The impact on Sussex of a few centimetres of snow has been huge over the last week with a mixture of some very positive elements as well as deeply damaging ones. The positive aspects included the opportunity for some people to take advantage of the South Downs and enjoy some winter sports, no doubt helped by the timing coinciding with the Winter Olympics. A friend of mine had an unused toboggan in her loft and she was delighted to be able to test it out for the first time. The impact of people who took the time to clear their pavements and places of work of snow was also very positive; sadly some people did not take up this opportunity to improve the quality of life for passers-by and their customers. One of the delivery drivers to our business mentioned that he had slipped and banged his head on his van as he returned from a visit to one of his customers due to their failure to clear some of the snow. The business I am part of has an office that faces out onto the countryside and it has been fascinating to see the open spaces in a different light, the shape of the land gradually emerged through the tree branches in a way that does not happen when the landscape is dark. A wide range of birds and other animals also emerged from their normal hiding places as they became visible in contrast to the snow.

Clearly the positive elements to this brief but dramatic change to our usual weather pattern is small comfort to the people whose mobility has trapped them indoors and whose income means they cannot heat their homes sufficiently or that they do not even have a home. It was fantastic to see the tweets from the Fire and Rescue Service in East Sussex mentioning how they were visiting the homes of people they knew to be vulnerable. It was also amazing as I listened to Radio 4 to hear from a carer who continued to work for her clients because of her commitment to ensuring they were not left alone. The same sense of applause should be awarded to the many volunteers and employed workers who work for foodbanks and charities who work year round to help the Homeless and other vulnerable people. Other stories emerge at such times of people who have gone a long way out of their comfort to do the work that will help other people. Again on the Radio was a story of a Surgeon in Scotland who had walked for 3 hours to get to his place of work in order to carry out the operations needed for his patients. It is so easy for all of us to see society and particularly the public sector as being like a bureaucratic institution, it is only when such stories emerge that the impact of real people’s lives on a series of faceless entities gets to shine through.

If last week was a significant week for all of us due to the weather, this coming week should be a significant one for the organisations that are involved in helping to create apprenticeships and those who want to gain employment or increase their knowledge and change roles. The 11^th Annual National Apprenticeship week begins today utilising the hashtag #NAW2018. There are a number of activities taking place across Schools and Colleges this week, all of which can be found on the Government website. This year the theme for the week is ‘Apprenticeships Work’ and for small businesses they may not be aware of how this will impact them. This time last year training providers had expected to hear if they had been selected to supply solutions to SME’s. Unfortunately the week came and went and then in mid-April the Government announced that too many applicants had submitted proposals and they intended to delay the decision to December 2017. They then asked companies and colleges to resubmit their proposals utilising a different criteria. Since then the Government has announced the winners but whereas the new arrangements should have been in place from last May, there has been very little news reaching small businesses of how they can help to participate in apprenticeships this year, despite the fact that the Government has set itself a target of a 50% increase in apprentices during its current administration. Let us hope that this coming week while Schools and Colleges are setting out to encourage their students to consider apprenticeships as a way of starting their careers that the Government will use this week to start informing businesses of how they can participate in this important activity!