News | Employer Ownership of Skills

Employer Ownership of Skills

Published 27th Mar 2012 by Rebecca Walker

As part of the Government's drive to support economic growth they have made available £250 million of public investment over the next 2 years to support your company to develop innovative, effective and sustainable ways to improve the skills of your workforce.

This approach aligns public and private investment in training and workforce development, and provides an opportunity to co-invest to support industry growth.

Why should my organisation get involved?

To help increase the impact of workforce development, work readiness and Apprenticeships activity within your business;
To allow you to own and shape the quality and content of the training you need to meet your needs;
The investment gives you an opportunity to work in partnership with other business to address cross-sector or supply chain skills challenges;
To increase your involvement through leadership, commitment and investment in skills; and
To enable you to be part of an important shift to greater employer ownership of the skills agenda

Proposals are welcomed from all sectors of the economy and employers of all sizes are encouraged to develop bids which are in line with the thresholds: £250k for SMEs and £1m for large businesses. The Pilot invites businesses to propose how they would use direct public investment, alongside their own, to improve the skills of their current and future workforce.

Wakefield is keen to engage with this new funding scheme to boost the district's skills and to drive enterprise, jobs and growth. Wakefield District Council and Wakefield College are interested in hearing from private sector companies who may wish to develop a collaborative bid across sectors or supply chains in order to boost skills. The Council and the College are able to support these bids through help formulating proposals as well as specific knowledge of training, skills and the bidding process.