UK Trade & Investment / East of England International - Website
RLN East act as the international communications team of UKT&I, providing businesses with support for international communications planning, signposting to providers of professional language services, and advice and guidance on language and culture. The EEDA 2003 Skills Capacity Audit identified inadequate language and culture skills as a barrier to competitiveness and effectiveness in international trade for many of the region’s businesses. Support is delivered through a small team of on-the-road specialist advisors. We also support overseas companies settling in the region by working with the investor development team in assisting these companies with communications with counterparts overseas.
East of England Development Agency - Website
RLN East works closely with the Skills and Employment team at EEDA. Based at EEDA’s Victory House in Histon, RLN East is creating a system of specialist business support for international communications for companies across the region. We are also working closely with the Europe and International team on European-funded programmes which support transnational language and culture initiatives.
GOEast - Website
RLN East's contract with the Government Office for the East of England (GO East) focuses on supporting all ESF project activity involving language & culture training. Under Technical Assistance to ESF our support encompasses a range of activity, including employer referrals to training programmes, collation & development of language & culture resource to be distributed to ESF project managers, input to strategic planning at co-financer level, development of a promotional ISend facility to keep ESF managers informed of current news & events, and provision of a website to centralise language & culture support to GO-East approved ESF projects.The Government Office Network was set up in 1994 to bring together the offices of individual central government departments in each region and so provide a more efficient and integrated service. The Network now works for thirteen central government departments, implementing policies and programmes on the ground, monitoring and reporting on local priorities and responding to civil emergencies.Go to www.gos.gov.uk for more detailed information on how we have been involved with regenerating communities, fighting crime, tackling housing needs, improving public health, raising standards in education and skills, tackling climate change and community engagement, and reducing unemployment.
NOMS - Website
RLN East is working with NOMS on collating and providing language & culture resources focussed on reducing re-offending through more effective communication between staff and prisoner. These include the prison phrase books and ESOL materials to support ESF training mangers within the various establishments. These materials also help to get offenders back into employment by giving them the vocabulary required to perform a variety of work functions within the prison. We are also facilitating a series of culture workshops aimed at helping prison staff understand the culture of the countries from which many offenders originate.NOMS have a key role to play in ensuring that the public are protected from offenders, that those who offend are punished and that fewer offenders re-offend. This should lead to less crime in society and make our communities safer places to live in.Whether offenders are in prison or in the community, we need to manage them better to stop them re-offending. Many of the offenders in our system are from socially excluded groups and in reaching them, we need to offer them the chance to engage with society in meaningful ways. We need to offer them the chance to change and to address their offending behaviour.
Luton Borough Council - Website
RLN East is working with Luton Borough Council on supporting businesses in the Luton area with language training delivered under ESF. Luton has a strong track record of language training for business, developed initially by the (then) University of Luton's Language & Culture for Business programme and since continued under various funded projects. Our current focus is on supporting the successor to the ESF project Advantage Luton, referrals of Luton employers to Beyond 2010, support for the Council Adult Education Authority, and ESOL provision across the city.
Job Centre Plus - Website
RLN East shall be working with Job Centre Plus on projects which help the unemployed overcome barriers to employment caused by a lack of language skills. It shall also help develop a system for identifying those recently made redundant who have language skills which may be of use to the business community. Through our seat on the Nations & Regions East steering group we are working on support for volunteering, in particular those in higher education with relevant language skills for the 2012 Olympics.Jobcentre Plus is an executive agency of the Department for Work and Pensions. It provides services that support people of working age from welfare into work, and helps employers to fill their vacancies. Amongst their key objectives are to increase the effective supply of labour by promoting work as the best form of welfare and helping unemployed and economically inactive people move into employment and to provide high-quality and demand-led services to employers, which help fill job vacancies quickly and effectively with well-prepared and motivated employees.
Skills funding Agency - Website
RLN East has a track record of working with the Learning and Skills Council (now the Skills Funding Agency) in the support of language training for SMEs. Under the pilot project Language & Culture for International Trade (LCIT), funded through Train to Gain, managers of local exporting businesses were able to improve their level of foreign language in order to communicate more effectively with overseas customers.The Skills Funding Agency is the single agency that all publicly funded post-19 education and training providers will contract with (except Higher Education). It delivers its remit through four gateways. The National Apprenticeship Service, Employer Skills Services (comprising of Train to Gain & National Employer Service), The Adult Advancement and Careers Service and a Learners skills service for Integrated Employment and Skills service for the unemployed.
