By Chris Hardy

DESPITE PREVIOUS efforts having “come to nothing”, the movement to bring call centre jobs to Angus will continue in 2006.

More than two years ago, a drive to promote employment in the burgeoning sector was launched under the title of the Brechin Contact Centre Initiative.

It aimed to establish a register of local people interested in call centre work and formed part of an Angus Council initiative to promote the county as a location for such employers.

The campaign targeted people throughout Angus through radio and newspaper advertising, jobs fairs, careers fairs and visiting local retail outlets in the Brechin area.

The response exceeded all expectations, with 250 inquiries being logged and 211 applications being returned.

Brechin Business Park was one of the locations earmarked for a possible call centre but the proposed building remains unoccupied and, over the past two years, local hopes that the town’s status as an unemployment blackspot might have been wiped out in one fell swoop have faded.

There is disappointment that, since they first responded to the council’s appeal to register an interest in call centre work, some people have heard nothing more.

Councillor Ruth Leslie Melville said, “This was supposed to be the big job provider in Angus and it has turned out to be another pipe dream that has come to nothing.”

The initiative was launched in partnership with Jobcentre Plus and the support of Talking Tayside Contact Centre Forum.

The 211 applications were shared with the Talking Tayside database, which increased the membership to approximately 400 for the Tayside area.

From this database, Jobcentre Plus match individuals with job opportunities in the area.

In conjunction with the database, 2700 executives in the contact centre industry were targeted with an integrated campaign of mail, Email and telephone follow-ups with a view of promoting Angus as the perfect contact centre location.

Angus Council claimed that this yielded a number of serious inquiries and continues to generate interest from employers in this sector interested in Angus as a location to invest.

David Selfridge, convener of Angus Council’s infrastructure services committee, said, “Local research carried out from Dundee contact centres suggest that between 10% and 15% of their workers live in Angus—around 700 people.

“This highlights the success of the initiative in bringing employment to local people, but we will continue to strive to bring call centre operators into the county.”