Nigel comes from a strong customer service and sales background with over 20 years managerial experience in the motor trade, working as an Area Manager for Fiat and Alfa Auto UK covering the north of England, before owning his own transport business for 5 years. After retraining, he joined Sefton council in 2021 when he made a move into education, working in a primary school supporting SEND.
Author: Sion
Angela Hiddleston
Learning and Development Administrator Angela has over 33 years Administration experience.
Angela started her career with Royal Sun Alliance and spent over 20 years there in various different roles including Administration Assistant, Personal Assistant and as a Financial Systems Administrator.
Angela joined Sefton Council in June 2007 working within Sefton Equipment Stores. She then moved into the Corporate Learning Development Unit – this became the Corporate Learning Centre in 2011.
Angela has achieved a NVQ Level 2 and Level 3 in Business Administration through the Apprenticeship Programme.
Welcome
Sefton Corporate Learning Centre is located in North West England near to the large cities of Liverpool and Manchester. Ainsdale train station is a 10 minute walk to the Centre and we have plenty of free on-site car parking available.
All scheduled training events are delivered from our Ainsdale site. Here you’ll find yourself surrounded by nature and an abundance of green open space. The sand dunes here are of international importance and can be seen from many of our training rooms, with the beach only a 10 minute walk from the centre.
We have a strong track record of delivering high quality training and workforce development to individuals working across the public, private, voluntary, community and faith sectors. We are confident that our high customer service delivered by experienced learning and development professionals will offer you excellent choice, flexibility and value for money. Furthermore a number of our growing portfolio of courses have been approved for delivery by the Open Awards ‘Badge of Excellence’ scheme.
Badge of Excellence is a quality assurance mark that recognises excellent training, development and learning provision for meaningful outcomes. The Badge of Excellence scheme allows us to identify and develop training programmes that are not easily aligned to a qualification but still deserve to be nationally recognised as an achievement and outcome for the learner. Badge of Excellence provides us with the flexibility to design and develop our own quality bespoke in-house training to meet learner outcomes.
Our service also provides a portfolio of approved First Aid provision such as First Aid at Work and Paediatric First Aid which are fully accredited by Qualsafe, an OFQUAL approved provider. Further details of all our First Aid provision can be accessed from our training courses page.
Bespoke Training
We are happy to tailor courses to meet your requirements and if this is something you are interested in please contact us.
Have you thought of holding your event here?
Recently, the centre supported the transport network for The Open Golf Championship held at Royal Birkdale, hosting a number of Pilot’s transporting visitors and some of the world’s greatest golfers by Helicopter. We are proud of this professional relationship and look forwarding to welcoming the team back to our centre in the future.
If you would like further information regarding the range of courses available please contact:
Email: training.services@sefton.gov.uk
Telephone: 0151 934 2592.
or send us a quick message using the form below:
Lucy Cant
Advanced Social Media Apprentice
Sefton Council
Reasons for completing an apprenticeship
The main reason for completing the apprenticeship that I am currently on now is I knew I would ultimately benefit from this in the future. I am currently completing my level 3 social media NVQ and I am now moving on to my Level 4 which is going to be more focused on marketing which will also benefit me a lot more in the future. It is an area I am very interested in and hopefully will lead to a job in the future.
Overview and Responsibilities
I am based at Magadalen House and work within the very busy Communications Team mostly looking at all elements of the Council’s social media accounts. My day to day responsibilities that I have while completing this apprenticeship is to monitor and make sure that the partner retweets are done first thing in the morning, so we as a Council don’t miss anything at all.
Megan Ball
Library Apprentice (NVQ Customer Service Level 2)
Crosby Library
Megan is completing an apprenticeship to gain further knowledge, receive an outstanding qualification, to meet new people and gain further confidence within and out of her work place.
Her tasks include, setting up the library before opening, clearing away returned items, shelving books in order, taking reserved items to be sent to other libraries, checking in items from other libraries. Serving the general public with problems, giving them advice and guidance, directing them into areas they may need to go. Using the till for collecting customer fines, DVD rentals, new library cards and Peoples Network printing. Signing members of the public up for the library service.
She would hopefully like to see this apprenticeship taking her onto further job roles within the library service or even in different areas of Sefton Council.
We congratulate Megan, for being nominated for a Sefton Council Star Award this year. A sign that in her colleagues view her work over the past year has exceeded the limits of her job role.
Liz Wood
Library assistant/Customer Service
Crosby Library
Liz tried an Apprenticeship because she wanted to gain new skills in a different role.
She worked in the lending library issuing books, serving customers, dealing with queries, children’s sessions, shelving and processing books. Working in Information Services helping with family history enquiries.
Liz is hoping to get a more permanent position within the Library Service or the Council
Harry Whitfield
Customer Service level 2
Sefton Council
Harry became an Apprentice not only to earn some money but also to gain a valuable understanding of how a large organisation such as the Council works. He found that by working in such a varied and culturally interesting setting such as the Library he improved his understanding of customer service immensely .
Some of Harry’s jobs included, dealing with new stock, managing distribution of books and other media to each of the libraries across the Council. He was asked to deal with invoices, and to correct any mistakes found on the computer system. He also was placed on the main desk, dealing with customers directly helping them fulfil their needs, and continued this work for customers behind the scenes dealing with all customer stock requests and inter library loan requests.
From this apprenticeship Harry is positive that he will learn lots of skills and that will be useful within future work places and in life in general. Harry says “I will be living a better quality of life and working a superior job because of this apprenticeship and what it has taught me.”
Ben Kelly
Library Assistant Apprentice
Crosby Library
Ben wanted to get the real experience of work and also to get a qualification. He was pleased that the was asked to help out at Library front desk helping people with their questions and queries.
Ben said “I see this apprenticeship providing me with the necessary skills to further my development”
Helen Evitt
Workforce Planning Support Officer
Helen qualified as an Environmental Health Officer (EHO) in 1992 and has worked in several large Local Authorities including Leicester City Council, Bristol City Council and Reading Borough Council. She then located back to her northern roots where she was appointed as an EHO at Sefton Council in an enforcement and regulatory capacity. During her time as an EHO she worked across several disciplines including Pollution, Health Promotion, Food Safety and Health and Safety.
Helen left Sefton in 2015 to take up an opportunity within the private sector as a Health and Safety Advisor. She has always enjoyed developing and coaching people and chose to redirect her career in 2017 towards education and workplace learning. She has recently worked as a Work Placement Officer at Southport College supporting Traineeship students and those undertaking vocational placements.
Having recently joined the Apprenticeship team at Sefton, Helen is looking forward to working with and supporting Apprentices, as well as sharing her knowledge and experience of working on the front line in customer facing roles.
Amanda McNally
Workforce Planning Support Officer
Amanda graduated from Edge Hill University in 2003 with a Business Management Degree and whilst completing her final year of study she started working with Sefton MBC as a part time Clerical Officer. Upon completion of her degree she was then successful in gaining an Administration Assistant role in Personnel in September 2003; after a short time she was then promoted to CRB Coordinator in April 2004. Whilst undertaking the CRB coordinator role, she had a temporary acting up role as an Assistant Personnel Officer to cover maternity leave and in 2006 was seconded 2 days per week into UNISON to carry out a Union learn Project, which was carried out alongside the CRB coordinator role until 2009.
During a successful Union Learn project, relationships were forged with the Corporate Learning Centre, working alongside Emma Finnigan and the Apprenticeship programme. Upon successful completion of the Union Learn project, Mandy then joined the Corporate Learning and Development team in June 2009, whilst continuing to support the Union Learn project and was awarded Apprenticeship Champion in 2011 by Union learn North West TUC.
Mandy has supported a significant number of learners onto various forms of learning, training and qualifications including Skills for Life (Maths, English and ICT), NVQs and Apprenticeships. Her main role is now to support the recruitment and development of Apprentice’s within the organisation.