The skills landscape and funding for business
This page links to external sources of information about:
The further education and skills sector comprises more than 220 further education colleges, 900 independent training providers, and 2,500 training organisations with which colleges and providers subcontract. To find a recognised college or training provider and financial support to train your employees go to:
The Skills Funding Agency is a partner organisation of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and it exists to fund and promote adult further education and skills training in England. The Skills Funding Agency helps employers develop their businesses by ensuring they can improve the skills of their workforces through relevant training programmes. It has dedicated advisers for specialist services such as Apprenticeships, and Skills Funding Agency managers and Business Link advisers provide advice to employers to help you find the training they need. A list of recognised learning providers can be found on the UK Register of Learning Providers website.
The Skills Funding Agency also champions high standards of training and development through the running of vocational skills competitions and awards. Skills competitions support the Government’s ambition of raising aspirations and attainment in workplace learning, and awards, such as the National Training Awards, which identify best practice in workplace learning.
To find out about the Adult Entitlement for Learning go to the ‘Looking for Training?’ section of the Skills Funding Agency website.
To help your business succeed in this time of economic challenge, it is vital employers invest in skills. Training increases productivity in the short term – and employers who don’t train are two times more likely to fail than those who do.
Research shows that three in four business people (76%) believe that their organisation would not succeed without investment in training.
Advice to businesses on funding for training is available from Gov.uk within the Business and Self-employed section – Business finance and support finder.
Government is working with businesses and organisations to enable people to access help and advice to start and grow their business. ‘Business in You’ or www.gov.uk provides access to all the help available.
For small business seeking funding to grow the best way to ensure you’re getting the right type of funding is to be fully informed of different types of finance as well as the status of your business before making any major decisions. Information is available within the Finance section of the Great Business website.
Find a business mentor at www.mentorsme.co.uk to help you develop your ideas and grow your business. There are over 114 mentoring organisations on the portal (operated by the British Banker’s Association (BBA)), providing access to over 22,000 business mentors, including over 10,000 volunteer business mentors from the small business community, recruited and trained via the Get Mentoring initiative.
The Government recently launched GrowthAccelerator. The aim of GrowthAccelerator, is to increase the number of small businesses that achieve rapid growth. It will help small businesses with potential, overcome barriers to growth.
If you are a manufacturer go to the Manufacturing Advisory Service: which has helped around 8,500 firms improve productivity and grow since the new national MAS was launched in January 2012.
The people and skills you need to grow: Last year over 500,000 new apprenticeships began (provisional data). Businesses of all sizes are using apprenticeships to help recruit and develop the people they need – with the government funding all or much of the costs of training, plus incentive payments for small and medium firms who take on new young apprentices.
Finance for growth: Government support for SMEs available through banks includes guarantees for bank loans, reduced interest rates, and export finance.
Loans: Since May 2010, government has guaranteed over £1.045 billion of lending to over 10,200 SMEs (EFG).
Export finance: Since May 2010, UK Export Finance has supported over £416m (excludes a single defence export contract of £1.92bn) of export contracts under its short-term products, while providing support of £9 billion across its entire product range. Ask your bank or visit www.ukexportfinance.gov.uk
Equity : government has supported £94.5m of venture capital investment in over 70 SMEs since May 2010, through Enterprise Capital Funds
Business Finance Finder: search for publicly-backed and private sources of finance that can help you to start and grow your business
Grants: The Regional Growth Fund (RGF) is a £2.6 billion fund operating across England from 2011 to 2016. It supports projects and programmes that lever private sector investment to create economic growth and sustainable employment. The first 3 rounds allocated £2.4 billion which will leverage over £13 billion of private sector investment and create or safeguard over 500,000 jobs. Round 4 is now open for applications and will allocate a further £350m.
Innovate to grow: the Technology Strategy Board helps SMEs develop new products and services and access technology. Since May 2010 the TSB, both directly and through Knowledge Transfer Networks, has helped thousands of SMEs.
Information to inform thinking when bidding for funding:
To improve quality and efficiency in further education and skills training, the government is:
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introducing a new funding system based on student loans: it’s for people aged 24+, studying at levels 3 and 4, or for advanced and higher apprenticeships
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freeing colleges from central government control
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making FE teacher training more professional
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providing better careers advice
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introducing a new traineeships programme to support young people aged 16 to 24, to develop skills for employment, including apprenticeships.
Find out more about these initiatives and to download respective publications: Improving the quality of further education and skills training
Publications that examine the sectors and conditions needed to contribute to economic growth in the UK.
Industrial Strategy: UK Sector Analysis
Department for Business, Innovation & Skills economics paper no.18 (Industrial Strategy: UK Sector Analysis) analyses a range of evidence on which sectors could make the greater contribution to future economic growth and employment in the UK. It considers in which sectors government action could add most value, including advanced manufacturing, knowledge intensive traded services, and enabling sectors.
Download: Industrial Strategy: UK Sector Analysis
No stone unturned: in pursuit of growth
Independent report by Lord Heseltine looking at how to increase growth. Makes 89 recommendations which aim to inject stability into the economy, create the conditions for growth and maximise the performance of the UK.
Download: No stone unturned: in pursuit of growth
Further information on the initial government response can be found in the Autumn Statement 2012, see the chapter on Growth.
