Alistair Houghton meets MANDI O’SHEA, managing director of Wirral training provider Scientiam

MANDI O’SHEA is a former YTS trainee who’s worked her way through the training industry.

Now her company, Scientiam, is putting its money where its mouth is by investing its profits into building new training centres of its own.

The Birkenhead company provides training and employment opportunities for people throughout Merseyside. It offers apprenticeships, NVQs and other qualifications to young people and adults, and works with hundreds of firms to help them train their staff.

It has struck contracts with the Merseyside Learning and Skills Council (LSC) to deliver a range of Government-funded schemes, including Train to Gain and Pathways to the Public Sector.

In the past 18 months, it has supported over 1,000 learners and worked with 400 businesses, working on training from basic skills through to management qualifications.

Its turnover has grown from £2.2m in 2006 to a record high of £3.3m last year.

The company is run as a social enterprise, and has now decided to invest its surplus in developing new training facilities to give its trainees an advantage in the jobs market.

Mrs O’Shea – who, when she’s not at work in Wirral, runs a hotel in the Lake District with her husband – said: “Traditionally, we generate a surplus and that sits in a bank.

“This year, there’s a formal commitment to invest in the development of our business.”

In 2008, the company invested over £100,000 in developing a gas assessment centre in Bromborough.

Its 2009 surplus will be invested in a green energy training centre at Wirral company Stiebel Eltron, specialising in the company’s new heat pump technology. It will welcome trainees from across the UK.

“The exciting thing about that training is that nobody else is doing it,” she said.

“Areas like that are key to our growth strategy.

“We can go out and identify these gaps in provision. We will be at the forefront of these exciting new activities.

“Green technology is high on the Government and skills agenda. As demand increases, there will be a need for more skilled workers.”

Mrs O’Shea first entered the world of work through the Youth Training Scheme (YTS) in St Helens. She spent a year on the scheme learning to become an accounts assistant.

“YTS had a very negative press of being poor quality skills and cheap labour,” she said. “I didn’t get that perception on the receiving end.”

From there, Mrs O’Shea moved into the construction sector and soon began specialising in training.

She has worked in organisations covering all aspects of training from colleges to funding bodies.

She rose to become training manager for construction at St Helens College before leading the construction apprenticeship programme at Manchester Training and Enterprise Council, helping people move into construction at a time when the city was being transformed in the wake of the IRA bomb and ahead of the Commonwealth Games.

After joining Business Link to wok with firms both inside and outside the construction sector, she joined Scientiam in 2007.

She said: “I wanted the opportunity to move into the senior management field in work-based learning, and to tailor services to the businesses she worked with.”

Scientiam was founded in 2001 as a legacy of the former Training and Enterprise Council.

It is limited by guarantee provided by Wirral Metropolitan College.

Scientiam started off specialising in apprenticeships, but has diversified into other areas of work-based learning.

Mrs O’Shea says Scientiam’s work divides into three major strands.

It helps young people learn the skills they need to find work, and then, where possible, helps them find work.

“We find people who might be unemployable and make them more employable,” said Mrs O’Shea.

Scientiam works with adults in employment to help them improve their skills.

Finally, it works with employers to help them train their staff.

It can assess what their needs are and then help them find any appropriate Government subsidies to fund that training. Mrs O’Shea said Scientiam had secured many new corporate customers in recent months, thanks to its ability to arrange grant funding for its clients.

“They don’t need to concern themselves with whether this person or that person is eligible for support,” she said. “We think we can save them a lot of time, energy and money.”

The challenge for a company such as Scientiam is to ensure that the training it offers meets the ever-changing needs of businesses.

Mrs O’Shea said: “The challenge for us is to look at what the next big opportunity is going to be and invest our resources in being at the forefront of the development of that skills agenda.”

Scientiam is managing to grow despite the recession, which Mrs O’Shea puts down to its success in finding new niches and attracting new business.

Now she says that she wants the company to expand well beyond the borders of its Merseyside base.

“Our aspiration is to be considered a player in the North- West, not just in Wirral or Merseyside,” she said.

“We want our growth to continue over the next five years in the city region and beyond.”

Mrs O’Shea commutes every day from the Cumbrian town of Windermere, where she and her husband, Dave, together with their 18-year-old son, Chris, run the 17-bed Grey Walls Hotel.

She is also studying for a degree in politics and social policy from the Open University.

“It’s a hard slog but it’s enjoyable and particularly topical at the moment,” she said.

alistair.houghton