CWA headed up the ‘Emerging Leaders’ project, which ran over the course of two and half years, with the aim of supporting local employers across Norfolk and Suffolk to provide management training to their employees.

The project began in November 2016 and was funded through the European Social Fund (ESF). The project was led by the college and involved other FE colleges in the New Anglia Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP); West Suffolk College, City College Norwich, Suffolk New College, East Coast College and Easton and Otley College.

Partners worked together to support 90 employers, of which all were Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and 62 of these were micro-businesses. These businesses were from a wide range of different sectors including; 24 employers from the care sector, as well as 11 from the manufacturing industry.

In total, 279 employees participated in the project to increase their skills in leadership and management by undertaking the training. Many participants achieved more than one unit of development, with an achievement rate of 85% and over 600 certificates were handed out across the board.

While completing their training, over 27% of participants took on additional responsibilities in the workplace, while a further 9% gained a promotion after the project ended.

The project is in-line with New Anglia LEP’s economic strategy, which is focussed on ensuring businesses have the funding, support, skills, and infrastructure needed to grow. The project has supported the increase in management skills across the area, as well as supporting local SME employers to deliver level three or higher management training.

College Principal, David Pomfret, said:

“We were delighted to lead on the ESF funded Emerging Leaders project to increase leadership skills development across Norfolk and Suffolk.

We are committed to supporting local businesses by working in partnership with other FE colleges across the region to ensure their growth, in-line with the New Anglia LEP’s economic strategy.”

Susie Massen, Project Manager for the ESF and Work-based Projects at the college, said:

“All partners involved worked together in an open and honest way, allowing us to realise our shared goals and values in the delivery of this project.

This project has had an extremely positive impact on the strong partnership between the New Anglia LEP colleges who have come together to deliver an exciting offer of learning and bespoke training to our local employers.”