A Review of Training & Employment in the Environment in Scotland

Extract

This report for Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) and the Scottish Enterprise Network (SE) reviews employment opportunities available to new entrants within the Environmental Sector in Scotland.

Its key objective is to identify the range and type of jobs that exist, provide guidance to individuals on entry requirements and potential career structures and to identify successful models for linking the training and environmental programmes of SNH and SE and the LECs. The role played by the Third Sector is also included.

It reviews current arrangements for the delivery of training and employment initiatives linked with environmental activities.

For the purposes of the report, environmental activities are defined as the people and activities engaged in the physical interface with the natural and designed landscape and associated with its construction, management, maintenance and enjoyment.

Environmental cluster : activities funded by SNH, SE and the LECs

The sector includes (and environmental activity benefits from), not only those in paid employment, but from a significant number of unpaid volunteers and the long-term unemployed who use Government-funded training programmes as a "route to employability".

The Environmental Sector is complex, diverse and fragmented. Key issues explored include:

• The effect of environmental funding and government funded training programmes, including the Environmental Task Force on the number, scale, type and quality of environmental activity.
• The role of Best Practice Principles. (BPPs)
• Solutions to the perceived barriers to training in the environmental sector.
• The effects of the variable supply of trainees and volunteers

The main recommendations of the report focus on the need for a more holistic approach where added value will be delivered if the impacts deliverable by environmental activities (environmental quality, employment, skills development, social inclusion, community and health) are all considered and balanced. This will involve:

• Developing and extending knowledge, competence and skills
• Using a holistic approach for all environmental project appraisals involving public funds. The underlying principle is that environment is not merely the end product of an environmental improvement. It is the continuing interface between people, processes and place.
• Using appropriate models and agents.
• A community centred approach to meet local as well as individual needs.
• Connectivity for consensus and good practice.

A full copy of the summary document is available to contributing and relevant organisations. Please contact us if you are interested.