Welcome from Cllr Kam Kaur

Hello and welcome to the February edition of Warwickshire Means Business.

In this edition we feature the Warwickshire Skills Hub.  We reflect on what the Skills Hub has achieved in its first two years of existence (and that is plenty!) but also consider the present and the future. Fay Winterburn and her team at the Skills Hub are currently involved in a wide range of projects to connect employers, careers leaders and young people and there are always more initiatives coming down the track.

Skills is a subject very close to my own heart and I am very excited about the Future Careers Conference that we are organising in conjunction with the Coventry & Warwickshire Local Enterprise Partnership. Please do have a read about it and get involved with that any other of our projects which could help you. Our wonderful county's economy has stood up well to the challenges of the pandemic and that was achieved by people and organisations working together. Let's continue to do that as we move forward.

Here at WCC we are totally committed to supporting businesses in every way we can. Jobs and skills are at the heart of our recently renewed Council Plan. To help us deliver that support, we are very lucky to have our exceptional Economy & Skills team and in this edition of WMB we hear from some of it's newer members. We offer a warm welcome to Hardeep Sandhu who has joined us to oversee the roll out of the £90million Business Investment Pillar of the Warwickshire Recovery Investment Fund. We also hear from Jon Stead and Hayley Lineker who reflect on their first year in the team: a year in which that team has supported hundreds of Warwickshire businesses in various ways.

Please also have a read in this edition about a new Workplace Wellbeing forum  launched by ourselves and Coventry City Council to help businesses offer health and wellbeing support to their employees. We also reveal a series of webinars that we will hold in conjunction with Warwick and Stratford District Council aimed to help small and medium-sized business achieve net zero emissions.  Collaboration is a great thing!

Please do get involved and benefit from any of our projects or programmes which are appropriate to you. Kam