The Minister for Employability and Training, Jamie Hepburn, has praised the Robertson Group's commitment towards addressing the construction industry's skills shortage.

Speaking during a visit to the Pennywell regeneration project in Edinburgh, where hundreds of affordable homes are being created by Robertson Partnership Homes for Urban Union, Minister Hepburn congratulated the company for taking steps towards addressing skills gaps in their business.

"This is exactly the type of approach that is benefitting our economy and is in line with the Scottish Government's commitment to making sure our skills system is aligned with employer needs," he said.

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"The Scottish Government continues to invest significantly in work based learning and is enhancing and diversifying our apprenticeship programmes, including building on the early success of Graduate Level Apprenticeships. We are on course to meet our target of 30,000 new starts each year by 2020 while our Flexible Workforce Development Fund is offering opportunities to up-skill and re-skill existing employees."

Stewart Shearer, managing director, Robertson Partnership Homes, said: "Due to the current labour shortages within the industry, we decided that in order to secure the correct resources for our pipeline we had to employ our own in-house trades.

"The current skills gap is threatening to derail the wider built environment industry, and we're working as a priority to help address this. As well as joiners, we are currently recruiting for plumbers and electricians across all regions, and will also be offering eight further apprenticeships in 2018."

(LM)