Connect Communications and Pimlico Plumbers win Corporate Campaign of the Year Award

'Giving Opportunity to the Next Generation’ apprenticeships campaign

Watching the Prime Minister unblock a u-bend on the Pimlico Plumbers exhibition stand at Conservative Conference under the watchful eyes of two Pimlico Plumbers apprentices was undoubtedly the highlight of Connect Communications conference season. It also marked the high-point in the ‘Giving Opportunity to the Next Generation’ campaign.

The campaign, launched by Pimlico Plumbers and Connect Communications in early 2014, is a national campaign aimed at boosting the number of apprenticeships in the UK, securing greater support for SMEs that want to take on apprentices, and ensuring that the value of apprenticeships is fully understood by Government.

Connect Communications developed a strategy that placed Pimlico Plumbers’ apprentices at the heart of the campaign, using them as the most effective advocates for the importance and value of high quality apprenticeships. Also at the centre of our strategy was Charlie Mullins, founder and chief executive of Pimlico Plumbers, himself an outstanding advocate for apprenticeships having left school with no qualifications, started an apprenticeship and grew his business into London’s largest independent planning company.

We kicked off the campaign by producing a report, ‘Giving Opportunity to the Next Generation’, setting out Charlie’s vision for the future of apprenticeships and calling for more support to be given to SMEs offering apprenticeships and the development of a fully-funded national apprenticeship scheme.

To promote the report and build a network of advocates we organised a series of fantastic visits to the Pimlico Plumbers depot where guests ranging from Matt Hancock MP and Gordon Birtwistle MP to the CBI, FSB and National Apprenticeships Service were introduced to the Pimlico Plumbers apprentices and given the opportunity to join the apprentices in practising their plumbing skills.

Building on the campaign’s success in Westminster we took a team of young Pimlico Plumbers apprentices to the Conservative Party Conference to build further support for the campaign. Keen to get as many MPs and other delegates engaged with the campaign as possible we developed a ‘Plumbing Challenge’ exhibition stand, manned by Pimlico apprentices, to challenge MPs and Ministers to see how quickly they could complete a basic plumbing task.

With the apprentices acting as the advocates for the campaign the stand proved a huge success with a wide range of MPs competing to get their names on the leaderboard, including visits from the Prime Minister as well as senior Cabinet members including George Osborne, Theresa May, Nicky Morgan, Eric Pickles and William Hague. Crucially, James and Ashley, the Pimlico apprentices manning the stand, had the opportunity to discuss the campaign with all those who visited, providing a first-hand perspective on the value and importance of apprenticeships.

Commenting on the success of the ‘Plumbing Challenge’, Charlie Mullins, founder and chief executive of Pimlico Plumbers said: “The crowning glory of our campaign, was the four days in September, when we took the campaign, complete with apprentices James Parkinson and Ashley Mullins, and their mentor, Gary Swan, to the Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham. This was our first ever party conference, and I have Connect Communications, who helped us with our apprenticeship campaign in 2014, to thank for walking us through, what was a strange, and at times, confusing bubble. However, new to the environment we might have been, but overawed and muted we were not.”

Both Connect Communications and Pimlico Plumbers were thrilled to see the success of the campaign recognised at the 2014 Public Affairs Awards, winning the Corporate Campaign of the Year Award. We were also pleased to see all three parties acknowledging the importance of apprenticeships and the contribution that apprentices make at all of their autumn conferences.

However, the campaign is far from over and as we approach the 2015 General Election Connect Communications will continue to work closely with Pimlico Plumbers to ensure that all three parties place a commitment to apprenticeships at the heart of their manifestos.

Below is Pimlico Plumbers and Connect Communications' joint submission in the Corporate Campaign of the Year category:

'Giving Opportunity to the Next Generation’ apprenticeships campaign Objective  An apprenticeship gives a young person a skilled job for life. That’s an ethos that Charlie Mullins at Pimlico Plumbers knows all too well – having left school with no qualifications, he has grown his business into London’s largest independent plumbing company. In early 2014, working in partnership with Connect Communications, Pimlico Plumbers launched a national campaign to: to boost the number of apprenticeships in the UK; secure support for SMEs that want to take on apprentices; ensure that the value of apprenticeships was fully understood and supported by Government. Action To kick off the campaign, Pimlico Plumbers launched a report Giving Opportunity to the Next Generation which called for more support to SMEs offering apprenticeships and a fully-funded national apprenticeship scheme. Connect delivered a programme of visits to the Pimlico Plumbers depot for policy-makers to meet apprentices in action and ran events in Parliament to promote the value of apprenticeships. These were attended by Matt Hancock, Minister for Skills; Gordon Birtwistle, the Government’s Apprenticeship Ambassador; Jason Holt, author of a Government review of SME apprenticeships; and representatives from the CBI, the FSB, the British Chambers of Commerce, Careers England, the National Apprenticeship Service, Policy Exchange, Demos, FE Colleges and members of the Apprenticeship APPG. As a result, Pimlico Plumbers were invited to help shape policies which give employers greater ownership of qualifications and require schools to build links with employers. At the heart of the campaign over the party conference season was the Plumbing Challenge at the Pimlico Plumbers’ exhibition stand. Delegates, councillors, MPs and Ministers were invited to be trained by Pimlico Plumbers’ apprentices to unblock a U-bend in the quickest possible time. The Plumbing Challenge proved hugely popular and enabled two of the Pimlico apprentices, James and Ashley, to talk about the campaign and importantly their own views and experiences. The highlight was a visit from David Cameron who completed the challenge in an impressive 18 seconds - although he was frustrated not to top the leaderboard! Others visitors included George Osborne, Theresa May, Nicky Morgan, Eric Pickles and William Hague. All the Ministers spoke to the Pimlico apprentices, the strongest advocates for the need to increase support for apprenticeships across the UK. Outcome  The importance of apprenticeships to jobs and growth featured in all three main party conferences. The day after David Cameron took the Plumbing Challenge, he announced that Conservatives would create another 3 million apprenticeships. The week before, Ed Miliband had committed Labour to ensuring there are as many apprenticeships as university places, and Vince Cable has said that the Lib Dems would increase wages for apprentices. These announcements were supported by delegates pledging to explore how their local authorities could work with Pimlico Plumbers to deliver more apprenticeships. With support secured from political stakeholders, the campaign will continue to step up ahead of the general election. MPs are already asking what more they can do and the campaign will focus on securing pledges from MPs and PPCs to keep apprenticeships at the top of the political agenda.