A LOCAL authority has taken on its first graduate trainee under a scheme to get more young people into the workplace.

Laura Kaye, 24, has begun a four-year training programme with Hambleton District Council in Northallerton to become a fully-fledged accountant.

Last year, the authority launched its “Changing Lives Building Business” initiative - which saw it support 15 apprenticeships with small Hambleton-based businesses.

In the latest strand of the initiative graduates who are out of work will be helped to find a job in their specialist field.

Council leader Mark Robson said: “We know a lot of our young people leave university with a degree and have no hope of getting a job in their chosen field.

“When a ‘specialist’ vacancy arises in our organisation we will look closely at the post and wherever possible we will try and recruit an apprentice graduate.”

Laura graduated from De Montfort University in 2012 with a first class honours in accounting and finance and then completed a Bachelor’s in International management from Ecole Superieure de Commerce in Rennes, France.

She has been working for the council as a customer services advisor - but has now transferred to the corporate finance department as a trainee accountant.