MP pitches for IT apprenticeships scheme with local I.T company

Tim Farron secured a meeting with business and skills minister David Lammy to pitch for a deal that would create hundreds of new apprenticeships for new graduates.

Base 3 Systems, an I.T. Consultancy specialising in Analytics, supplies skilled graduates to blue chip companies and has joined with Tim to propose an exciting scheme to place graduates in government departments. Tim Farron and local businessman Ian Macdonald met with Minister of State David Lammy to discuss a government pilot programme. Should the pilot be approved Base 3 Systems will establish a new facility in Cumbria.

Mr Macdonald's Base 3 Systems runs a programme whereby Base 3 recruits and trains graduates before deploying them at client's sites. It has always been very difficult for graduates to enter the IT market, however this scheme has been outstanding successful with over 90% of the graduates subsequently joining Base 3 System's clients - a completely unique offering and success rate in the IT consultancy world.

The Minister showed considerable interest in the scheme and agreed to pass it on to senior civil servants in the office of Graduate Studies to identify the feasibility of rolling out the proposals across government departments.

Commenting Mr Farron said:

"There's been a worrying trend amongst the banks that have received government funding toward sourcing more of their IT jobs overseas. Given the difficulty that so many of our graduates are experiencing finding work this is a ludicrous position to find ourselves in.

"For each graduate without a job, the Treasury takes home £6,000 less in tax, while at the same time having to fund more people on Jobseekers allowance.

"Base 3 has been very successful and has provided excellent career opportunities for over 150 graduates with some of the largest blue-chip companies in the country. The current proposal would allow the government to tap into this success by substituting newly trained graduates for outsourced staff on government contracts."

"When you read the pre-budget speech the Chancellor gave last week, you couldn't wish for a better scheme than the one on offer from Base 3. After an initial pilot project, the scheme is capable of delivering 200 per year which would generate 1000 jobs in the next 5 years.

"I'm extremely hopeful that now David Lammy has the proposal that we will be able to move on to the next stage to determine how the government can implement this scheme and utilise its full potential."