetherspoon and Travelodge. Te sector is increasingly beginning to voice this and similar key arguments as one. Speaking of voicing key arguments,


singer-songwriter Will Francis has cap- tured the main issues facing pubs with his new single Pubs Hold Te Answer. During British Pub Week, Will performed to var- ious audiences including a room full of MPs at Te Red Lion in Westminster and ensured that all MPs got a copy of the sin- gle and the message. Apparently the clip was also aired at the Future of the British Pub debate at the House of Commons ear- lier this year. Nice work Will!


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