Randall & Payne set up business in Stroud over 130 years ago and last year expanded, opening offices in Cheltenham and Gloucester to cope with their growing portfolio of clients. Now they have added to their numbers three new trainees.

Lindsay Collins and Adam Mann are A level school leavers, who have joined Randall & Payne to take the Association of Accounting Technician training and exam, a 3 year training programme provided by specialist provider, White Horse Accountancy. Fiona Walker is working towards membership of the Institute of Chartered Accountants, which also takes 3 years.
 
Will Abbott of Randall & Payne says: “We are committed to training and always have been. We recognise that it is good for the community to train school leavers and graduates, but we also know it is good for our business as around 75% of our staff were trained by us.”
 
Due to the state of the economy Randall & Payne have revised their whole training programme. Traditionally new trainees would have been given a charge rate and work to do at day one. Now new trainees are allowed to ‘work shadow’ and they are supernumerary, so not seen as chargeable staff. This should lead to more focussed training and bring new starters through more quickly. This change has also allowed them to take on three trainees this year, one more than they would have done normally. If each employer took the same approach, Randall & Payne feel it would help to reduce the 1000 NEETS (Not in Education, Employment or Training) in Gloucestershire.

As Will Abbott says: “We already know it takes 3-4 years to train them to the high standards and values we expect. We are of course recruiting now to fill our staff gaps in 3 years time. Our business is continuing to expand as we offer businesses solutions to their problems, which was a factor in our decision to recruit more trainees now – we believe the work will be there for them later on.”