Bill Macbeth OBE: How to sum up twenty-five years’ experience in 500 words..

Bill’s departing words..

Our Centre is about understanding our industry’s skill needs – designing and delivering activity that’s relevant to companies which provides the required outputs for the funding agencies – occasionally influencing policy with industry intelligence and creating new approaches to skills and innovation.

We’ve done some neat stuff because I’ve been lucky to work with people who are totally committed to both the sector and to our organisation. We would have achieved little without the support of our member companies, our executive team and our Board of Directors. They are our USP.

Ours is a complex business. I’m proud of our performance of developing and delivering apprenticeships, which remain at the heart of our mission, and where we’ve responded to the industry’s needs and created new projects including:

  • Our Manufacturing Leadership Programme, preparing future leaders with essential skills and knowledge, working with Sue Alderson from Azure.
  • The Design Incubator, created to help graduate designers start successful new businesses working with our manufacturers and the region’s universities.
  • The Textile Innovation Programme – creating ground-breaking new processes utilising emerging, sustainable technologies from around the world.
  • The Manufacturing Skills Brokerage – working with thousands of companies across Yorkshire to plan and implement their training.
  • Innovative EU projects where we participated and led new approaches to skills, innovation and particularly sustainable manufacturing.
  • The Future Fashion Factory, which set a new standard for Industry and HE collaboration working with Professor Steve Russell and his team at Leeds University to provide expert, practical support for company innovation.

Of course it hasn’t all been plain sailing. We’ve faced challenges in keeping up with government policy which at one stage threatened to withdraw contracts from small, specialist providers like us, and where we only survived with the help and support of our local politicians and partners. And like most companies we were hit hard by Covid.

But the biggest disappointment of my career was Brexit. It was a terrible time and I think it showcased the very worst of our society. For a while I was embarrassed to be British. It broke my heart.

But going forward we have every reason to be positive. Our Centre has ambitious plans to grow and provide increased levels of support to the sector. Our role as the sector’s Group Training Association will be even more important. We’re told that data on local skills needs will increasingly shape provision at local and national level and our relationships with companies across the sector will be our greatest asset.

Shahban, our new MD, our brilliant executive team, and our Board of Directors will continue to steer the company through what promises to be interesting times – and I know we will succeed.

My thanks to everyone, our amazing directors, particularly Paul Johnson who never failed to support me, providing the solid platform we needed to create new initiatives, our fantastic member companies, our partners, and sector bodies for the support they have given to me and to our organisation.

Bill

 

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