1. Proskills is the Sector Skills
Council for the process and
manufacturing sector
Building
Products Coatings Extractives Glass Printing Paper Furniture
Funding Skills Development
for
Business Improvement
Jonathan Ledger Proskills UK
2. Proskills is the Sector Skills
Council for the process and
manufacturing sector
Reasons
for skills development
• To improve skill levels of staff
• To accredit or recognise skills and competence gained to date
• To motivate and retain staff
and more…
3. Proskills is the Sector Skills
Council for the process and
manufacturing sector
• Increase in safety, operational skills and knowledge
• Provides performance measurement via competence benchmarking
• Ensures legal and regulatory compliance
• Demonstrates a commitment to high quality products and services.
• Increases productivity and profit
• Creates a multi-skilled & more effective workforce
• Reduces maintenance and other operations costs
• Enable best practises to be shared across a range of sites
• Identifies further development needs in a structured manner
• Highlights skills & knowledge previously un-identified
• Helps to access and deliver better business opportunities
Skills Development for Business Improvement
4. Proskills is the Sector Skills
Council for the process and
manufacturing sector
Business Improvement
Business Contribution
Skills developed for business
Operational efficiency
Qualifications fit for industry
Provider development
Increased provision
Focussed funding
with a funded contribution
Contributory funding
Numeracy and literacy
NVQ’s
Knowledge Programmes
Provider development
Qualification development
From 16 to 65 years
The NVQ & learning process is a
BUSINESS IMPROVEMENT CYCLE
5.
Proskills is the Sector Skills
Council for the process and
manufacturing sector
The mix of
Funded Contribution
19 to 65 years old
First Level 2 or 3
Almost any NVQ
16 to 65 years old
Includes L2 or L3
Tech cert
Numeracy and Literacy
Funding variations
• opportunities for funded contribution may vary from LSC region to region
• Are usually funded via the LSC by European Social Funding (ESF)
• can be a targeted and time limited programme aimed at a specific audience
• For example - Leadership and Management; Women into Work; Chiselling
Away at Skill Shortages…
6. Proskills is the Sector Skills
Council for the process and
manufacturing sector
Building
Products Coatings Extractives Glass Printing Paper Furniture
Your route to funded
Business Improvement
success
7.
Proskills is the Sector Skills
Council for the process and
manufacturing sector
Contact Proskills
with your
training enquiry
Proskills meet
with you and
arrange Skills
Broker visit
Skills Broker
Conducts Initial
Skills Audit
Business Analyst
audits business
process and makes
recommendations
Want Business Process Audit?
Makes referrals to
relevant support –
including skill
development - BIT
BITNotRequired
Commence
Training Activity
Review
Progress
Revisitifrequired
8.
Proskills is the Sector Skills
Council for the process and
manufacturing sector
BIT not required
Where appropriate
provision does not
exist, Proskills will
help source
No other
suitable
provision?
Possible sources of
funding established
Referral to
appropriate
provider(s)
Funding&
ProvisionExists
Commence
training Activity
Review
Progress
9. Proskills is the Sector Skills
Council for the process and
manufacturing sector
Building
Products Coatings Extractives Glass Printing Paper Furniture
A Case Study
Brett Aggregates
Simon Elsy – Brett Aggregates
10. Proskills is the Sector Skills
Council for the process and
manufacturing sector
Company introduction
Brett is a successful, established construction and building materials group -
one of the largest independents in the UK. Its range of expertise has been
developed over almost 100 years and its reputation is based on getting things
done.
With strong roots in the South East, the Brett Group continues to grow -
doubling in size over the past five years - and is still growing. The Brett Group
now employ over 900 people in the UK, Channel Islands and Virginia, USA.
Brett has expertise in Aggregates, Concrete, Construction, Landscaping and
Building Products
In relation to its employees, the Brett Groups aims to ensure its people have
the tools, coaching and training to give their best performance.
11. Proskills is the Sector Skills
Council for the process and
manufacturing sector
Brett Requirements
• A comprehensive competence programme to really uplift skills
• To be delivered on site and at a time to suit the business
• To support and extend current training programmes
• To provide a measured and consistent approach to development
• To provide a tool that would improve the business operation
To name but a few reasons
12. Proskills is the Sector Skills
Council for the process and
manufacturing sector
How did Brett’s gain funded support?
• Brett’s initially contacted Proskills who attended a meeting with a skills
broker to ensure that the company got the right awards and most
appropriate funding.
• Proskills worked with Brett’s and its chosen supplier, SERAC to ensure
that the proposed programme and associated deliverables where
achievable.
• Proskills assisted the Brett and SERAC in applying for the required LSC
funding
• Proskills remains in a supportive role to offer assistance for new
programmes and to help iron out any wrinkles that may appear.
13.
Proskills is the Sector Skills
Council for the process and
manufacturing sector
Result
• In preparation for the start of the funded programmes, Brett’s have
undertaken a complete review of training activity to ensure alignment of
content.
• In partnership with the provider, have been approved to access over
£200,000 of contributory funding for operational staff to complete
appropriate NVQs
• This process has acted as a company development vehicle prompting
other parts of the group to seek increased competence development and
business improvement – which may well double the number of programme
participants in the next 3 years.
14. Proskills is the Sector Skills
Council for the process and
manufacturing sector
Building
Products Coatings Extractives Glass Printing Paper Furniture
Summary
• Contact Proskills regarding your training
requirement
• Proskills will work with all relevant partners to
create the required programmes and access the
best possible funding.
15.
Proskills is the Sector Skills
Council for the process and
manufacturing sector
QUESTIONS ?
Thank you for listening.
Editor's Notes
Good afternoon everyone
In the next 20 minutes we are going to take you through a whistle stop tour of possible funding opportunities relating to Skills Development and therefore Business Improvement.
I am please that we have Simon Elsy from Brett Aggregates to guide us through the process that his organisation took in order to gain £200,000 worht of funded support.
I want to start by quickly looking at the reasons for staff development.
As a real general view, we are sold many reasons why we should be encouraging employees to complete qualifications including
To Improve Skills levels of Staff – to help staff be more knowledgeable and to enhance their skills to carry out their role better.
To accredit or recognise skills and competence gained to date – this is particularly true where you have employees that are more ‘mature’ or are very experienced in their role.
We are also told that we should offer development programmes to help motivate and retain staff….and no doubt there are more reasons we could list.
All of these are true and admiral reasons for building human capital.
However, what really needs serious thought is how to make your business more profitable and more sustainable – to improve on your current position – whatever that may be.
Here is a list of many reasons that have a direct impact on your business and how it might improve in the future.
To pick on a couple of these points:
Increase safety skills and knowledge – to be able to reduce accidents and incidents – what value would this have for your business?
To reduce maintenance and operating costs – for example reduction in energy usage or raw materials
For many of the items listed the cost benefits are not always about those costs that you can see, but some that are hidden or indirect.
Reducing accidents and incidents means that staff, lawyers etc are not having to deal with injury cases, court fees and fines, poor publicity and so it goes on.
The main focus of our quick look at these reasons is to get you to think about qualifications and training as a business improvement process and not just about the people development. If you, your employees and your organisation think about this potential, you will all gain the very real benefits of participating in skills development programmes.
Government Funded Support should only ever be viewed as contributory – never to cover all the costs – only part.
Funding opportunities are available for
Improving the numeracy and literacy skills of employees… just think about how many errors and complaints are made because of poor numeracy and literacy
NVQ’s – competence programmes – real demonstratable skill improvements
Knowledge programmes – some internal training development can be funded – many academic college courses are funded
Provider improvements – it’s not in anyone’s interests to be using providers that simply do not delivery what we all want in a timely, appropriate and quality manner.
Qualification development – to help ensure that qualifications do what they say on the tin and really make a difference to the business
Funding is available in various guises for those aged 16 to 65 years old.
Some of the ways that this directly impacts and contributes to your business is by
Developing the right skills for your business and the ever-changing global market place in which you operate
By creating a whole host of operational efficiencies including safety
Your business improvement needs drive qualifications development and provider improvement
Identifies gaps in provision and creates enough demand to fill this
Focussed improvement increases demand for further funded support
By looking at NVQs and the contributory funded support that is available across the UK as a business improvement process the return on your investment – and that of the public purse – will be far greater than that which you can measure with money alone.
The world of funding seems at best, a nightmare to most. It is seen as bureaucratic and cumbersome. Whilst this may seem a relatively true perception, it is actually manifested and limited by the promised sound of money entering your till, compounded by poor delivery and lack of associated business improvement.
Let’s take a quick look at the mix of funding that is available:
The Learning and Skills Council funds the current Train to Gain programmes – which you may have heard about through the LSC’s current advertising campaign – The Future – it’s in your hands?
Train to Gain funds level 2 and 3 complete NVQ’s. Yes - there are eligibility criteria to be met in order to access the funding, but even if only some of your staff are eligible, that’s a reduction in your training budget and a step closer to a business improved. The good thing about this scheme is that it is open for anyone aged from 19 years to 65 years, in every industry. The route into the Train to Gain arena may vary – as it does with the Proskills Train to Gain regional programmes and the Performance and Competitiveness Programme – more on this in just a moment.
Apprentices are available from 16 to 65 years old. Yes – a new thing this year is that there will be some contributory funding available for ‘mature apprentices’. Employers are still responsible for pay the wages and on-costs of apprentices but the funding package can be worth in excess of £10,000 depending on the age of the apprentice, the programme and industry.
There are also many regional and very specific funded programmes that come and go. These are usually funded via the European Social Funding (ESF) route – examples of these programmes include Leadership and Management –coming out in the South East during the autumn; Women into Work – available in London now for any female in management who wants an NVQ level 3 – both of these schemes have no eligibility rules; Chiselling Away at Skill Shortages is another current example aimed at small and medium sized furniture industries located in some parts of the West Midlands.
For small and medium companies the best thing about all these programmes is that they are delivered on your premises in a way and time that suits your business demands.
For large organisations there is the opportunity to access funding through the Nation LSC – this allows you to claim and spend the funding on both internally and externally delivered programmes.
So we’ve looked what the mix of funding…how do we access it?
That’s where Proskills can really make life easy for you and your organisation.
Walk the audience through the process from first contact with Proskills, to training or business needs analysis to start of activity. Where BIT is not required..next slide
Walk audience through standard funded training process
Emphasis the multi stranded funding approach.
Employer contacts Proskills - our job is to steer, guide and if necessary broker a deal – which may use many sources of funding to provide what employers want.
Also emphasis that whilst this may not always be possible – usually this process will provide that valuable contributory funding you all seek.
So we’ve looked what the mix of funding…how do we access it?
That’s where Proskills can really make life easy for you and your organisation.
So we’ve looked what the mix of funding…how do we access it?
That’s where Proskills can really make life easy for you and your organisation.
