Support for small businesses
Posted: 23 October 2008
DIUS has announced a package of support to help small businesses to train their staff to enable them to get through the economic downturn. As well as the positive fact that the learning and skills sector is seen to have a critical role in supporting small business in this 'tough financial climate' the press notice also heralds important and welcome changes in the way that Train to Gain funding will work.
In the jargon, the proposal is to review 'firstness' and 'fullness' requirements for funding through Train to Gain. What this means is that it will now be permissible for units or bite-size chunks of qualifications to be funded - rather than only whole qualifications; in addition the government is lifting the requirement that Train to Gain only funds the first qualification at that level. Therefore providers will have much greater flexibility to respond to the needs of small- and medium-sized employers, and their capacity to do this is seen as part of the government's strategy to mitigate the impact of the financial downturn.
The key elements of the £350m Train to Gain package are:
- Relaxing the rules to allow funding for "bite-sized chunks" - small units or modules of qualifications in subjects known to be important to SMEs, such as business improvement, team-working, customer service, and risk management
- Help for groups of SMEs located together in business parks so that they can increase their purchasing power and share resources to support the training of local SME staff
- Extending DIUS's successful leadership and management programme so that more SMEs can benefit from it, including in companies with just five to ten workers
- Relaxing the rules to allow workers to get training up to level 2 even if they already have a previous qualification at this level; and more funding for level 3 training
- Brokers to offer tried and tested skills diagnostics and audits so companies can have their training needs more accurately identified; and point SMEs to the right solutions from the most appropriate providers
- A new communications campaign to begin next month to underline the benefits of upskilling and reskilling and the breadth of the support on offer from government