McTaggart Group, have been announced as winners of the ‘Business in the Community’ category of the Ayrshire Business Awards 2018.
The awards ceremony recognised Ayrshire businesses which have demonstrated excellence in a variety of fields. This acknowledgement follows the Group also winning the ‘Community Contribution’ award at the Scottish Home Awards 2018 in June.
The company have also been shortlisted for ‘Large Employer of the Year’ at next month’s Scottish Apprenticeship Awards.
McTaggart’s Managing Director, Gary Climson said “We are honoured to be recognised for our work in the community. We take the view that we are visitors to the areas in which we are building and making that community better in every way we possibly can is our goal.”
Much of the affordable housing McTaggart’s build are within areas that feature on the list of Scotland’s most deprived areas, therefore their apprenticeship programme focuses on raising attainment and removing barriers for this specific group of disadvantaged young people.
Gary Climson continued “Over 80% of our apprentices have come to us from employability programmes and are often from disadvantaged backgrounds. We offer additional support to these young people to maximise their chance of success.”
The Education & Employment element of the programme has been structured to identify and support all pathways into construction.
At secondary school stage McTaggart commit time and resources to a small number of schools, believing this is the most effective way to raise attainment, rather than take a generic approach. The two-year programmes at St Mungo’s Academy and Springburn Academy involve a 100 hour (per school) commitment incorporating classroom learning and site visits to apply that learning. At the end of the programme pupils are supported and funded through their CSCS card by McTaggart.
Many of the 38 school pupils currently on our programme would otherwise leave school without any qualifications.
McTaggart has also delivered 5 community-based training academies. This has provided 50 young people the opportunity to gain CSCS cards and has achieved a 95% pass rate for young people. This approach has worked with adult learning programmes and supported young people with additional support requirements such as ADHD and dyslexia.
