Paul Fountaine

Said the following about James Richards:

“James Richards is the Engineering Capability Manager (project manager) for Network Rail Infrastructure Projects, where he leads the Early Engagement activities working principally with young people, schools, colleges and higher education establishments – including not for profit organisations, to inspire young people into a career in Engineering.

Operating in a singleton post, alongside his other broader Early Engagement activities associated with the ‘Year of Engineering’, 2018 has seen James implement the ‘Fast Trackers’ young people’s engagement programme which he developed over the past 12 months. Developed by James in partnership with four National Collaborative Outreach Programmes (NCOP) in the North West region, in response to the social challenge of many young people in certain areas not going on to higher education, the aim was to develop a programme to change the attitudes of young people to Science, Technology, Engineering & Maths (STEM) and hopefully then increase numbers going in to higher education. A pilot initiative, the programme was reliant on James garnering senior support from a variety of stakeholders to ensure the programme provided a truly life changing experience for those young people involved.

The NCOP’s are funded by the Higher Education Funding Council, which in turn funded the Fast Trackers programme. Network Rail matched funding in both time and resource through key resource support on a volunteer basis, from executive sponsor level through to graduate engineer support to help run each day; young people closely engaged with young people, proved hugely rewarding for all involved.

The programme had 3 phases:

1. A trip to Liverpool University including lectures, an interactive activity, launch of the employer’s project, and talk from engineers

2. Employers visit

3. Residential trip to London including meeting Virgin Trains team, University College London (UCL) visit, an Institute of Civil Engineers (ICE) visit, St Pancras and Waterloo stations visit, key speakers, and delivery of the Fast Trackers project to design a railway (in partnership with programme partners, Mott MacDonald).

The results were extraordinary – and should be considered by James a personal triumph. In all some 200 young people benefitted; 140 young people between the ages of 16-19 took part from schools in the North West, and the same was also run for young people in London via the Westminster University Technical College (UTC) called ‘London Learners’ and engaged a further 60 young people. Recent data collected by the NCOPs suggests educational attendance to have increased from 55% to 95% by this cohort, demonstrating the powerfully positive effect of the programme.

The programme is Industrial Cadets accredited (Gold standard) and graduates from Network Rail IP were involved in all the organising and judging of the final submissions – their contributions going towards their own professional development; most importantly they found the whole experience hugely rewarding.

Fast Trackers programme has been submitted for various awards including Construction Youth Talent Awards, CSR Awards, National Rail Awards, and has been shortlisted by Construction News.

The plan for the coming year is to expand the programme to become a National programme for over 1000 young people with regional heats (held spring 2019) and a national final (Summer 2019), working again with the NCOP’s, who will provide funding and links to further education establishments, as well as partners such as the Prince’s Trust and Social Mobility Foundation.

For his extraordinary tenacity and unfailing energy James Richards is to be recognised for his work devising, establishing and delivering Fast Trackers Young Peoples Engagement Programme 2018.“