BURNLEY is the new base for a training centre set up to get people out of unemployment.

The Training Hub on Network 65 Business Park is a second centre for the Transport Training Academy, following on from its headquarters in Atherton.

TTA was formed in 2004 to offer driving assessments to small and medium-size transport companies, before expanding into a variety of training to the transport, distribution and logistics sector.

But now it also uses to taxpayers’ cash to train the unemployed to QCF/NVQ and apprenticeship level and become ‘pre-employment graduates’.

Lee Stewart, head of teaching, learning and quality, says 62 per cent of learners from TTA’s two sector-specific pre-employability courses – warehouse and storage and driving goods vehicles – move directly into employment after qualification.

“We are the only organisation in the region that offers the training we do,” he said. “We give people on Job Seekers’ Allowance a step on the ladder and it’s free for them.

“These are real skills that they can put on their CV and back it up – it’s not just a piece of paper.

“For pre-employment, we want our job outcomes to be more than 60 per cent; that’s 60 per cent of people finding a job within six months.

“A lot of it is down to them, but it gives them extra leverage such as going away with a forklift truck certificate.”

The firm also finds work for HGV drivers and even advises and offers courses to former military personnel on their return to civilian life.

Mr Stewart added: “A forklift truck course costs £500, but they get it for free and we draw the money down from the Government.

“The employers can’t afford that so we can draw down the funding to do a QCS, which is like the old NVQs.

“We have a had people start a job the week after they finish with us and others who are in pre-employment who have been promised a job if they, for example, get their counter balance, which is the truck used in the yard loading and unloading vehicles.

“We also do reach truck courses, which gives them the skills to get the goods in a racking system inside the warehouse.”