Tees Valley Training and Enterprise Council has become the first TEC in the country to hit the Government's target for workforce training and development.

The Investors in People National Year 2000 Target was set by the Government in 1991 when TECs were asked to help local companies achieve the national standard.

Targets included assisting 35 per cent of organisations employing 50 people or more, and 70 per cent of organisations employing over 200 people, in gaining the Investor in People (HP) national quality standard by December 2000.

Talking of the targets and the importance of Investors in People to the region and the UK as a whole, Tees Valley TEC's chief executive, John Bennett, said: "According to figures produced in 1997 by the National Advisory Council for Education and Training Targets, the UK was lagging behind the rest of Europe in terms of the number of young people leaving education without achieving intermediate - NVQ Level 3 or equivalent qualifications.

"Targets were set to help address such issues and to measure the extent to which we are creating a learning society. It is important that we have a workforce able to compete in a knowledge-based global economy and Investors in People is playing an important part in this process.

"What is encouraging is that as well as the larger organisations, many smaller companies and charities are also recognising the need to have good people development strategies embedded in their business," he said.

"It is certainly an endorsement of quality by local organisations and we will continue to work hard to assist many others in developing their workforce," he said.

Helping the TEC to hit the mark, and come in ahead of the rest of the nation's training and enterprise councils, are the latest recipients of the Investors in People award - Tees and North East Yorkshire NHS Trust's Stockton Integrated Mental Health Service and its Middlesbrough/Eston Community Health Services.

With more than 3,200 staff serving a population of almost 900,000 people, Tees and North East Yorkshire NHS Trust instantly became one of the region's major employers when it was formed on 1 April 1999.

It undertook delivery of the mental health and learning disability services of North Tees and Hartlepool, Easington mental health services, the community, mental health and learning disability services of South Tees, and the mental health services of Scarborough, Whitby and Ryedale. As one of its first major decisions the Trust renewed its commitment to the Investors in People standard.

Fifteen divisions - rather than the Trust as a whole - began working independently towards IIP, with staff operating from more than 70 sites scatteredthroughout the region. The latest two divisions to gain IIP accreditation take the total number within the Trust to nine. General manager of the Stockton Integrated Mental Health Service, Ruth Hofbauer, is delighted with the news: "Staff training has been such an integral part of our philosophy," she said