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When Train to Gain (T2G) funding was launched in 2006, many businesses applied for funding but were subsequently turned away. The original process appeared to be unnecessarily complicated without clarity on how the funding could be accessed, often taking weeks, if not months, to be assessed and accepted.
SummitSkills has since worked closely with the Government to successfully identify how the scheme can be less restrictive to the industries in our sector, and introduce significant flexibilities to enable it to directly reach those skills areas in need. In fact, today's T2G is nothing like you may have experienced in the past and is well worth considering again.
The biggest problem with the original scheme was that it excluded learners who already held a qualification at level 2 or above, and only offered funding for training to that same level. These restrictions made it difficult for the majority of our sector to take advantage of T2G funding.
Through the SummitSkills' Sector Skills Agreement (SSA), we identified a number of significant skills gaps and on behalf of the industry requested that T2G be directed to them. It was clear that by removing the restrictions, in cases where a skills gap or a level 3 qualification was necessary, the funding could be used more valuably and provide essential skills to the sector.
Another major barrier to the original T2G scheme was the speed at which funding was released. This was especially true in our sector where a more industry specific training approach was identified as a necessity. BEST (Building Engineering Services Training) has recently been awarded a national contract to promote and deliver the scheme directly to the sector.
SummitSkills fully supports this new approach. Already, many individuals and businesses are seeing the benefits in gaining access to funding that may previously have been unobtainable.
To further build upon the new easier to access T2G scheme, SummitSkills has begun talks with the LSC to develop a Sector Compact. Through this, we should be able to ring-fence a significant amount of Government funding for training and provide it to our industry via T2G. It is our intention to point this funding directly at areas identified within the SSA.
