A TEESSIDE firm is celebrating after winning a contract to help hundreds of RAF personnel improve their computer skills.

Training organisation ClickHere has secured the two-year contract to assist staff at RAF Leeming and RAF Fylingdales improve their information technology skills.

Flying Officer Rob Jones, training development officer at RAF Leeming, said: "There are 1,800 service people here at Leeming, so we are confident there will be a strong take-up of the courses.

"The RAF, and similarly the other services, have a long history of pioneering training, and computer use is one of the new key skills incorporated into training at all levels and ranks."

The contract involves 132 training days at Leeming and 12 days at Fylingdales.

A former conference room at RAF Leeming is being converted into an IT suite and equipped with computers ready for training next month. Fylingdales already has an IT training suite.

Caroline Hughes, founder and director of Billingham computer firm ClickHere, said: "We are delighted to win a contract with the RAF.

"We look upon this as winning another blue-chip client - and in competition with the best training organisations in the Northern region."

The training is being led by Susanne Convery, who before joining the training organisation ran an interactive learning centre at the Nato base in Rheindahlen, on the German-Dutch border, which provided computer-based training as part of the British Army's resettlement programme for personnel leaving the military.

She said: "The training will be tutor-led, covering basic concepts of IT, file management, databases, word processing, spreadsheets, Internet, e-mail, and presentations."