Government gives top priority to small businesses
If you’re a smaller business looking to develop the skills of your staff, you may now be eligible for more support with the cost of training.
Small businesses in the private sector are the focus of a new £350m Train to Gain package to help them get through the tougher economic climate by building the skills and expertise of their workforce.
The new package of support is aimed at small and medium-sized private sector businesses with up to 250 employees. Eligibility has been widened, bureaucracy has been cut to a minimum and there will be much more flexibility in the type of training that will attract a Government subsidy.
Some key elements of the offer include a wider range of shorter training packages in areas like business improvement, team-working, customer service and risk management. The successful leadership and management programme has been extended to businesses employing between five and ten people. The changes to the leadership and management offer come into effect this month (November), while the other flexibilities will be introduced from January 2009.
The offer also means that employees will be able to access training up to Level 2 (the equivalent of five good GCSEs), even if they already have a previous qualification at this level. More funding for Level 3 training (the equivalent of 2 A-Level passes) will be available too.
Announcing the new package, Skills Secretary John Denham said: “Small businesses are an important engine of our economy and we must make sure that we support them during tough economic times.
“We are overhauling the training system to make sure that they can get help with training their staff with the very minimum of bureaucracy.
“We know that firms which invest in skills do better than those that don’t, which is why we will be urging small businesses to take up this offer from Government.”
By 2010/11, more than £1bn of public funding will be routed through Train to Gain.
If you’d like to find out more about the new flexibilities, please contact your skills broker, college or training provider – read more on the Train to Gain website.
Read about the
new high impact Train to Gain TV and radio campaign.highlighting the breadth of support available to businesses through Train to Gain and the huge benefits of developing new skills and retraining.
