Brown Brothers Industry Best Practice

Brown Brothers first became involved with SVQs in the first qualification was G37K 22 Meat & Poultry Processing and Manufacturing Operations (Red Meat)

The company decided to start to deliver the SVQs in house and gained SQA approval in July 2000

G92L 22 Meat & Poultry Processing Skills G8RW 22 Distribution Skills G8RR 22 Production Control Skills G8RP 22 Facilities Support Skills

F Communication F42D 04 Information and Communication Technology F Numeracy F42H 04 Problem Solving F42M 04 Working With Others

When we first started to use the SVQs through SQA we initially had a difficult start. We took any criticism on board and worked hard as a centre to bring it up to the standard required

I am pleased to say after 3 years of hard work we were rewarded with an E.V report with no development points

The SVQs have given our staff a structured training programme with the opinion of the candidates now seeing it as a positive. They can see themselves as having a career in the food industry instead of just having a job that pays the bills at the end of the week.

SVQs are an automatic inclusion of the employees training plan for those employed under the TFW scheme and the Modern Apprenticeship scheme however we have seen a dramatic rise in the number of employees requesting the SVQ who are non funded

Success so far: Internal Promotion for employees Better skilled workforce Increase in staff retention Reduction in the number of accidents Reduction in the absence rate

Future plans include expanding the Modern Apprenticeships into our Belchers site in Prestwick

Progression from SVQ to internal promotion will be through our new customised award in management which we are currently writing

Why?