New jobs announced at Selkirk-based Spark Energy

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon officially opened the in-house training centre

Borders-based Spark Energy is to create 69 new jobs at its headquarters in Selkirk.

The announcement was made at the official opening of its in-house training centre, the Spark Academy, by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon.

The 69 posts will be created at the Ettrick Riverside in Selkirk and take total staff numbers to over 400.

Ms Sturgeon said Spark was a "fantastic company" delivering energy to nearly 200,000 homes across the UK.

"They have got a big emphasis on training their staff, looking after their staff, looking after their wellbeing and using that not just to the benefit of staff but to improve customer service as well," she said.

"This is a company that has been helped by Scottish Enterprise and the Scottish Investment Bank along the way and exactly the kind of company that we want to encourage more of."

'Great home'

Spark Energy chief executive Chris Gauld said the business was performing well.

"The company is growing really fast - we are outperforming the Big Six, we are well backed by institutional investors and we have got exciting growth plans," he said.

"So it is really important that we can get the best possible talent through the door at Spark but also invest in the ones that we have already."

Mr Gauld also said there were no plans to leave the south east of Scotland.

"We are committed to the Borders," he said.

"It can be challenging to find the right people - particularly subject matter experts in what is a really complex market - but we have managed to import people from the Central Belt, from down in England and even our HR director commutes across from France every couple of weeks.

"The Borders has been a great home to us and it has been good to us and we want to invest back in some of the people here."