A newly-formed factory offering a lifeline to Scotland’s injured veterans has been placed at the heart of the Government’s procurement choices after being included within its national business framework.
Scotland’s Bravest Manufacturing Company (SBMC) offers crucial flexible employment and training to the country’s ex-servicemen and women – particularly those facing daily challenges due to life-changing injuries as a result of service.
The Renfrewshire-based factory, which currently employs 10 veterans with plans to expand that to 150, produces commercial signage for roads, railways and businesses, as well as providing printing and circular economy services.
Under the Government’s Supported Business Framework the factory will now be amongst the primary choices for signage from within the public sector.
This comes after SBMC was included in the Scotland Excel Framework last week, which places it amongst the primary potential businesses to be used by Scotland’s local authorities.
Veterans Minister Graeme Dey, who visited Renfrewshire-based SBMC in August in his first official visit to a service charity, hailed the enterprise’s inclusion in the framework.
Mr Dey said: “Having seen at first hand the great work that the Scottish Bravest Manufacturing Company are doing to help support injured veterans, I was delighted to learn of their success on the recently announced Supported Business Framework and Scotland Excel Signage Framework.
“Supported businesses make an important contribution to the Scottish economy. Not only through the goods and services they deliver, but also by providing meaningful employment, training and social support for those who may otherwise be excluded from the workplace.”
SBMC director Michelle Ferguson said: “The Scottish government has a clear and fervent passion for seeing supported business succeed and go on to make a significant difference to the lives they are dedicated to supporting.
“We are immensely pleased to have been included in the government’s framework for supported businesses. Their support, which we have received at all levels, has formed a real basis for SBMC moving forward and for the future success of our inured veterans who, we know, with our support can go on to achieve truly amazing things.”
Run in collaboration with fellow military charity Erskine, SBMC was developed as a direct response to a 2015 study into the employment support needs of Scottish veterans, which found that ex-service personnel are more than twice as likely to be unemployed as civilians across the country.