Our 25th Anniversary Awards celebrations took place on Monday 27 October during a gala dinner held in Glasgow.  Special guests included John Swinney, Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Sustainable Growth and Therese Rein, Managing Director of Ingeus, the Australian branch of Work Directions.

The Wise Thinker Award, sponsored by Enterprise, was presented by Alasdair Slessor to the Wise Group's Routes out of Prison Life Coaches.  The project employs ex-offenders as life coaches to support short-term prisoners to re-integrate into their communities and families.

The Wise Commitment Award, sponsored by the Royal Bank of Scotland, was presented by Eric Munro to Tesco's Rutherglen branch.  Tesco's commitment to regeneration was demonstrated by it employing up to 150 priority group clients in its Rutherglen store which opened in November 2007.

The Wise Partner award, sponsored by ACCESS LLP, was presented by Duncan Mackison to Cunninghame Housing Association Ltd.  In the last ten years the Association has diversified from traditional housing development into wider community regeneration.  It developed a partnership with the Wise Group to create training and employment opportunities for local unemployed people.

The award for A Wise Worker, sponsored by the Scottish Government, was awarded to Nadia McBeth by Geoff Pope.  Nadia set up her own business showing enthusiasm and hard work.  She negotiated with suppliers and landlords to ensure she got the best deal to open her new business showing her determination to come off benefits.

The award for A Wise Employer, sponsored by Cunninghame Housing Association Ltd, was presented by Frank Sweeney to NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde, the largest employer in the West of Scotland.  The Working for Health project, established in 2004, is a partnership between NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde, the Wise Group, jobcentre Plus and Scottish Enterprise Glasgow.  It offers unemployed people a four week training course developed with the NHS and two weeks work experience.

The Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to Alan Sinclair, the Wise Group's founding Chief Executive by John Swinney, Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Sustainable Growth.  Alan was awarded a CBE in 2000 for his services to training unemployed people.  He grew the Wise Group in scale and introduced pioneering new ways of getting long term unemployed people into jobs.  He is currently a visiting Fellow at the Work Foundation.